Atsuhiro Ito was born in 1965. He launched his career as a visual artist in the late '80s, and in '98 began presenting sound performances at art exhibitions and so on. Ito made use of fluorescent lighting (which is also an element of his art installations) in the creation of an original musical device called the optron. He continues to refine the instrument while approaching sound and music from a contemporary-art-based perspective.
Dieter Moebius (Dr Morbius, born 1944 in Switzerland) is a German/Swiss experimental/krautrock/ambient/electronic musician. Moebius studied art in Brussels and Berlin and met there Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Conrad Schnitzler (Tangerine Dream). They founded a band Kluster in 1969. After the departure of Schnitzler, they changed their name to Cluster. Later Moebius and Roedelius founded the band Harmonia with Michael Rother (Neu!), which also collaborated with Brian Eno. Dieter Moebius was involved into numerous projects with such musicians as Conny Plank, Mani Neumeier (Guru Guru).
Devin Townsend Project begins where Ziltoid the Omniscient left off, with Devin Townsend at the helm. The project is a planned four-album series. Rather than a specific line-up of musicians, as he utilized in The Devin Townsend Band, and rather than performing the entirety of the music himself, as in Ziltoid the Omniscient, the Devin Townsend Project will feature a number of different musicians for each album.
Tim Shiel, also known as Faux Pas, is a producer based in Melbourne. Working primarily with virtual instruments, he builds intricate sonic worlds that combine synthetic and organic elements. He is consistently inspired by the "possibilities" of "sound" and the challenge of musically articulating his own "intense emotional trajectories." Faux Pas was also a hardcore/metal band from a Mugla, Turkey. The band performed numerous shows and recorded two demos before splitting in 2002. Two of the band's former members accordingly transferred to The Sky We Scrape, a post-rock band in istanbul.
Grouper is the solo project for ambient musician Liz Harris, of Portland, Oregon. Harris' music is a mixture of softly-strummed guitar, Wurlitzer keys, and her delicate, dreamy vocals, all of which are heavily drenched in reverb. Harris’ first album was 2005’s Grouper, a self-released full-length CD-R, followed later that year by Way Their Crept on Free Porcupine (re-released in 2007 on Type Records). Other recordings include 2006's He Knows, released as a 3" CD, the 12" Weird Forest release Wide in 2007, and a 7" called Tried.
Keith Fullerton Whitman is a composer/performer obsessed with electronic music; from its mid-century origins in Europe through its contemporary worldwide incarnation as "digital music." Currently he is working towards implementing a complete system for live performance of improvised electronic music that incorporates elements from nearly every era: a reel-to-reel tape machine, a selection of small "jerry-rigged" / "circuit-bent" battery-powered sound-producing boxes...
San Jose, California based HeavyHeavyLowLow was formed in 2004, and gained notoriety largely through word of mouth, internet hype and extensive touring. The quintet consisted of vocalist Robbie Smith, guitarists Ryan Madden and Danny Rankin, and brothers Chris and Andrew Fritter (drums and bass, respectively). Their album "Everything's Watched, Everyone's Watching", an eleven song session of metal/thrash/hardcore/grindcore recordings, was released on New Weathermen records, an imprint of Ferret, in September of 2006.
Yeasayer is a band based in Brooklyn, New York. The band was formed in 2006 and consists of three core members, Chris Keating, Ira Wolf Tuton, and Anand Wilder. They first came to attention after appearing at the SXSW festival in early 2007. Their debut album All Hour Cymbals was released in October 2007. Yeasayer described their music as "Middle Eastern-psych-snap-gospel". Live performances often include psychedelic visuals.
Yeasayer released their second studio album, Odd Blood, in February 2010, featuring more pop music influences than earlier work. The band revealed that the album came out of a massive acid trip in New Zealand. Peter Gabriel’s drummer Jerry Marotta helped to record Odd Blood in an upstate New York studio packed with rare synths and percussion instruments from around the globe to create the characteristic worldbeat sound of the album.
Yeasayer released their third studio album, Fragrant World, in August 2012. According to the Fingers Never Bleed Songfacts, it was named after a track that didn't make the new album's final cut. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
Xiu Xiu is an experimental band originally from San Jose, California and currently based in Durham, NC and Brooklyn. The band is named after the main character of the 1998 Chinese film "Tian yu" (a.k.a. "Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl") Xiu Xiu was first formed in 2000 and is the main project of singer-songwriter Jamie Stewart, who records with friends on his home computer. Stewart's cousin, Caralee McElroy joined the band in 2003 and was the only other permanent member of the band until her departure in early 2009.
Black Dice are an experimental group based in Brooklyn. They formed in Providence, Rhode Island, United States in 1997, comprising members Bjorn Copeland (guitar), Hisham Bharoocha (drums) (following a short drumming stint by Lightning Bolt's Brian Chippendale), Sebastian Blanck (bass) and Eric Copeland (vocals). After the band relocated to new york City, Sebastian Blanck left and was replaced by Aaron Warren. Hisham Bharoocha had previously sung for Lightning Bolt and is currently working on other projects, but he left the band too and is now working as a solo musician Soft Circle.