Zack Moir

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Zack Moir is a saxophonist, composer, and improviser whose work explores timbre, texture, space, and fragility through acoustic and electroacoustic practice. Rooted in improvisation, his music moves between spacious melodic forms, distorted sonic environments, ambient modular synthesis, live processing, field recording, and data sonification, often balancing intimacy with tension and instability.

Working primarily with saxophone alongside electronics and reactive systems, Moir’s practice is shaped by an interest in breath, resonance, silence, and atmosphere as expressive materials. Drawing from free and exploratory jazz, electroacoustic improvisation, and ambient music traditions, his work frequently engages themes of memory, place, interaction, and unsettledness.

Previous releases include Ignorant Populists with Build a Fort, the eponymous Mesmer, DIALOGUES/concerning… with the Zack Moir Collective, First with the free improvisation ensemble Crouch — projects which explore shifting relationships between improvisation, texture, and electronics. More experimental work includes the data sonification piece IDDM, which uses the sonified data from Moir’s diabetes management as the basis for a saxophone improvisation, and Your Feedback is Important To Us, which was a reactive, generative, interactive sound art installation for the Edinburgh International Science Festival.
His sonic sensibility reflects affinities with both the spacious lyricism of the ECM tradition and more abrasive or exploratory approaches to improvised music, with listening, space, and sonic interaction remaining central to his work.

Moir is Professor of Music at Edinburgh Napier University, UK.

Website: http://www.zackmoir.com
Instagram: @zackmoirmusic