Drummer and sound artist Mike Alfieri is known for his playing with the Baltimore-based experimental pop band Tomato Flower, as well as his own noise-influenced solo work with drums and Sensory Percussion. Alfieri embarks on a solo tour of the East Coast, using Sensory Percussion in combination with a sound design technique known as "no-input mixing" to create his own technique dubbed "no-input drumming."

No-input mixing is a technique in the noise music tradition that involves routing the outputs of a mixing board back into the inputs of the device, using the mixer's inherent self-noise to create feedback loops. On this solo tour, he takes this technique a step further by using the self-noise of the mixer as the input to Sensory Percussion, essentially replacing a drum sensor input with the mixer. Then, he routes the output of the Sensory Percussion back into the input of the mix, completing the loop.

We caught up with him to learn more about how he arrived at this technique.

What's your musical background and how did you first get into Sensory Percussion?

I was into music as a kid. I started drum lessons in school at 8 or 9 years old. Then as a teenager on Long Island in the early 2000s I was messing around in screamo and post-hardcore bands.

Through college I was doing DIY music but also involved with wind ensembles, symphony orchestras, drum corps, theaters, marching bands and groups like that. I have a masters in Jazz Studies. I’ve been teaching music in schools for over a decade now.

I first got into Sensory Percussion in 2019, right around when I moved to Baltimore from NYC. I was leaving behind a few bands I was playing with and Sensory Percussion gave me an outlet as a solo artist when I didn’t know other musicians in town yet.

Can you explain a bit about the concept of "no-input drumming" that you'll be using on this tour?

It’s an alternative way of saying solo drums. I’m using the no-input mixer to trigger Sensory Percussion.

How did you first encounter this concept? Doing a bit of research, we saw a lot of references to Toshimaru Nakamura's album, No Input Mixing Board. Was that an influence for you? Was he the first to coin that phrase?

I discovered it from going to shows and doing free improv sessions. Yeah, for sure Toshimaru was the first to coin it “NIMB” with the titles of his records, which sound incredible by the way. I feel most influenced and involved with noise and experimental music probably through John Cage. The record Black Vomit by Wolf Eyes with Anthony Braxton is sick. I’d also check out The Wolfman by Robert Ashley or Fontana Mix-Feed by Max Neuhaus. You can hear the style. I am Sitting in a Room by Alvin Lucier is a good example of feedback loop history and it’s a conceptual theme. Jimi Hendrix is an influence too. The first track, "EXP," on Axis: Bold as Love, is one of my favorite recordings of noise in popular music. There should certainly be more research on this music out there; there is such a recent history.

Is there a distinction between "no-input mixing" and "no-input drumming"?

I’d say so. The “no-input drumming” is what I’m conceiving for this project. Technically, the mixer is the internal sound source in “no input mixing.” “No-input drumming” is the mixer triggering Sensory Percussion. I’m de-personalizing my physical playing for the mixer.

You've kindly shared some of the sounds that you'll be playing on this tour for other Sensory Percussionists to download and try on their own. What kind of techniques are you using in those sets in terms of modulation, fx chains, sample choice, etc.?

I’m layering those “no-input” techniques in with extreme effect manipulation and sampling in the software. In my head I’m part psycho DJ part mutant sound engineer.

I use the Portal interface to make feedback loops by patching a line out from the mixer back into line A on the interface. I can monitor the mixer through V2 with an audio insert generator. I get another loop through the interface by patching an aux line out 5 into a line in.

I’m also mixing and filtering sounds with the multi-band EQ. To slice samples I’ll add a speed or velocity controller on parameters like start or length and warp the pitch by tuning or transposing. I stack a lot of effects, especially reverbs and tweak the pre-delay. I also stack compressors, tube amps and gain utilities, mapping LFO’s to these effect parameters to randomly manipulate and freak things out.

I’ve recorded a lot of my cymbal playing - that’s in the pack. The other sounds are all random pieces I made. Ambient guitar recordings, field recordings and a deconstructed club track is buried in there.

In addition to using Sensory Percussion in your solo work, you've used it quite a bit on tour with your band Tomato Flower. Do you use Sensory differently in a group setting vs. solo?

In both environments, I’m producing and editing a lot on my computer. Tomato Flower works collaboratively. The drumming is written to serve the song. I also do some arranging and a lot of engineering.

I was using Sensory on the Melt Banana 3x5 Tour in 2024. Every solo performance is completely improvised. When I started with Sensory Percussion, I played a combination of full acoustic kits with all the sensors and hybrid kits with mesh heads. I was loading hundreds of warped deep bass samples and vocal chops on each drum and cycling through them randomly with a ton of gain and just shredding pretty heavy on the kit.

I picked up the mixer at a guitar shop in Portland, OR on that Melt Banana tour. Eventually, I had all the gear at my place and started experimenting to get some new sounds. I thought to plug the mixer straight into the portal interface to trigger the system, tried it out, and it was cool.

Experimental noise music can vary quite a bit from gentle and ambient to loud and aggressive. Where would you say your solo material falls on that spectrum?

I want to achieve a balance of dynamics. There’s soft moments but it’s naturally a bit more agitated. There’s a drone quality to it as well and I go for fast chops with shifting textures within that.

Any last thoughts on Sensory Percussion?

The technology has been such a valuable creative tool for me and the way Sunhouse operates is inspiring. I'm excited to see what’s next. I would love to see Sensory Percussion incorporated by other instrumentalists, composers, performers, sound artists, etc. Anyone could use it. Drums or no drums.