PERFORMERS

Los Angeles based composer and author Akira Rabelais bridges classical romanticism and abstract surrealism through haunting, often achingly beautiful electronic composition and manipulations of found sounds. His work relies heavily on the inherent grain and texture of acoustic sources, these sounds often obfuscated beyond recognition through either digital or analog treatments. This process-based approach is most apparent in his 2004 release "Spellewauerynsherde" wherein Rabelais utilized field recordings of traditional Icelandic accapella lament songs recorded from Ampex tapes, which were then digitally manipulated into a haunting tapestry of disembodied voice and tone. His music is heavily informed by the abstract semantics of language found in the work of such authors as Pablo Neruda, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Bruno Schulz and Jorge Luis Borges as well as what Rabelais himself refers to as "A desire to connect to something ineffable and then transmit it in some way ". The fruits of these efforts can be found on such labels as Ritornell/Mille Plateaux, Fallt and David Sylvian's Samadhi Sound imprint.