Resonance Music & Arts Festival 2020

Douglas Appling, the Portland-based electronic musician known to electronic music enthusiasts as Emancipator, takes a natural approach to his art. The classically trained violinist, and veteran of more traditional bands during his college years, grew up in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Listening to his parents’ wide-ranging collection of albums – Kraftwerk, Orbital, Fleetwood Mac – as well as the African sounds his mother discovered during her years in the Peace Corps, profoundly influenced his expansive approach to music-making. “So much credit goes to my parents and the music they curated at home,” Appling says. “My father had a tasteful, largely indiscriminate record collection. Instrument wise, there were dulcimers that he himself built, kalimbas and shakers that my mother brought back from Africa, an upright piano from my grandparents, and an infamous Casio keyboard. That says a lot about my sonic DNA. The folk elements come from growing up listening to bluegrass, and all kinds of music, on the radio.”