Bebe Barron and Louis Barron were two American pioneers in the field of electronic music. They are credited with writing the first electronic music for magnetic tape composed in the United States. Their compositions for the MGM movie Forbidden Planet was the first entirely electronic film soundtrack.
Thomas DiMuzio is a composer, musician, sound designer, and mastering engineer based in San Francisco. Long regarded as a musical pioneer for his innovative use of live sampling and studio techniques, Dimuzio has earned a reputation worldwide as an avant-garde sound artist in touch with the aesthetic pulse of time and technology. Effortlessly moving from electro-acoustic and noise to glitch, dark ambient, improv and drone, Dimuzio’s eclecticism bespeaks a career equally informed by profound dedication to his craft and collaborations with friends, artists and technologists alike.
A true sonic alchemist who can seemingly create music events out of almost anything, Dimuzio’s listed sound sources on his various CDs include everything from “modified 10 speed bicycle” and “resonating water pipe” to short-wave radios, loops, samplers and even normal instruments such as clarinet and trumpet.
His solo CD studio releases include 2004’s Slew (RéR Megacorp), a compilation of compilation tracks, 1997’s double CD Sonicism (RRRecords), the remastered and reissued digital musique concrete classic HEADLOCK (originally released in 1989 on Generations Unlimited), and early cassette works compiled on Louden (Odd Size Records). As a collaborator, Dimuzio has contributed to numerous artists and ensembles, such as Chris Cutler, Tom Cora, Fred Frith, Dan Burke, David Lee Myers, Joseph Hammer, Due Process, 5uu’s, Nick Didkovsky, Matmos, Wobbly, and Paul Haslinger, and has toured North America and Europe.
Equally versed in sound design and production, Dimuzio has produced radically distinct sound libraries for Big Fish Audio and Rarefaction and heavily contributed to OSC’s classic Poke In The Ear With A Sharp Stick series, which featured the artist’s samples in the X-Files television series. At his own Gench Studios, Dimuzio has mastered more than a hundred CD’s for the likes of Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, Negativland, GG Allin, Psychic TV, Matmos, and a veritable who’s who of artists and labels in the underground music world. Dimuzio’s soundtrack work was featured as part of the The Whitney Museum’s Bitstreams exhibit in 2001, as he has worked on many remix projects, including the Art Bears tribute from RR Megacorp. Dimuzio is currently preparing new solo works as well as collaborations with Mark Hosler of Negativland, Nick Didkovsky, Dan Burke, Dimmer (with Joseph Hammer), and Poptastic Productions.
Tom Grimley studied composition with Leroy Southers Jr. at Loyola Marymount University. After graduating, he served apprenticeships with Los Angeles sound artists Joseph Hammer and Damion Romero. Since 1996 has been developing an automated electronic ensemble to perform his music. (Photo by David Lim)
Sukho Lee is an L.A. musician, composer, producer, and member of Seksu Roba , an evolving electronic art pop band whose live performances include video collage, costume art, and a working robot. Their mission: to challenge, provoke, but above all entertain. Born in New York, then raised in Michigan and forced to play classical violin and piano, Sukho eventually broke free to explore and make music with tapes, synthesizers, electric guitar, sampler, and eventually one of man’s more difficult instruments to master – the theremin. After being in various rock bands and doing his own experimental work, he moved to L.A. and eventually pursued a modest career with Seksu Roba as a kind of middle ground between the two. The first self titled album was released in 2000 on German label, Crippled Dick Hot Wax!. The second album Pleasure Vibrations was released on L.A. label, Eenie Meenie in 2003. Seksu Roba has performed inside and outside the country with the likes of Peaches, Tipsy, Fantastic Plastic Machine, Lydia Lunch, and many others – in venues as diverse as The Smell and The Santa Barbara Museum of Art. The shows helped get them nominated twice for the LA Weekly’s Best Electronic Dance Artist Music Award in 2003 and 2004, and were also a chance for Sukho to present his video collage work. It was also through Seksu Roba that Sukho came full circle, routinely performing classical music – on the theremin. Sukho’s musicianship with the theremin also won him the opportunity to tour twice with Damo Suzuki, former vocalist of legendary German progressive rock band, Can. Damo’s creed is to improvise everything, write nothing, and only perform in front of an audience. Therefore, the only recordings available are of live shows – on two CD releases of which, Sukho appears: Metaphysical Transfer (2001), and the recent Hollyaris (2005) entirely recorded at The Knitting Factory Hollywood. His theremin, composition and remix work has also appeared on recordings with Stephen Perkins, The Now People, The Mello Cads, The MiGs, The Ray Makers, Tipsy, and various short films including Stare Gently (2005, Erik Deutschman) and French Toast (2006, Relah Eckstein).
Currently, Sukho is focusing on visual and motion picture art but continues to make music for movies, remixes, and Seksu Roba. He still has his violin.
David Rothbaum is a Los Angeles-based composer and improviser who performs primarily on analog modular synthesizer and contralto and Bb clarinets. Both his acoustic and electronic work focus on some of the same basic principles: micro sounds, atmosphere and attempting to seamlessly blend the electronic and acoustic timbres. Some of his recent works include combining these audio elements with digital and analog video synthesis, multiple speaker arrays and super 8 films and projectors. He also performs in various improvisational settings, mainly focusing on electro-acoustic music. He also runs a record label, experimental musical research (emr), and co-organized the weekly new and improvised music series line space line for three years with musicians Jeremy Drake and Chris Heenan. He has released seven recordings thus far and has numerous planned releases on various record labels, including Reify, Rasbliutto, emr and Alienation.
Recent collaborations/groups/bands include: A duo with Joseph Hammer on tape loops; a duo with Bryan Eubanks on open circuits; a duo with Jessica Catron on cello; Mizzly, a duo with Mitchell Brown on analog synthesizer and various electronics; Cube of Force, a duo with Kyle Bruckmann on oboe and french horn; Gort, a duo with Jeremy Drake on guitars; DDD, a trio with David Kendall on computer and Doug Russell on electric guitar; The Kentucky Knobs, a trio with David Kendall on computer and Jonathan Zorn on modular synthesizer and The Davids; this group consists of performers named David which changes for each performance and has included David Kendall & other people named David.
