"Phill Niblock is a New York-based minimalist composer and multi-media musician and director of Experimental Intermedia, a foundation born in the flames of 1968's barricade-hopping. He has been a maverick presence on the fringes of the avant garde ever since. In the history books Niblock is the forgotten Minimalist. That's as maybe: no one ever said the history books were infallible anyway.

His influence has had more impact on younger composers such as Susan Stenger, Lois V Vierk, David First, and Glenn Branca. He's even worked with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo on "Guitar two, for four" which is actually for five guitarists. This is Minimalism in the classic sense of the word, if that makes sense. Niblock constructs big 24-track digitally-processed monolithic microtonal drones. The result is sound without melody or rhythm. Movement is slow, geologically slow. Changes are almost imperceptible, and his music has a tendency of creeping up on you. The vocal pieces are like some of Ligeti's choral works, but a little more phased. And this isn't choral work. "A Y U (as yet untitled)" is sampled from just one voice, the baritone Thomas Buckner. The results are pitch shifted and processed intense drones, one live and one studio edited. Unlike Ligeti, this isn't just for voice or hurdy gurdy. Like Stockhausen's electronic pieces, Musique Concrete, or even Fripp and Eno's No Pussyfooting, the role of the producer/composer in "Hurdy Hurry" and "A Y U" is just as important as the role of the performer. He says: "What I am doing with my music is to produce something without rhythm or melody, by using many microtones that cause movements very, very slowly." The stills in the booklet are from slides taken in China, while Niblock was making films which are painstaking studies of manual labour, giving a poetic dignity to sheer gruelling slog of fishermen at work, rice-planters, log-splitters, water-hole dredgers and other back-breaking toilers. Since 1968 Phill has also put on over 1000 concerts in his loft space, including Ryoji Ikeda, Zbigniew Karkowski, Jim O'Rourke."

"Italian-Swedish singer Anna Clementi grew up in Rome, where she first studied the flute. There she also completed acting training before moving to Berlin and meeting the composer Dieter Schnebel, with whom she studied experimental vocal music and experimental music theater at Hochschule der Künste (now UdK Berlin). This resulted in several years of collaboration; for example, Clementi participated for a long time in the group Die Maulwerker, founded by Schnebel. She received her first singing lessons in Rome with Michael Aspinall. In Berlin she studied belcanto with Mieko Kanesugi and jazz singing with Kara Johnstad. A special focus of hers is the work of John Cage, whose pieces she has performed worldwide.

Anna Clementi sees herself as an "actress of the voice" rather than exclusively as a singer. In this way she also articulates the diversity of her artistic expression, with which she is always searching for new connections between voice, gesture, language, dance and theater. In Berlin, for example, she performed in the group Theater Ikaro and attended various dance schools, where she dedicated herself to contemporary dance and contact improvisation. Clementi loves the combination of play, lightness and irony and is constantly looking for new ways of expression, which she can unfold with her versatile voice.

Anna Clementi has performed at the most important festivals and has premiered numerous works. Many world premieres have been composed especially for her and some of them have been developed together with her. She has worked with composers such as Laura Bianchini, Emanuele Casale, Martin Daske, Fast Forward, Jürgen Grözinger, Michael Hirsch, Rupert Huber, Christian Kesten, Alexander Kolkowski, Olga Neuwirth, Phill Niblock, Daniel Ott, Josef Anton Riedl, Rainer Rubbert, Nicola Sani, Iris ter Schiphorst, Dieter Schnebel, Laurie Schwartz, Stepha Schweiger, Charlotte Seither, Elliott Sharp, Roberta Vacca and many others.

In Bochum and Düsseldorf she performed a staged version of Arnold Schönberg's Pierrot Lunaire, directed by Urs Troller. At the Theater Bielefeld she participated in Eurydike by Iris ter Schiphorst and in Ojota IV by Daniel Ott. She has also premiered Anna's Wake by Iris ter Schiphorst in Berlin, Silence moves in Berlin and Dresden and Aung in Malmö and Copenhagen. With Die Maulwerker she staged Glossolalie 2000 by Dieter Schnebel in the millennium year 2000. Besides this and more, Clementi has performed and supervised many different versions of John Cage's Song Books, as well as staged his Variations and Theatre Piece.

Anna Clementi

With Steffen Schleiermacher, Clementi has released the CD John Cage: Voice and Piano. Her other releases include Suzuki, Dehli 9 and Osam with Tosca and tre with The Dining Rooms. In 2005, she released her first solo recording, Love is a Reason. This was followed in 2011 by the album Fräulein Annie. 2023 saw the release of the album Fluxus & NeoFluxus/Stolen Symphony No.1, with Anna Clementi and other performers.

Together with Laurie Schwartz, Anna Clementi forms the duo Divas Desviantes, which performs regularly with different programs in Salvador (Brazil), New York City and in Berlin. She is also a member of the vocal group Voxnova Italia and the ensemble European Music Project (EMP). She regularly collaborates with the pianist and composer Rupert Huber and with the percussionist and composer Jürgen Grözinger and with Thomas Stern.

Other productions since 2018 (selection):

In 2018, Anna Clementi performed in the musical theater piece Back into Nothingness by Nuria Gimenes-Comas and Laure Gauthier in Lyon and Geneva. Stepha Schweiger dedicated the opera The Mark on the Wall to her, which was performed in London, Berlin and Ulm in 2017/18. In the fall of 2018, she staged John Cage's Variations 2, 3, and 4 at Acker Stadt Palast Berlin. In December 2019, she took on the role of the narrator in the opera Orlando by Olga Neuwirth. The world premiere took place at the Vienna State Opera. In October 2020, she staged Theatre Piece by John Cage at Acker Stadt Palast Berlin. In August 2022, she narrated in Alexander Moosbrugger's opera Wind, premiering at the Bregenz Festival. In September 2022, she took on the role of Bartleby in Olga Neuwirth's musical theater production The Outcast at the Philharmonie in Paris. In December 2022 she sang Die blassen Herren mit den Mokkatassen with texts by Herta Müller and music by Berthold Tuercke at the UdK Berlin. In March 2023 she took on the role of Cassandra in the play Birds by Abigail Akavia and Hilà Lahav at the Schaubühne Lindenfels in Leipzig. In June 2023 she participated in the project Rathaus-Spiele Oderberg by Limited Blindness."

"Thomas Stern was created in Bremen, Germany. After running a P A Company and a sound studio distillery he defected to Berlin in the famous 1984.

In 1986 he joined the band MONA MUR with Alex Hacke and F. M. Einheit from EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN,composing music and playing bass. His debut recordings were performed for their album HALBER MENSCH. Their collaboration continues to this decade touring with them as live sound engineer.

Around 1987 he co-founded the Berlin set up of CRIME AND THE CITY SOLUTION, (Simon Bonney, Bronwyn Adams, Mick Harvey, Chrislo Haas, Alex Hacke) composing music and playing bass. CRIME toured Europe & the USA several times, releasing four albums with MUTE records. In 1992 they wrote and performed the song THE ADVERSARY for the Wim Wenders Film UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD. Further film soundtracks followed - THE SUN BEFORE DARKNESS appeared in the film GAS, FOOD, LODGING. FILMARBEITEN with Alex Hacke, a collection of sequinned soundtracks from starring films. Rel:RoughTrade / Zomba. [...]"