Biography
Nathan Carter was born in Wellington, New Zealand. He grew up pursuing a life-long passion for everything musical, beginning in his early childhood.
This passion drove his craft as both a multi-instrumentalist and a sound artist/composer. As an avid drummer, he studied under Lance Philip (2014 - 2020), the jazz performance lecturer for percussion at the New Zealand School of Music (NZSM) and teacher of some of New Zealand's most prominent contemporary drummers. He also plays guitar/bass, piano, ukulele, and has vocal performance experience.
Nathan began producing music in his teens inspired by a wide range of genres, from house/techno, IDM/glitch, DnB, and ambient, to contemporary orchestral, minimalism, jazz, and rock. His commitment to electronic composition solidified after having his music reviewed and chosen two years in a row by internationally acclaimed composer John Psathas for Wellington College's 'top composition' award.
From 2019 to 2021, Nathan studied at the NZSM with a Bachelor of Music in Sonic Arts & Music Technology. There he maintained an impactful presence with his music, winning top prizes at the NZSM's Lilburn Trust Composers' Competition in 2020 and 2021 for his electronic acousmatic/soundscape compositions. In 2022, he continued at the NZSM with a post-graduate Honours degree; this involved several music technology disciplines, including film audio production under the tutelage of Thomas Voyce, and independent research into audio-visual coding/software and interactive hardware with supervision from Jim Murphy and Mo H. Zareei.
Nathan is currently undertaking a Master of Music at the NZSM to further his research into software synthesisers and sound design composition. And, outside of composing and creating audio-visual art through his Alter Natural project, Nathan also plays drums for an original-music rock band Fifth Season, and has done various ensemble collaborations with several other emerging musical talents (Nikau Wi Neera, Peter Liley & Jack Woodbury).
Pilot performance of the Angstrom synthesiser at ACMC 2022 - looking very serious!
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Playing drums for Nikau Wi Neera's 'Chahar Mezrab' recording (2020).
Education & Awards
2024 - 2025
Master of Music, Composition
Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington (VUW)
2022
BMus(Hons), First Class
VUW
2019 - 2021
BMus, Sonic Arts/Music Technology
VUW
Masters degree, specialising in composition and music technology research into granular synthesis, soundscapes, and creative applications of Epicurean philosophy - year-long thesis (current).
Honours degree, including study in film audio, digital synthesiser design and composition research, MIDI-controller design, and musicology study of music performance history.
Music degree with a focus on electronic music production, experimental sound design/spatial audio, audio production for films/media, and music coding/AV programming.
2017, 2018
2018
2019-2021
2020, 2021
2022
2022
2024
2024
John Psathas Top Composition Award (Wellington College)
School Leaver Scholarship - Tangiwai (VUW)
Dean's list for academic excellence (VUW)
Lilburn Trust Composers' Competition award - 1st & 3rd (NZSM)
Ariadne Denilow Scholarship - music student with highest undergraduate GPA entering Honours (VUW)
Ross Harris Live Electronic Award (NZSM)
Wellington Masters by Thesis Scholarship (VUW)
Susan Rhind Composition Award (VUW)
Craft & Influences
Music
I like to take on each project in its own terms, with a slightly different compositional process for every piece I make. This is in part due to the range of influences I incorporate into my work.
Visual Inspiration
For many of my musical projects, I like to gather inspiration from photography, paintings and digital art, and my own experiences. Sometimes these visuals will be the very foundation of the work, but often times I will start with a small musical idea that I can then associate to a visual source. These two mediums - the sonic and the visual - usually provide a feedback loop of inspiration, from which I’m able to develop my work with a cohesive creative vision.
Two key examples of this process are the two feature singles from my debut album Journey, ‘Crimson Desert’ and ‘Underworld’; both tracks were founded on the idea of expressing landscapes sonically. ‘Crimson Desert’ largely took inspiration from artistic depictions of the desert planet ‘Arrakis’ from Frank Herbert’s Dune, incorporating a surreal, percussive sound-design motif and haunting drone layers from the beginning to immediately develop a sense of both the alien atmosphere of such a world, and the sense of isolation in the vast expanse of deep red sand dunes. ‘Underworld’, meanwhile, found influence from fantasy cave artworks, musically representing the many different visual elements through many instrumental layers: the pulse of glowing crystals, the trickle of water and wisp of dark air, the clatter of stones, etc. Note that these two tracks were particularly invested in evoking a realistic sonic immersion of these visually depicted environments - some of my music takes more abstract approaches to visual sources.
Cover art of 'Crimson Desert' and 'Underworld' - both inspired by their respective visual sources.
Musical Inspiration
Sometimes I'm simply inspired by the work of other musicians - there are many who have inspired my work over the years. While it’s probably impossible to list out all of them here, a few certainly stand out.
C418 (Daniel Rosenfeld) is my biggest musical influence - you've probably heard of his Minecraft soundtrack. A few of my tracks do take influence from this game (e.g., 'Mouse Twilight'), however, I'd actually consider his electronica albums 148 and Excursions to have had the largest impact on my work. Both albums span an eclectic mix of everything from ambient, orchestral, and minimalist synth work to high-paced jungle/DnB and punchy house/techno numbers, which I think strongly correlates with the range of music I like to create.
Leon Vynehall, Tom Day, and more recently Jon Hopkins and Max Cooper, I'd all consider big influences for my groove-based work. Their use of rich harmonies/atmospheres and intricate, complexly layered drum/percussion work really inspires my progressive compositions; I love gradual instrumental layering and building dynamic intensity over the course of a track.
Finally, the duo 2814, consisting of HKE and t e l e p a t h, is a key foundation of my atmospheric and synth-ambient works. Famous in the Vaporwave music scene, they're known for using abstract, ambient synth-scapes and extremely heavy effects processing on audio samples to create extremely abstracted soundscapes and dreamy, futuristic, nostalgic musical atmospheres. Their cover art is equally evocative and inspiring for the types of audio-visual connections I try to make in my music.