bio
improvising algorithmic sound and images, coding, teaching, currently based in Saigon, Vietnam
- email: renick at gmail.com
- twitter: http://twitter.com/renick
- instagram: https://www.instagram.com/renickbell/
- soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/renick
“Renick Bell is one of [the algorave] scene’s more flabbergasting producers,” writes Mixmag magazine. Resident Advisor calls him “Algorave kingpin” and writes that he “is one of the leading figures of the algorave movement, and watching him make his music is just as fun as dancing to it.”
Bell improvises bass-heavy algorithmically generated music full of percussion and noise by live coding with open source software, including two software libraries he has written called Conductive and Konduktiva. Each performance is new and unique, unheard before the event even by Bell, with his live programming activity projected for the audience to see.
In 2019, he was selected by Aphex Twin for the latter's first-ever curated event for the The Warehouse Project in Manchester, UK, where he headlined the Archive Room stage. In 2018 he released an album called Wary on 2018 Grammy-nominated producer Rabit's Halcyon Veil label and another called Turning Points on Seagrave Records, which was a critical success, including being ranked 19 out of “The 50 best albums of 2018” by FACT magazine. He has releases on Lee Gamble's UIQ label, Berlin-based Conditional Records and Saplings Records, among others.
His music practice corresponds with a research practice of writing software and writing research papers on live coding, electronic music, and art, as well as teaching in university and other contexts. He holds a PhD from Tama Art University in Tokyo, Japan. Bell is now a lecturer at RMIT in Saigon, Vietnam. He was based in Tokyo from 2006-2020 and lived in Taiwan from 2001 to 2006 and 2020 to 2023. He is originally from West Texas.