Ben Frost is an Australian composer and producer based in Reykjavík, Iceland. Frost composes minimalist, instrumental and experimental music, with influences ranging from classical minimalism to punk rock and black metal. Ben fuses intensely structured sound art with militant post-classical electronic music. He shape-shifts physical power with immersively melodic minimalism and rupturing metal.

His albums include: ‘Steel Wound’ (2003), ‘School of Emotional Engineering’ (as part of the band School of Emotional Engineering) (2004), ‘Theory of Machines’ (2007), ‘By the Throat’ (2009), ‘Sólaris’ (with Daníel Bjarnason) (2011), ‘Aurora’ (2014), ‘The Centre Cannot Hold’ (2017), and ‘All That You Love Will Be Eviscerated’ (2018). He has collaborated with contemporary dance companies Chunky Move, the Icelandic Dance Company, as well as the acclaimed choreographer Wayne McGregor. In 2010 he composed the music for Wayne McGregor’s work FAR.

Frost co-composed with Daníel Bjarnason Music for Solaris, which was inspired by both Stanisław Lem’s original novel, and the 1972 Tarkovsky film Solaris. Commissioned by Unsound Festival, it was performed by Frost, Bjarnason and Sinfonietta Cracovia. He has also composed music for the films, Sleeping Beauty, the Icelandic drama The Deep and the 2015 British television series Fortitude. The Fortitude III (Music from the Original TV Series) album was released in 2018. In 2017, he provided score for Netflix’s German supernatural thriller Dark and the film Super Dark Times

In 2013, in his first directorial role, he premiered a critically acclaimed music-theatre adaptation of the Iain Banks novel The Wasp Factory.

Frost has done multiple works with Richard Mosse and Trevor Tweeten, including travelling to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2012 with Mosse, Tweeten and John Holten, to score the sound for Mosse’s artwork The Enclave. In 2017, Frost, Mosse, and Tweeten premiered a new installation entitled Incoming at the Barbican Centre in London.

Frost’s upcoming works include the original score to Baran bo Odar’s Netflix show 1899, and ‘The Murder of Halit Yozgat’, an opera inspired by a rigorous counter-investigation by London-based research agency Forensic Architecture into the assassination of 21-year-old Halit Yozgat in his family’s internet café on April 6, 2006.

Murcof is the performing and recording name of Mexican electronica artist Fernando Corona. Born in 1970 in Tijuana, Mexico. From 1999 to 2002 he was for a member of the Tijuana-based Nortec Collective of electronic musicians and artists under the Terrestre project name. Since 2006 Corona lives in Barcelona, Spain.

Murcof's music is sparse, minimalist, electronica. Many of his compositions are founded on abstract, glitchy, sometimes complex electronic percussion, derived mostly from minimal techno, dub, glitch, industrial music and IDM, and are often aligned around a 4/4 beat.. Harmonic and melodic influences come from classical music (modern classical music, musique concrète, holy minimalism, micropolyphony, baroque music, etc.), ambient music, drone music, berlin school synthesizer music, ethnic music and free improvisation.

They say you need three things to succeed in the music business – talent, timing and luck. Plus a little something extra to get you noticed. Joep Beving has all four in abundance.

At nearly six foot ten, with his wild hair and flowing beard, the Dutch pianist resembles a friendly giant from a book of children’s fairy tales. But his playing – understated, haunting, melancholic – marks him out as the gentlest of giants, his delicate melodies soothing the soul in these troubled times.

“The world is a hectic place right now,” says Joep. “I feel a deep urge to reconnect on a basic human level with people in general. Music as our universal language has the power to unite. Regardless of our cultural differences I believe we have an innate understanding of what it means to be human. We have our goosebumps to show for it.”

Joep’s music is the antidote to that hectic world of uncertainty and fear – a soundtrack for a kinder, more hopeful future; a score for the unmade film of lives yet to come. “It’s pretty emotional stuff,” agrees Joep. “I call it ‘simple music for complex emotions’. It’s music that enhances images, music that creates a space for the audience to fill in the gaps with their own imagination.”

As for the rest of Joep Beving’s story, it’s one of good fortune and better timing.

Joep (pronounced “Yoop”) first formed a band at 14 and made his live debut in his local town’s jazz festival. He left school torn between a life in music and a career in government. When a wrist injury forced him to abandon his piano studies at the Conservatoire and focus on an Economics degree, it seemed that music’s loss would be the Civil Service’s gain.

But the draw of music was too strong. “It was always in my heart,” he says, “and it always will be.” Reaching a compromise between his two conflicting paths, he spent a decade working for a successful company matching and making music for brands. “But I always had a love-hate relationship with advertising – I was never comfortable using music to sell people stuff they don’t need”.
In his spare time he played keyboards with successful Dutch nu-jazz outfit The Scallymatic Orchestra and self-styled “electrosoulhopjazz collective” Moody Allen, and dabbled in electronica with his one-man project I Are Giant. But, by his own admission: “It was not me. I had not found my own voice”.

That began to change during a trip to Cannes for the Lions Festival – the Oscars of the advertising world – when he played one of his compositions at the grand piano at his hotel… and people started to cry. “It was the first time I had seen the emotional effect my music could have on an audience.”
Encouraged by the response, Joep organised a dinner party for close friends at his home in Amsterdam, where he played them his music on the piano left to him by his late grandmother in 2009. “It was the first time my friends had heard me play music they thought should travel outside my living room. It was the push to pursue the dream of doing a solo album with just my instrument.”

A month later a close friend died unexpectedly, and Joep composed a piece for his funeral service. “I performed it for the first time at his cremation. Afterwards people encouraged me to record it so that it would be a permanent memorial to him. He was an extraordinary person.”

Inspired by the reaction, Joep wrote more tunes and recorded them in single takes over the course of the next three months in his own kitchen, playing in the still of night while his girlfriend and two young daughters were asleep. The result was his debut album Solipsism.

Turned down by the only record label he had approached, he paid to press 1,500 vinyl copies, with artwork by Rahi Rezvani (who also made the stunning video for “The Light She Brings”). Joep staged the album launch in March 2015, in the studio of hot Amsterdam fashion designer Hans Ubbink, and performed it there for the first time.

That first vinyl pressing quickly sold out, mainly to friends, and the songs were an instant hit on Spotify, whose team in New York added one tune – “The Light She Brings” – to a popular ‘Peaceful Piano’ playlist. “People started saving the tune, so they put another one on. Then they started liking the whole of my album.” Soon Solipsism was a viral phenomenon, with another tune, “Sleeping Lotus”, now over 30 million streamed plays. And all songs of both albums together have now been streamed over 180 million times.
As a result of his huge online success, Joep was invited to perform on a prime-time Dutch TV show. The following day his album knocked One Direction off the top of the charts. “Then, a few days later, Adele made her comeback – and I was history,” he laughs. But by then he had made his mark.

He was besieged by concert promoters offering shows, including a prestigious solo recital at Amsterdam’s famous Concertgebouw and his album found its way to Berlin when another friend played it in her local bar, “at 2am with everyone smoking and drinking Moscow Mules.” By chance, one of those night owls was Deutsche Grammophon executive Christian Badzura. After making contact online, they met when Joep performed at Berlin’s Christophori Piano Salon – and ended up signing with the world’s foremost classical label.

The first fruits of the new partnership are Prehension. A natural successor to Solipsism, it carries forward the musical and philosophical themes Joep identifies in his music. “I am reacting to the absolute grotesqueness of the things that are happening around us, in which you feel so insignificant and powerless that you alienate yourself from reality and the people around you because it is so impossible to grasp. I just write what I think is beautiful, leaving out a lot of notes, telling a story through my instrument, trying to unite us with something simple, honest and beautiful.”

Uncompromising and unorthodox, Volker Bertelmann is a one-of-a-kind composer and pianist from Düsseldorf, best known under his stage name, Hauschka.

He started playing the piano at the age of nine. He formed his first band as a teenager, and by the age of 18 was writing music for television shows. After moving to Cologne for university, Bertelmann and his cousin formed the hip hop crossover outfit God's Favorite Dog, immediately scoring a record deal and touring with German rap stars Die Fantastischen Vier.

Volker started to create his own work, launching himself as a solo artist in 2004 under the moniker Hauschka. After three albums including The Prepared Piano, he signed to British Brighton based label FatCat Records, releasing a series of critically acclaimed albums.

From 2007 to 2014, he played up to 700 live shows around the globe to establish his fanbase, constantly building on and developing his signature sound — distinctly more experimental than romantic.

Tim Hecker is an electronic musician and sound artist based in Los Angeles, United States and Montreal, Canada. Hecker initially recorded under the moniker Jetone, but has become known internationally for recordings released under his own name, such as Harmony in Ultraviolet (2006) and Ravedeath, 1972 (2011). He has released eight albums and a number of EPs in addition to collaborations with artists such as Ben Frost, Daniel Lopatin, and Aidan Baker. His latest album Love Streams was released on his new label 4AD on 8 April 2016.

Born in Vancouver, Hecker is the son of two art teachers who spent his formative years developing an interest in music. He moved to Montreal in 1998 to study at Concordia University and explore his artistic interests further. After completing his studies, Hecker pursued a professional career outside music and worked as a political analyst for the Canadian Government. After leaving his employment in 2006 he enrolled at McGill University to study for a PhD, with a thesis on urban noise that was published in 2014. He has also worked as a lecturer in sound culture the Art History and Communications department. He initially performed internationally as a DJ (Jetone) and electronic musician.

His early career was characterized by an interest in techno, using the Jetone moniker he released three albums and performed DJ sets. By 2001 he became disenchanted with the musical direction of the Jetone project. In 2001, Hecker released the album Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do It Again, under his own name through the label Alien8. It explored abstract notions of sound and collages that was described as ‘very brutal, bloody, bone-crushing experiences’. In 2006 he moved to Kranky where he released his fourth album Harmony In Ultraviolet. His current method of working involves the use of pipe organ sounds which are digitally processed and distorted. For the album Ravedeath, 1972, Hecker travelled to Iceland where together with Ben Frost, he recorded parts in a church. In November 2010, Alien8 re-released Hecker’s debut album on vinyl.

Live performances contain improvisations by processing organ sounds that are manipulated, with great fluctuations in volume.

In 2012, Hecker collaborated with Daniel Lopatin (who records as Oneohtrix Point Never) on an improvisatory project which became Instrumental Tourist (2012). Following 2013’s Virgins, Hecker convened once again in Reykjavik for sessions across 2014 and 2015, to create what would become Love Streams. Collaborators include Ben Frost, Johann Johannsson, Kara-Lis Coverdale and Grimur Helgason, whilst the 15th century choral works by Josquin des Prez birthed the foundations of the album. In February 2016, it was announced that Hecker had joined 4AD while his eighth album was released in April of that year. Hecker admits to thinking about ideas like “liturgical aesthetics after Yeezus” and the “transcendental voice in the age of auto-tune” during its creation.

In addition to touring with Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Sigur Rós and recording with the likes of Fly Pan Am, Hecker has also collaborated with Christof Migone, Martin Tétreault and Aidan Baker. He has also contributed remixes to other artists, including Isis.

Hecker occasionally makes sound installations and has collaborated with visual artists such as Stan Douglas and Charles Stankievech.

Hecker, along with other musicians Ben Frost and Steve Goodman (Kode9) and artists Piotr Jakubowicz, Marcel Weber (MFO) and Manuel Sepulveda (Optigram), provided music for Unsound Festival’s sensory installation, ‘Ephemera’.

Marc Ribot’s four months with jazz organ legend Brother Jack McDuff were his first ever with an internationally touring artist. Their 1979 itinerary included Ribot’s first concerts in Europe, and his only to date in Gary, Indiana and Rochester, NY. Although the two never recorded together (due to artistic differences that became apparent in Ribot’s later work…Brother Jack reportedly spent much of their stage time fixing Ribot with what sidemusicians referred to as his “death ray”), Ribot never lost his affection for McDuff’s music and the Hammond organ dominated Soul Jazz scene from which it emerged. Says Ribot: “McDuff's US audiences—the so-called ‘Chitlin Circuit’— were just the hippest in the world: sophisticated about the music, definitely…but also demanding the deepest soul while rewarding restraint in its expression. What this brought out in the musicians was every bit as intense as the music taking shape at CBGBs at the time. In fact, I always felt the two scenes had something in common, and I’ve been trying to express exactly what ever since."

Fellow Jazz-Bin, Greg Lewis, is not only one of the greatest virtuosos of the Hammond b3 organ alive, but perhaps the only one willing and able to haul a real Hammond b3 and Leslie speaker cabinet to live gigs in NYC! Says Ribot: “Greg is NYC’s best kept secret. He can tell a story on the Hammond like nobody else." Rounded out with a TBA guest drummer, The Jazz-Bins use deep grooves and over the top improvisation to channel the spirits of Newark’s Key Club Sparky J’s Lounge, and NYC’s CBGB’s c/a 1977 into a quest for punk/soul salvation. The Jazz-Bins go— not exactly ‘ancient’, but ‘back’— to the future, to tap into a scene that never really existed (but should have, will, and does whenever people drop their preconceptions about ‘genre’ long enough to feel the groove), and a vibe that never really stopped. Dig it!

Marc Ribot, guitar, voice
Greg Lewis, hammond B3
tbc, drums

Born 1965 in Karl-Marx-Stadt he is part of an artist generation who works intensively in the transitional area between music, art and science. With a strong adherence to reductionism he leads his sound experiments into the field of electronic music creating his own code of signs, acoustics and visual symbols.

NOTON is a label founded in 1994 by Carsten Nicolai as a small imprint becoming active in 1996 with the release of noto “spin” record. In the same year the collaboration with RasterMusic begun and by 1999 the two labels merged into Raster-Noton.

By 2017 NOTON starts working independently releasing all back catalogue of Alva Noto and currently planning future releases. Diverse musical projects include remarkable collaborations with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Ryoji Ikeda (cyclo), Blixa Bargeld or Mika Vainio. Nicolai toured extensively as Alva Noto through Europe, Asia, South America and the US. Among others, he performed at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Centre Pompidou in Paris and Tate Modern in London. Most recently Nicolai scored the music for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s newest film, 'The Revenant’ which has been nominated for a Golden Globe, BAFTA, Grammy and Critics Choice Award.

His musical œuvre echoes in his work as a visual artist. Carsten Nicolai seeks to overcome the separation of the sensory perceptions of man by making scientific phenomenons like sound and light frequencies perceivable for both eyes and ears. His installations have a minimalistic aesthetic that by its elegance and consistency is highly intriguing. After his participation in important international exhibitions like documenta X and the 49th and 50th Venice Biennale, Nicolai’s works were shown worldwide in extensive solo and group exhibitions.