John Derek Bishop (a.k.a. Tortusa)
John Derek Bishop (alias Tortusa) is a Norwegian-American electronic musician and producer from Stavanger, Norway. He has released four albums on Jazzland Recordings and was nominated for the Spellemann Prize (Norwegian Grammy) for «I Know This Place - The Eivind Aarset Collages». The albums have received good critics from Germany, Norway, Canada and England, and feature contributions from artist Arve Henriksen, Eivind Aarset, Erland Dahlen, and more. Tortusa frequently performs live in Germany, England and Norway.
A cornerstone in Tortusa´s production is the texture and timbre of sound. He searches for sounds that are out of the ordinary and places the listener in different emotional states. For compositional processes, Tortusa utilises both hardware and software equipment including retro tape recorders, modular synthesizers, samplers and a diverse array of other tools. The music he makes is ambient, electronic, experimental and contemporary jazz inspired. On stage Tortusa live-samples the musicians he plays with creating an intense and spontaneous experience.
For several years, Tortusa has been composing and performing for modern dance and performance art shows in Norway, England and France. He has made music for several short films including «Limerence», «Hyperspace» and «Across the dreams». Aside from making music he works with photography.
