David Slusser

David Slusser prefers the phrase "sound composition" to describe his output, underscoring its divergence from pieces built around conventional musical notation. Although he supplied sound design for motion pictures directed by Francis Ford Coppola, David Lynch, and George Lucas, in addition to Terminator 2 and Driving Miss Daisy, the bulk of his efforts in that field has gone into television commercials. In Rubber City he has collaborated musically with Ralph Carney, a longtime associate of Tom Waits; the pair first improvised together in free-jazz settings while both were still in Akron, OH, during the mid-'70s. After relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1977, Slusser performed regularly at a venue devoted to experimental music and occasionally sat in the audience to hear Eugene Chadbourne. At one such performance he encountered John Zorn, then working with Chadbourne, for the first time. He later logged two years as foley recordist at Skywalker Ranch. His audio installations have appeared in major institutions devoted to contemporary art; when the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art commissioned Randy Thorn to produce pieces for a radio series in 1986, Thorn became unavailable and Slusser stepped in to complete the work, resulting in "Suite Machines." One of his commercials now resides in the permanent collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art. On his debut solo album, Delight at the End of the Tunnel (Tzadik, 1997), he augments standard instrumentation with uncommon electronic instruments and assorted sound effects.