Local Music Feature: Devine inspiration

Over the last year, Richard Devine has kept a low profile, at least in Atlanta. Elsewhere, the globe-trotting OTP-based mutant electro producer/IDM terrorist has maintained a full plate of production and sound design work for everyone from Korg to Nike to Spike TV. In conversation, a passive “what you been up to?” opens the floodgates for a laundry list of endeavors. European festival appearances, talk of Peeping Tom, his forthcoming collaboration with Mike Patton (Faith No More), and the monumental undertaking that is his upcoming fourth full-length Sort\Lave (Ghostly Int’l) are all in the works. As a result, making time for hometown appearances just hasn’t been in the cards. But when he learned that audio/visual arts collective Keepadding was making the trek from Santa Fe, N.M., for an Atlanta show, he freed up some time to jump on the bill. “I have to play,” declares Devine. “These guys are great friends and great artists and I’ll do it for whatever. It’s all about the music.”

Keepadding’s stylistic merger of urban wreckage, graffiti art and ultramodern leanings are well suited for Devine’s approach. So much so that the group’s principal character, Brian Bixby, is overseeing the graphic design for a handful of Devine’s future releases, including Sort\Lave.

Devine describes this next work as a “blissed out” sound that diverges from the caustic digital tension for which he’s come to be known. But don’t expect any previews of the new material. “The show will be very experimental,” he says. “Some hand drumming, Middle Eastern percussion and electro-acoustic noise. The goal is just to be as weird as possible and jam out with my friends.”

Richard Devine plays Eyedrum Sat., Jan. 8, 9 p.m. $5.