Ghédalia Tazartès was born 1947 in Paris, where he still lives, to Turkish parents. He is one of those long time activists who do not have a tremendous list of releases. Within the 31 years since his first musical oeuvre – "Diasporas" in 1979 – he only released 9 albums and a few EPs. Nonetheless he is praised as being one of the most creative European experimental artists and is often mentioned as an important influence on a lot of todays underground music exponents. Of course he was on the legendary Nurse With Wound-list…

Ghédalia Tazartès’ music has always been a mystery. It switches from musique concrète to – existing or invented – ethnic music, from poetry to noise, or from loops and collages to sad and extremely beautiful tunes in a second, but it constantly is in flux and coherent. Or like André Glucksmann wrote: "Ghédalia Tazartès is a nomad. He wanders through music from chant to rhythm, from one voice to another. He paves the way for the electric and the vocal paths, between the muezzin psalmody and the screaming of a rocker (…) Ghédalia is the orchestra and a pop group all in one person; the solitary opera explodes himself into an infinity of characters. The self is multitude and others. The author and his doubles work without a net, freely connecting the sounds, the rhythms, his voice, his voices. The permanent metamorphosis is a principle of composition, it escapes control, refuses classification. Off limits, music descends, cries and screams when it touches the ground."

Discography:
Ghédalia Tazartès - Ante-Mortem (Hinterzimmer Records, 2010)
Ghédalia Tazartès - Repas Froid (Tanzprocesz, 2009)
Ghédalia Tazartès - Hysterie Off Music (Jardin au Fou, 2007)
Ghédalia Tazartès - Jeanne (Vand’Oeuvre, 2007)
Ghédalia Tazartès - Voyage A L’Ombre (Demosaurus, 1997)
Ghédalia Tazartès - Check PointCharlie (Ayaa, 1989)
Ghédalia Tazartès - Tazartes (Ayaa, 1987)
Ghédalia Tazartès - Une Eclipse Totale De Soleil (Celluloid, 1984)
Ghédalia Tazartès - Transports (Cobalt, 1980)
Ghédalia Tazartès - Diasporas (Cobalt, 1979)

Herpes Ö DeLuxe, formed 1995, is a four piece group from Bern/Switzerland working in a musical field between atmospheric noise, electronica bruitiste, sombre soundscapes or harsh drones. Their instruments are partly analogue electronic gear, partly self-built or deconstructed tools like tape loops or turntables that are (mis-)used as rhythm machines.

Live performances - electronic and acoustic soundscapes, ranging from ambient sounds and playful collages to devastating, rhythmic noise attacks - always refer to the moment. According to this, an exclusive set is elaborated for every event, no one of which is ever performed again in the same form, because the spontaneous aspect would be lost and a reproduction would be in opposition to the interactive play of the four musicians, which depends strongly on the situation of a given event. Shows are often complemented with performance elements or other actions.

Besides concerts in the traditional sense, Herpes Ö DeLuxe have been involved in numerous other activities: they made the live music for the theater Habgier, and regularly produce the soundtracks for the pyrotechnical interventions of the artist Pavel Schmidt (Solothurn/Munich). Those events usually take place in museums or art spaces.

Sporadically they are also teaming up with singer Beat-Man (frontman of the well known Garage Rock/Punk-Band The Monsters). Under the name Reverend Beat-Man & The Church Of Herpes they are producing a more song-orientated brand of music, closer to the common pop-scheme but with a noisy edge. They call this genre Electronic Gospel Trash.

Herpes Ö DeLuxe are Von Wurstfinger, Hess, BlindDoc and Roger.Z

Discography:
Herpes Ö DeLuxe - Ember (Hinterzimmer Records, 2010)
Herpes Ö DeLuxe - Kielholen (Hinterzimmer Records, 2007)
Herpes Ö DeLuxe - Havarie (everestrecords, 2003)
Herpes Ö DeLuxe, OP Rechts & Hoschi - Split-LP (Tollerort Organisation, 1997)
Reverend Beat-Man & The Church of Herpes - Your favourite position is on your knees (Voodoo Rhythm, 2006)

www.tollerort.org
www.myspace.com/herpesdeluxe

Kiko C. Esseiva is a composer with Swiss and Spanish roots who lived in squats for a big part of his life. He creates electroacoustic sound pieces that are warm, non-academic and colorful, spreading a humanity and richness which is far away from the sterility of a lot of todays electronic compositions. He creates very diversified atmospheres which combine acoustic instruments, noise, human voices, field recordings and static sheets of sound with a stunning freshness and musicality.

According to the title of his first album "Musiques pour haut-parleurs" (music for loudspeakers) his live shows are adventurous installations of amps in different sizes and qualities, that are all separately controlled by Esseiva at the mixing desk, making his compositions even more transparent, vital and expanded.

Selected discography:
Kiko C. Esseiva - Sous Les Etoiles (Hinterzimmer Records, 2008)
Kiko C. Esseiva - Musiques Pour Haut-Parleurs (Manufracture, 2004)
Kiko C. Esseiva & Eric Boros – Improvisations/Bricolages I-IV (Tilt)

Kinit Her are triumvirate a realm of qliphotic vibrations. As Spring emerged from a snowfall record-setting Winter, these three Wisconsinites holed up in basements and bedrooms to create an opus of eastern-European folk melodies and black metal washes embroidered with witches croons and crystalline sonic manipulation. Having released the equivalent of their right-hand path with another recording project, The World On Higher Downs (Plop), Kinit Her turned to their nightside for Glyms' on songs like "The Arc of Acuity" and "Crypt Cathedral Shrine" mischievous string arrangements are brought to the fore, while tracks like "Quadriga" and "Falling Aeroliths" are massive guitar driven triumphs. 

Glyms or Beame of Radicall Truthes pulls its magico-philosophical inspiration from a wide array of sources from the Purple Analects of Taoism, to the Western esoteric tradition, up to modern day conspiracy theories. Musically, the record is informed by the 80's british underground experimental scene, 90's Scandinavian black metal, and the timelessness of all folk currents. 

Dip into Glyms and sense something of the mesh of fear and suffering and regimentation and bloody scarifices from which civilization has meant to escape. When the band began to roam about its twelve volumes, a condensation was announced and it seemed incredible that such richness could be brought within the compass of a single work. But by some magic of their own, Kinit Her brought about this condensation, in which brilliance will remain.

Discography:
Kinit Her - Glyms or Beame of Radicall Truthes (Hinterzimmer Records, 2009)

www.myspace.com/kinither

Rashomon is the solo project of London-based Matt Thompson. Established in 2004, the Film Music project was instigated as an attempt to apply filmic processes to music – re-imagining the underlying psychic meanings of the films, rather than creating soundtracks per se. Mixing together prog rock, electronic noise, waltzes, East European folk, trad metal, drones, psych rock and free jazz, the music is similar in intention to soundtrack innovators such as Toru Takemitsu, Jonathan Bepler and Ennio Morricone.

Discography:
Rashomon – The Finishing Line (Film Music Volume 2) (Hinterzimmer Records, 2009)
Rashomon – The Ruined Map (Film Music Volume 1) (Mirrors, 2007)

www.myspace.com/rashomon68

Rhys Chatham emerged from the dazzling New York art and punk scene, but has lived in Paris for the last 20 years. In the 70s, he integrated a rock band line-up with contemporary minimalist composition. After his studies with Morton Subotnick and La Monte Young – one of the inventors of minimal music – he began to play regularly with Tony Conrad and Charlemagne Palestine, two of the earliest exponents of drone music and, like Chatham, key players of American minimal music. Then a gig in May 1976 in Manhattan at CBGBs by The Ramones changed his life, and he began his long love affair with the electric guitar.
 
You will find Chatham’s name in history books as part of the so called No Wave scene. Besides people like Arto Lindsay, Lydia Lunch, James Chance, Bill Laswell, Arthur Russell or Brian Eno, he is reckoned as an important influence for bands like Sonic Youth or Godspeed! You Black Emperor, resulting in members of these bands taking part in his recent Guitar Trio revival performances.
 
Over the last twenty years Rhys Chatham has attracted interest with his stunning guitar orchestra live projects for 100, 200 and sometimes even 400 guitarists (in front of Sacré Coeur in Paris). He still performs his legendary 1977 composition Guitar Trio regularly all over the world with locally recruited musicians. The title of a 3 CD-boxset of 2008 says it all: Guitar Trio is My Life.

Selected discography (major works):
Rhys Chatham – The Bern Project (Hinterzimmer Records, 2009)
Rhys Chatham – Guitar Trio Is My Life (Table Of The Elements, 2008)
Rhys Chatham – A Crimson Grail (Table Of The Elements, 2007)
Rhys Chatham – An Angel Moves To Fast To See (Table Of The Elements, 2006, recorded 1989)
Rhys Chatham – Two Gongs (Table Of The Elements, 2006, recorded 1971)
Rhys Chatham – Hard Edge (Wire Editions, 1999)
Rhys Chatham – Die Donnergötter (Dossier/Homestead, 1987, recoded 1977-1986)

www.myspace.com/rhyschatham

RLW
Ralf Wehowsky founded the group P.D. (in 1981 renamed P16.D4) and the label Wahrnehmungen (in 1982 renamed Selektion) in 1980. P16.D4 were one of the most influential groups of experimental industrial music. They developed concepts of "Materialaustausch" long before the term remix was even coined. For their live appearances they were equally at home at Punk- and No Wave-festivals as at the holy grails of academic avantgarde like the "Ferientage Neuer Musik Darmstadt". Since the early 90s Wehowsky worked under his own name RLW. His quiet, highly complex style of composition, based on artifacts of instrumental and electronic lateral noises, is influential for numerous artists in the fields of electronic and improvised music.

Selected discography:
RLW & TITO - Mahlzeit (Hinterzimmer Records, 2008)
RLW - The Pleasure Of Burning Down Churches (Black Rose, 2007)
RM74/RLW - Pirouetten (Crouton, 2006)
RLW - I.K.K - Purpur (Sirr, 2006)
RLW - Tonlose Lieder (Paradisc, 2004)
RLW - Views (Anomalous, 2004)
RLW - Points Of Reference (Perdition Plastics, 2002)
RLW - Pullover (Table Of The Elements, 1996)
RLW - Revue Et Corrigé (Trente Oiseaux, 1995)
RLW - When Freezing Air Stings Like Ice… (Streamline, 1994)
RLW - Acht (Selektion, 1992)

www.selektion.com

TITO
The name TITO means Trans Industrial Toy Orchestra. In their Mahlzeit-incarnation they are Peter Kastner, Ine Ophof and Jan Van Wissen. The German-Dutch collective often works in the tradition of the Fluxus movement and is interested in noises made by toys which were not built to be part of any kind of musical equipment whatsoever.

Discography:
RLW & TITO - Mahlzeit (Hinterzimmer Records, 2008)
TITO - Alzheimer Underground (Superflu/TIPROD, 2006)

www.transindustriell.de

RM74 is the solo project of Swiss musician Reto Mäder who lives in Bern. His take on electronic music as it sits side by side with "real” instrumentation - organ, piano, harp, gong, guitar, kalimba, horn - is quite unique. He meshes electronics with instruments in such a way as to make both sides of the fence talk to one another. It’s a cryptic and wide open language between drifting electro-acoustic music, minimal instrumental figures, experimental electronics and slow-growing melodies.

Apart of RM74, Reto Mäder plays in the duo Ural Umbo (with Steven Hess of Haptic, On and Pan American) as well as in the trio Sum Of R (with Roger Ziegler and Christoph Hess aka Strotter Inst., both members of Herpes Ö DeLuxe). He has produced albums for Rhys Chatham (The Bern Project, 2009) and for Herpes Ö DeLuxe (Kielholen, 2007). Since 2006 Reto Mäder runs together with Roger Ziegler the music label Hinterzimmer.

Selected discography:
Ural Umbo – Latent Defects EP (Utech Records, 2010)
Ural Umbo – S/T (Utech Records, 2010)
Rhys Chatham – The Bern Project > as producer & guest musician (Hinterzimmer Records, 2009)
Sum Of R – S/T (Utech Records, 2008)
Sum Of R – EP I (Hinterzimmer Edition, 2008)
RM74 - Fireproof In 8 Parts (Hinterzimmer Records, 2007)
Herpes Ö DeLuxe – Kielholen > as producer & guest musician (Hinterzimmer Records, 2007)
RM74/RLW – Pirouetten (Crouton, 2007)
RM74 - Exkursion (dOc, 2005)
RM74 - Instabil (Domizil, 2002)
Ohne - Ohne 1 (ohnemego, 2002)
RM74 - Mikrosport (Domizil, 2000)

www.myspace.com/rm74
www.myspace.com/uralumbo
www.myspace.com/sumofr

Strotter Inst. is Christoph Hess from Switzerland. He creates music through the use of old, modified, Lenco turntables which he modifies and manipulates in countless ways. Rubber bands are affixed to the rotating turntable and plucked by the stylus, records have tape affixed in patterns to create textural rhythms, electrical current is sent via live wires to the needle to create pulsing feedback. These sounds are then manipulated by Hess through effects pedals to create warm and dense sound structures, looping, rumbling rhythms and multilayered broken beats.

The music of Strotter Inst. has more in common with the anti-electronica of Pan Sonic or the early minimalism of Steve Reich, than to other experimental turntablists like eRikm, Philip Jeck or Christian Marclay. Hess’ roots are not in improvised music, but in industrial culture, the electronic avantgarde and electro-acoustic composition.

Christoph Hess is also a member of post-industrial band, Herpes Ö DeLuxe (since 1995) and the experimental doom-trio Sum Of R (since 2007).  He has collaborated live with Sudden Infant, Maja Ratkje, and others. Strotter Inst. has performed throughout Europe, China, Russia, and Bolivia.

Selected discography:
Strotter Inst. - Minenhund (Hinterzimmer Records/Public Guilt, 2009)
Strotter Inst. - Anna/annA 7" (Implied Sound/Public Guilt, 2006)
Strotter Inst. - Monstranz (Everestrecords, 2004)
Strotter Inst. - Schlepper (Tollerort Organisation, 2001)

www.strotter.org

Sum Of R was first planned as a side-project of electro-acoustic musician Reto Mäder aka RM74 but grew into a collective consisting also of Roger Ziegler and Christoph Hess, both members of analogue noise band Herpes Ö DeLuxe, the latter also known for his turntablism experiments as Strotter Inst. Influences hail from different kinds of noise, folk, doom, experimental and lumbering metal music. Sum Of R construct gripping sound-journeys built by a doom-drone electric bass, treated vinyl-loops, organ sounds and an array of analog sound-sources, led by a psychedelic understanding of minimal soundforms.

Discography:
Sum Of R - Sum Of R (Utech Records, 2008)
Sum Of R - EP I (Hinterzimmer Edition, 2008)

www.sumofr.ch
www.myspace.com/sumofr

Ural Umbo was formed in 2008 by Reto Mäder (Bern/Switzerland) and Steven Hess (Chicago/USA). Ural Umbo's music is an organic and hypnotic mixture of lurking electro-acoustics, atmospheric black metal approaches, epic drones, slowly evolving melodies, doom mantras and an overall psychedelic atmosphere.

Reto Mäder works solo as RM74 and also in the groups Sum Of R and Pendulum Nisum. In 2006 he collaborated with Ralf Wehowsky/RLW for the Crouton release Pirouetten. He produced albums for Rhys Chatham (The Bern Project, 2009) and for Herpes Ö DeLuxe (Kielholen, 2007). Since 2006 Reto Mäder runs the label Hinterzimmer Records together with Roger Ziegler.

Steven Hess performs with Haptic, On, Locrian as well as solo. He collaborated with the likes of Stefan Németh, Pan American, Christian Fennesz, Robert Hampson, Helge Sten, Martin Seiwert, Greg Davis, Machinefabriek, Jon Mueller and appeared on recordings by Dropp Ensemble, David Daniell + Douglas McCombs, Male, Sylvain Chauveau and Fessenden to name a few.

Discography:
Ural Umbo – Fog Tapes LP (Hinterzimmer Records, 2010)
Ural Umbo – Latent Defects CASS(Utech, 2010)
Ural Umbo – Ural Umbo CD (Utech, 2009)

www.uralumbo.com
www.myspace.com/uralumbo