Erwin Tuijl

About me.

I like to make worlds of sound. As an electronic artist under the moniker The Last James, or as a producer for artists across a myriad of genres, mostly working from my recording studio, Studio Apparatus in Utrecht.

Most of my work revolves around conjuring unexpected sounds from electronic instruments.

Besides my skills as a keyboard player I also play guitar, co-design synthesizers for Majella Audio, design live setups in Ableton Live, program my own visuals in Touchdesigner, co-organise an art festival and play the Therevox, an electronic continuos pitch instrument.

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My Projects

Pocket Knife Army tells their story about alter egos, media overload and 21st century paranoia dressed in a glitter coat and platform shoes.

The Glamelectro powerduo from Utrecht is questioning our monotonous existence and invites you to embrace your most extravagant self. A show by Pocket Knife Army is like stepping into a parallel universe, where you can dance like nobody’s watching.

My work for Pocket Knife Army includes playing synths on stage, production, arranging, sound design video production assistant, and the design of the LED screen we take on stage as well as the visuals on it.

Our live set is built around all hardware synths (no laptops, except for the visuals)

www.pocketknifearmy.com

I love building musical worlds where sound, arrangement and performace blend into a universe of its own

The Last James - Coming Soon

Cinematic and nostalgic. The Last James blends hi-tech electronica with lo-fi tape samples of forgotten artists.

It’s the soundtrack for everyone that feels homesick for a place they’ve never been to.

Other projects, Music Design,

Artist production, Session musician

A quick showdown

This purple slice of heaven is called Studio Apparatus, and it’s the studio me and Desirée Coumans built together. Quite literally, too. The whole construction of the space has been made by us, along with 4 other studios.

Those 5 studios togher is creative hub called Off the Grid Studios, and it’s one of my crowning achievements in the past years.

For inquiries about the studio or to book a session, please check out

www.studioapparatus.nl

As a keyboard player and producer I work on a lot of projects, ranging from maximalistic electronic production for Rain Kid, to the techno poetry by Wordbites. to playing piano on the 70s rock informed records by The Check Marks, to playing synths on the indian-Dutch crossover act Jaipur Junction. I love doing lots of different things, and there’s always something to be gained from diving deep into a new project.

Midnight MAsquerade, or MM for short, is a multidisciplinary festival that takes place in Utrecht. It’s a crossover between an art festival, bal masqué, and a techno rave.

The festival is created, hosted and curated by Pocket Knife Army

www.midnightmasquerade.eu

Majella Audio is a manufacturer of high quality synthesizers, and I had the honer of co-designer their flagship desktop synthesizer, the Implexus

My contribution is developing the synthesis architecture and the interface concept. The synth is roughtly based on how my modular synth setup was at that time, and Implexus turned out to be a beast of a synth that has met extraordinarily positive reviews by users but also by Loopop and even Sound on Sound.

Check out the implexus at

www.majella-audio.com

Check out the Sound on Sound review

Links / Partners in Crime

Great music isn’t made alone. Throught the years I had the pleasure of working with an enormous amount of amazingly talented people.