Ian Boddy
  Chris Carter
  Nigel Mullaney
  Markus Reuter
  centrozoon
  Protogonos
  Surface 10
  Robert Rich
  Subsonic Experience
  dbkaos
   

Ian Boddy

A veteran of the European electronic music scene since the late 70s, UK based sonic explorer Ian Boddy has produced 13 CDs on his Something Else Records label. Emerging from the post TDream generation, Boddy has carved out a distinctive position as an independent composer and performer releasing music around the world. With each successive title, Boddy has won acclaim and plaudits from fans and critics alike, for the cinematic vision and architectural scale of his music. His reputation growing as a producer and composer, Boddy is now taking time to establish a new label called DiN.

Chris Carter

Chris Carter began his career in the 1960's working for various TV stations as a sound engineer. He also found himself getting more involved in the visual side of entertainment, which eventually progressed into designing and presenting light shows and visual effects for numerous festivals, events and gigs, including bands as diverse as Yes and Hawkwind. This led to commissions for BBC TV shows, Colour Me Pop and The Old Grey Whistle Test. By the early 70's Chris was touring universities and colleges with a solo, multimedia show playing self-built synthesisers and keyboards and incorporating a myriad of lighting effects gleaned from his previous work. During this time he also worked extensively with visual artist John Lacey on many 8 mm & 16 mm experimental films and multimedia presentations.

In the mid 1970's, and through his connection with John Lacey, Chris began an experimental music/sound collaboration with Cosey Fanni Tutti and Genesis P-Orridge, who were also performing as COUM Transmissions with Peter Christopherson. The results of this musical collaboration was the creation of the now legendary Throbbing Gristle, and the birth of the 'Industrial Music' phenomenon.
During the first few years of TG the four members each continued with other projects and work. This was when Chris recorded his first solo album for Industrial Records called 'THE SPACE BETWEEN' (available on MUTE records).

In 1982, after the demise of Throbbing Gristle, Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni-Tutti formed the Conspiracy International record label (with financial backing and M&D from Rough Trade Records) and began working together as Chris & Cosey and CTI. Initially releasing only music they soon moved into producing video works, and with the help of Doublevision released a number of CTI experimental video films and soundtracks.
As well as successfully touring world wide they also recorded and collaborated on innumerable releases, most notably with Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, Robert Wyatt, COIL, NON , Lustmord, Monte Cazazza and many more. In 1985 Chris released his second solo album MONDO BEAT (now available as COLLECTIV 1). Chris & Cosey have also remixed two tracks for Erasure, the single Run To The Sun and their version of Abba's SOS.

1995 also saw Chris return to solo performance work after a gap of some 15 years. With a subtle return to his earlier works but with obvious influences from his more recent collaborations, his performances were minimal but high-tech, using only a sampler, a synth and a portable computer and no backing tapes or DAT.
In 1994 Chris also moved into journalism and regularly has technical articles and reviews published in Sound On Sound magazine. Chris is also an accomplished graphic designer and, in collaboration with Cosey, has in recent years produced a number of outstanding CD covers, albums, posters and art pieces and video works.
In 1998 Chris released the DISOBEDIENT compilation CD of highlights from his 1995 Disobey tour. He has recently released a new solo studio album titled SMALL MOON and is currently working on a series of ambient remix CDs of his earlier recordings.

Nigel Mullaney

Nigel Mullaney has been writing electronic music since he was 11. After leaving university the early 90 's saw him working as a session programmer and remixer under the name of Hertzs. His remix work included such artists as 808 State, Jah Wobble and the labels Acid Jazz & Mo Wax as well as having several white label releases. His active participation in the experimental breakbeat / electronica scene saw him spinning tunes up and down the country as a club DJ. He was also one half of the duo Best Before who produced the melodic ambient dance album The End of the World. NM first met IB way back in 1989 and always harboured a desire to work on some music together and so the Dub Atomica project was born. NM is currently working as musical director for a publishing company.

Markus Reuter

Markus is an8-string Warr Guitar player. He is a sought-after instructor at the European TouchStyle Seminar for both his impeccable technique and approach to music. He is also internationally known for his complex compositions and virtuoso playing with the Europa String Choir.

Markus' main musical interests these days lie in free-improvised music. His solo performances are mainly loop-based improvisations. His solo debut CD, Taster, was recorded live in concert in September 1997.

Taster contains seven long ambient pieces. Markus played his Warr Guitar, using a guitar synthesizer and two unsynchronized digital loop delays; a technique he calls "orchestral soundscaping".

centrozoon

An audible substance, making the inaudible audible: CENTROZOON is free-improv, free-tonal and microtonal soundscapes. Within the rich and dense layers there are subtle rhythmic and tonal shifts taking place, detuning and tuning in with each other to produce a wide and colourful spectrum of musical themes. Markus Reuter and Bernhard Wostheinrich have been working together since 1995, exploring electro-acoustic music by melting their sonic palettes. Their first release ' Blast ' stands for one of the many faces of CENTROZOON: a warm, passionate music suffused with a pulsating inner light.

Protogonos

The working name adopted by Stefan W. Bojczuk and any musical collaborators, the most enduring partnership having been with Matthew Shaw for the last six years.

Protogonos: Derivation: alchemical, the first seed: cabbalistic, adam kadmon, the blueprint of humankind.

Stefan became interested in playing electronic music in the late '70s. It was while he attended Newcastle University that he met Ian Boddy. Their mutual interest in electronica led them to Spectro studios where they experimented with VCS3s and other wobbly analogue synths. Stefan returned to his native Halifax, where, for a number of years he dabbled with punk/new wave, keyboard player in the legendary Phantom Limbs. He continued to experiment in the field of Throbbing Gristle- inspired industrial music, eventually releasing an album called Factories and Temples, a mish-mash of dreamy Glass type rhythms contrasted with dark and menacing noise beats.

In 1990 he met Matt Shaw who enthused about the then modern and eclectic techno coming from such labels as Warp. After some time they released an album called Noumena and Phenomena which received good reviews and, happily, sold out. Towards the end of the production of Noumena they realised that there was an idea here which looked both backwards (to works such as Zeit) and forwards (dance audiences were slotting extended ambient works into their collections).

So over the last two years Protogonos wrote Strange Geographie, an extended musical journey into sonic territories, some partially mapped familiar landscapes, others leading the listener to places only previously explored by alchemists and cabbalists and a few mathematicians. In the same period Stefan put together an album of various ambient works by artists from around West Yorkshire. It features six artists, nine tracks in total, including two short tracks by Protogonos. Going by the name of Mind Out it is available on CD from Wandering Aimlessly Records.

Matthew Shaw works regularly with musician and DJ Josh Holt. Their work involves experimentation with sounds, twisting them and processing them in a manner similar to musique concrete. They have produced extensive pieces for a variety of platforms including TV, film, art exhibitions and company marketing. They soon hope to release an album which showcases their orthogonal approach to composition.

Surface 10

Dean De Benedictis, aka Surface 10, is a Southern California based composer / producer / performer / conceptual artist and electronic music pioneer. He utilizes his interests in a variety of musical styles and concepts ranging from experimental electronica to ambient, IDM to progressive jazz and beyond.

In 1996 Dean released his self titled debut CD on Hypnotic Records (a subsidiary of Cleopatra Records) under the alias SURFACE 10, gaining him recognition in the electronic ambient genre. Since then he has appeared on various Hypnotic compilations and tribute CDs. In 97 Dean then collaborated with George Sara of THC on another full length project for Hypnotic entitled "Exempli Gratia" going under the name CATHEXIS, where he then earned notoriety in the techno/trance realm.

Robert Rich

With over 20 albums to his name, Robert Rich has helped define the genres of ambient music, dark-ambient, tribal and trance, yet his music remains hard to categorize. Part of his unique sound comes from using home-made acoustic and electronic instruments, microtonal tunings, computer-based signal processing, chaotic systems and feedback networks. Rich began building his own analog synthesizers in 1976, when he was 13 years old, and later studied for a year at Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA).

Rich released his first album Sunyata in 1982. Most of his subsequent recordings came out in Europe until 1989, when Rich began a string of critically acclaimed releases for Fathom/Hearts of Space, including Rainforest (1989), Gaudí (1991), Propagation (1994) and Seven Veils (1998). His two collaborations with Steve Roach, Strata (1990) and Soma (1992), both charted for several months in Billboard. Other collaborations include Yearning (1995, with Lisa Moskow), Stalker (1995, with B. Lustmord) and Fissures (1997, with Alio Die.) Rich's contributions to multi-artist compilations have been collected on his solo albums A Troubled Resting Place (1996) and Below Zero (1998). He also records with his group, Amoeba, exploring atmospheric songcraft on their CDs Watchful (1997) and Pivot (2000). His 3-CD live set Humidity (2000) documents the unique improvised flow of his recent performances.

Rich has performed in caves, cathedrals, planetaria, art galleries and concert halls throughout Europe and North America. His all-night Sleep Concerts, first performed in 1982, became legendary in the San Francisco area. In 1996 he revived his all-night concert format, playing Sleep Concerts for live and radio audiences across the U.S. during a three month tour. In 2001 Rich released the 7 hour DVD Somnium, a studio distillation of the Sleep Concert experience, possibly the longest continuous piece of music ever released.

Rich has designed sounds for television and film scores, including the films Pitch Black , Crazy Beautiful, and others. He also works closely with electronic instrument manufacturers, and his sound design has graced the preset libraries of Emu's Proteus 3 and Morpheus, Seer Systems' Reality, sampling disks Things that Go Bump in the Night and ACID Loop Library Liquid Planet. Rich has written software for composers who work in just intonation, and he helped develop the MIDI microtuning specification, which was accepted as an industry standard. As a mastering engineer, he has applied his ear to numerous albums in recent years, and his studio was featured in the September '99 issue of Keyboard Magazine.

For more information about Robert Rich, visit his website at www.rrich.com

Subsonic Experience

The members of Subsonic Experience are traditionalists. Not so much in their thinking, but in their history. Bernhard Wöstheinrich (born in 1968) and Thorsten Niestrath (born in 1967) met in Arts School in Bielefeld, Germany, a city with a reputation in improvised experimental music and design. Being design students, the two worked together on a number of art projects which included film, performance art, painting and last but not least, the band Subsonic Experience (from autumn 1990 till summer 1993). Artistically influenced by Zen Buddhism, the teachings of Don Juan, Gerhard Richter, Peter Michael Hamel and the likes of Klaus Schulze and early Tangerine Dream, Subsonic Experience played several festivals including two legendary support shows for the band "Embryo".



dbkaos

Art of Sacrifice is the debut album by dbkaos. Based in the South-West of England, Dave Hickman, the man behind dbkaos, has had several years experience programming synths and effects for the thirteen sample CD's he's had released by Zero-G (the UK's leading sample CD producer). This pedigree has enabled him to compose Art of Sacrifice, a well crafted vision into the future of synthesis. Using a MAC computer as the main sound source with external audio contributions from a VCS3, Supernova II and of course access to his vast library of samples, the six tracks display a real sonic depth.

Whilst it might be assumed that such music would be routed firmly in the studio environment Hickman has in fact been actively pursuing a live performance path . Indeed dbkaos has started to build an excellent live reputation having performed several gigs in the burgeoning concert scene in the South-West of England. These include a support slot for System 7 promoted by The Future Sound of Exeter at the Phoenix Theatre in Exeter. Future events include a live set at the chillout zone at this years Midsummernight's Festival in Exeter where Art of Sacrifice will be officially launched followed by a support slot for a Hawkwind / Arthur Brown gig on the main stage at the Phoenix Center in Exeter on 25th October.