The Painful Leg Injuries

Personnel - Bill Byrne and Suzanne Byrne For the past five years, New York-based digital artist, Bill Byrne, has exhibited his prints and video installations worldwide. Sound has been an integral element in his artwork and in late 2004, he started recording musical compositions as the Painful Leg Injuries. He is often joined by his wife, Suzanne, who plays cello throughout his various releases.

For the past five years, New York-based digital artist, Bill Byrne, has exhibited his prints and video installations worldwide. Sound has been an integral element in his artwork and in late 2004, he started recording musical compositions as the Painful Leg Injuries. He is often joined by his wife, Suzanne, who plays cello throughout his various releases.

In early 2005, Byrne started the Painful Leg Injuries Podcast. Every week is a new chapter in an exploration of various concepts through sound art. All of the Podcasts he created in 2005 are now available on his 7-CD set, Interpreting Codes Into Robust Details: The 2005 Podcasts.

The podcasts have covered the many areas of Byrne's interests. Some of these include the circuit smashing of Earl's Death, the plunderphonics of 100 Little Drummer Boys, the distortion of sounds through primitve recording devices and cavernous settings on Underground Chambers, where he combined various cell phone recordings of street musicians into some genre bending compositions.

On Backwards, Broken and Incorrectly, Byrne began by integrating the organic sound of his installation work with subtle abstract melodies inspired by Brian Eno and Christian Fennesz. Byrne employs oddball techniques such as guitar played by knife, zither played with a slide, and manipulating feedback loops created by plugging analog effects processors into themselves. In his recording process, Byrne employs an ambitious array of instruments as varied as the theremin, melodica, synthesizer guitar, and steel drums. The result is a marriage of artistry and technology with as much in common with the electronic music pioneers of the 60's as his contemporaries.

In 2006, Byrne will start the year with a series of podcasts made from sounds creaed by software that reads visual images and turns them into audio. Byrne will translate his visual artwork into music. Also, he will release the follow up to Backwards, Broken and Incorrectly, later this year.