James Miller Russell is an electronic music composer and visual artist. He currently lives and works as an artist in residence at Wollongong Art Gallery. He releases music and visual art under the name Astrophysical Maser. He creates compositions of a wide variety of electronic genres with Ableton Live – ranging from experimental ambient noise performances to banging techno thumpers.

He approaches digital music composition with the mindset of a sculptor. Seeing the abyss of silence as an untapped block of marble – he approaches it and generates out of space and time what he can.
A major element of his composition process involves the recording and manipulation of natural sounds, including the moving of trees, bird calls, thunderstorms, rain, waves, footsteps, machine noises, city noise, everyday sounds, skin on skin. In his noise music performances, he tries to simulate sounds and/or environments from outer space – particularly in the space directly around extreme space time objects such as black holes, quasars and neutron stars – objects that sometimes spin and oscillate at human audible HZ frequencies.

Along with his +10 years of experience in music and sound production, in the last few years he has expanded out into the visual canvas. Learning, using and experimenting with video editing and graphic design software, he has created some visually interesting pieces – some that are simply accompaniments to his music pieces, but some that are standalone audio visual pieces. He makes these pieces because he wants his compositions to be as vivid and powerful as possible – humans are visual creatures, music frequencies accompanied with visual light frequencies resonate deeply with humans as it it’s the fundamental experience of existing.

He has exhibited these visual pieces at multiple art shows around Wollongong and Sydney through audio visual stations, as well as large scale projections. He focuses on blending colours through stacking videos and still images – creating dreamscapes by layering reality on top of itself.

In the long term he wants to pivot his practice and performances to creating multi-sensory virtual experiences, with the use and aid of advancing digital technologies.