About
Andy
Dobson
Digitonal is clarinettist and composer Andy Dobson. Since 1997 he has set a glitchy machine heartbeat against human musicianship and melody.
Born in the second wave of UK ambient IDM, Digitonal has spent nearly three decades somewhere between the concert hall and the chillout room: neoclassical strings and clarinet over modular systems and drum machines, always with room left for the player.
With a rotating cast of collaborators — notably violinist Samy Bishai, producer Dom Graveson and cellist Jo Quail — Dobson has released five studio albums and a run of EPs and compilation appearances across independent labels, including Toytronic, Castles in Space and long-time home Just Music.
Along the way he has remixed and produced for artists including Sophie Hutchings, Max Richter, Marconi Union, B12, Kirsty Hawkshaw, Kelli Ali and Alice Russell.
From a Californian NASA base to the Kiev Opera House.
A former UK festival stalwart, Digitonal has played everywhere from opera houses to pub back rooms, with improvised sets of great range and beauty.
Having left London for the Suffolk coast, Dobson now works among reeds, shingle and big skies — a landscape that runs through 2026's The Night Album, the first Digitonal record he wrote and performed entirely alone.
He lives there with his partner, cats and a midlife crisis of Eurorack, and also runs two side projects: a fond throwback to classic melodic IDM in the shape of Alphabox, and his own reflection on landscape-derived organic ambient, Of the Night Sky.
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