Music Odyssey

 

David Stanley Aponte, Sub- #4845 (Self Portrait), collage on paper, 2021

David Stanley Aponte’s musical odyssey has taken through the subaltern realms of four major cities.  Beginning as a teenager, Aponte honed his auditory prowess by maintaining one foot in the realm of deejaying and one foot in the realm of experimental music in Chicago, where he spent his formative years spinning records, creating beats, and founding the avant-garde music group MFM.  He then moved to Dallas, where the collaborative, experimental project of MFM took on new dimensions through collaborating with local musicians and delving into the underground clubs on the fringes of the city.  He also continued to explore techno, combining techno with the experiments conducted by MFM to produce tracks at Moontunes Industries in Dallas.  After further maturing as a musician, Aponte moved to Philadelphia to attend graduate school and receive his MFA.  While in Philadelphia, he continued to cultivate the experimental group MFM/FMF, while becoming acquainted with the underground scenes percolating the City of Brotherly Love.  In his post-graduate life, he moved to Berlin, which reaffirmed his investment in deejaying, as he started working intensively and extensively in the Berlin electronic and techno scene.  While continuing to cultivate a refined ear and sense of the sub-real, he polished his skills as a "Sub-real" DJ through the thriving club scene that makes Berlin a capital for musical exploration.  After two years in Berlin, Aponte has made his way back to Philadelphia, both to continue his work with MFM, but also to focus his energies on his activities as a DJ who spans and spins a diverse range of layered aural experiences from noise to minimalism, from electronic to psychedelic. His sets are not limited to forays into the subliminal sounds that pulse from his fingertips, but to an overall sensorial experience, including the visual and the physical, marking his work as a DJ not simply a matter of working with sound, but working with images, colors, and other sensations to create a transcendent, exhilarating environment for losing oneself in an ocean of sound waves.

- Dr. Malcolm K., Philadelphia Pennsylvania, 2015

David Stanley Aponte, Sub- #4011, Spray paint on art book, 2020

Sound Collages

 

David Stanley Aponte, Sub- #4844 (Remembering the Future II), collage on paper, 2021

I first explored and experimented sound in 1997 in Chicago, taking samples of waves of sound, tape loops, radio waves and field recordings to create an acousmatic sound pieces. These pieces would create an atmospheric space based the sounds created and the concept was based often on visual experience often inspired by artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, films such as “Man with a Movie Camera”, “Haxan”, or “Passion of Joan of Arc”. There certainly is an influence from contemporary composers such as John Cage, John Oswald, Pauline Oliveros, and Terry Riley but I see these pieces more in the realms of a visual art experience dealing with the 4th dimension of time and space. I also intend these “Sound Collages” initiate a “Sub-real” experience and atmosphere for the participant. 

-David Stanley Aponte (aka Wheatboi Dave), Collective Brand Movement Studio, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, 2010

David Stanley Aponte, Sub- #4842 (Man & Superman, Act III), collage on paper, 2021