Breaking protocol: Jojo Mayer and the machine

He is one of the most influential drummers of recent decades, known both as a skilled technician and a visionary. Jojo Mayer talks to SWI swissinfo.ch about technology, tradition – and the future of music. “Why are we still doing this?” Throughout his career, Jojo Mayer has repeatedly explored the boundaries of what is physically possible to play and has established himself as one of the most innovative drummers of his generation. His latest project sees him interact with digital technology on stage – the result is a live symbiotic loop with man and machine which blurs the boundaries between cause and effect. Born in Switzerland, Jojo Mayer was already an internationally active jazz drummer when he moved to New York in the 1990s. There, he became famous with his band, Nerve, which played electronic music with mostly conventional instruments. Nerve was known for what the band called “reverse engineering”: a retransfer from digital to analogue and a deconstruction of rhythm-based ...