Produced by: Parallax Collaboration

Directed by: Derick Crucius

Featuring: Christopher Sean Powell

Music: Christopher Sean Powell

Film Process & Scan: Cinelab

The work of Christopher Sean Powell is an endless exploration into sonic possibility. A self-trained musician, rhythm scholar, and sound artist, Powell uses improvisation as a method for creative experimentation. Merging free invention with structure and precision, improv allows fresh ideas to emerge through the process of play. The drive to explore beyond jazz, and even beyond parameters of existing electronic music, has led Powell to experiment further with polyrhythmic techniques and even 4D quadraphonic sound. Working with the innovative company, Critter and Guitari, Powell moves beyond the constraints of traditional instrumentation, developing generative digital instruments.


Powell’s work brings together widely diverse influences and forms. As a lead member of Philadelphia avant-garde sound collective, Need New Body, and the high-energy multi-instrumental band, Man Man, Powell and his bandmates composed exuberant, bewildering, unpredictable music which fused improvisation with popular song structure. Other projects by Powell include Adventuredrum, a conceptually-based performance composed for an ensemble of drummers; Spaceship Aloha, a solo project mixing improvised electronics, beats, acoustic percussion and synthesizers; the Los Angeles production project, Icy Demons; hip hop duo GRANT$; and Mash Up Body, a partnership with avant-garde choreographer Kate Watson-Wallace. He has also collaborated with such artists as the Sun Ra Arkestra, Yoko Ono, and the Boredoms.

Sonic Experimentation documents the wildly diverse and creative talent of Christopher Sean Powell (a.k.a. Pow Pow, a.k.a. PayPow, a.k.a. Powserati).