Catch the Tree Wave

"People connect with the old video game images," Slocum says. "Even if they don't appreciate it as art in particular, it's fun. I try to do everything with a fun side to it."

Tree Wave's live experience has lent itself well to museum installations and digital art festivals in Denmark, London and New York, where Slocum and Gray's potent take on electronic music has been given much more praise than in Dallas. It's a fact not lost on the two, who've said in passing they've considered moving to New York. Until then, their next goal is to complete a full-length album.

"That's what everybody wants," Slocum says, "which is hard. I'm a perfectionist. I throw out a lot of ideas if I don't think they work, so it's probably going to take awhile."

This attention to detail is the essence of Tree Wave. Slocum could just as easily buy hassle-free synthesizers at Guitar Center, but his love for electronic tinkering, which also keeps him busy with non-musical programming projects at all times, makes the customizable game systems perfect. When asked what instruments he'd want in a dream studio, he couldn't think of anything he didn't already own. He just wanted more time.

Despite his claim that he's "not really trained in hardware," Slocum's still busy making customized sonic gizmos. He's developing a sampler that would pick up both ambient audio and video to be manipulated at will--a steroid-pumped TiVo of sorts--and also wants to generate an e-mail program that makes music, if only to amuse himself. His biggest tech-noise fantasy is even more mind-boggling, but that's perfectly natural for Tree Wave.

"I want a room full of Sega Genesis systems, each one with a speaker on top," Slocum says. "They're all networked. You'd have a keyboard, you'd play, and each one would have its own idea about how it interprets what you're playing. The pitches are all different. Sometimes they play; sometimes they don't. Have you been to a casino? You know what it sounds like with all the slot machines going? I want to play that sound."