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My name is Phil Thompson. I am an electronic musician unlike most others. I do not compose my own music. Instead I write computer software that composes music itself.

For almost 20 years I have been making music from fractal formulae and methods, every note derived directly from mathematics unless otherwise noted. Every pitch, every duration, all performance expression, all from a fractal source.

I have recently decided to abandon the Fractal Music genre, however, because the likes of Yale University have very different ideas of what this music should be about, and their re-writing of history regarding the subject (in particular ignoring the work of many people active in this genre more than a decade before they showed an interest in it, and claiming their kindergarden level seminars are state of the Art for the genre) has disgusted me. I no longer wish my name to be associated with the Fractal Music genre if the phrase is going to be regarded as being related to their "research" (which the rest of us knew in the early 1990s).

Fractal Music has always been about making music for me, and not about obsessing over the manuscripts of long-dead composers who happened to use techniques such as "motivic scaling" which coincidentally results in music that might be considered "fractal". No shit, Sherlock. Tell me something I haven't known since the mid 1980s.

Frankly, the likes of Harlan Brothers, Michael Frame and even Benoit Mandelbrot can shove their Java Applets, ridiculous patents, meaningless white papers and seminars up their collective arses as far as I care is this is the DISGRACEFUL way "academic experts" expect to be allowed to behave and be regarded with any respect from those who have been nothing but respectful of their work for decades.

Organised Chaos: The Music of Chaos Theory (1992-2008), R.I.P.

In the future I will be making writing more music generation systems, and releasing more electronica created with them. But if any of the music I create is "fractal" it will be purely by coincidence as opposed to design.

In the meantime, this profile will represent my back-catalogue.

Thanks for listening.

Phil x

P.S. This profile is really me - it isn't run by a record company minion. You might have heard me on the radio in the past, or read magazine interviews, or even seen me perform live on stage in London in the late 90s. Please don't think that means I am unapproachable - I do not regard myself as being any kind of celebrity and am here for the same reason as you are - to make friends.

P.P.S. If you are a religious evangelist, racist, sexist, prejudiced against the disabled and/or a homophobe, please move along. I am pro-equality for everyone. I am also anti-hunting and animal cruelty, anti-Monarchy, and in favour of secular meritocracy.

I'm not fond of name dropping but as others in the genre are fond of doing so...

“Music composed by Mother Nature herself” - Dr. David Whitehouse, Science Editor, BBC.

"What amazes me with this kind of music is that it sounds much better than you would expect.” - Ian Stewart, Professor of Mathematics, Warwick University, Chaos Theory Guru, author of Does God Play Dice?

“Fascinating” - Arthur C.Clarke.

“Wonderful” - Uri Geller.

“The diamonds of the web-site lie in the Music area.” - Nishi Pakkiy, FineArtForum.org.

Regarding Gingerbread...

“Revolutionary!” - C|Net.

“Four Star Editor's Pick” - ZDNet.com

“The greatest Fractal Music generator ever written.” - Phil Jackson, composer, FractalVibes.com.

Not regarding music at all. (But true.)

“My friend fancies your friend.” - Boy George.

“Look who just cruised in off the Versace catwalk!” - Su Pollard.

“You have to tell me - where did you buy that shirt?” - Madonna.

BEST ALBUM OF 1998 - I'll be honest I love this album. It is played daily and yet I can't quite put in to words just how it effects me. From the first bell sounds, the first expansive chords, the first melody, I have been pulled in to an incredible world of beauty and drama. Like a fractal image, the deeper you go the more is revealed. The music evolves yet the initial elements remain. Instead of melodies there are phrases that criss-cross each other - binding, breaking, merging, creating. Subtle changes mean that just as you click on a musical line it metamorphoses to something different, even the shifting timbre of a sound or duration of a note becomes important. Composed completely on synthesisers this could have been just another good electronic music album. But Phil broadens the spectrum by also using very realistic acoustic guitar, harp, percussion and choral sounds, bringing them in to great effect with the fractal producing the feel and expression of the playing. Many of the tracks, like Shadows Fall and Strange Attractors have a calming effect. Mesmerising, not because they are pretty or sugar sweet but because they feel familiar yet always new. They also affect you physically. Listening with my eyes closed I can get a distinct feeling of floating and slowly spinning that, first time round, is quite unnerving. But there is also drama and passion here. In the mammoth A Season in Hell great armies trample the landscape. Dark jungles of menace close in. Giants shadows hide the sun. Tympani and orchestral stabs joined by whistles and cymbals fight it out. Glockenspiel and harp call out in argument. Battle lines are drawn. The calm before the fight. The clashing of steel and bodies in hand to hand combat. The bleak aftermath of a bloodied field. Highly charged listening which can wear this listener out! Fractal based music has a certain notoriety for being high brow; nothing more than un-listenable academic exercises. Not this time. Phil has realised something quite extraordinary - an accessible, magical mix of music and mathematics.

Neil Leacy, Wind & Wire Magazine, March 1999.
Reproduced with Permission.