Marcus Schmickler

German composer and experimental musician Marcus Schmickler works in several different mediums, including multi-channel sound installations, electro-acoustic improvisation, radio plays, and theater projects. His work often incorporates ideas and techniques such as algorithmic systems and microtonal tuning, and is informed by early avant-garde experiments as well as contemporary club culture. He is perhaps best known for his more accessible work as Pluramon, a post-rock project that released acclaimed albums such as 1998's Render Bandits. Schmickler is a member of the electronic improv ensemble MIMEO and has collaborated with AMM co-founder Keith Rowe, Peter Rehberg, Julee Cruise, and Mouse on Mars' Jan St. Werner, among many others. He has released solo works on esteemed labels such as A-Musik, Erstwhile Records, Rehberg's Editions Mego (including 2010's Palace of Marvels [Queered Pitch]), and Kompakt (2019's Particle/Matter-Wave/Energy). Schmickler was born in Cologne in 1968. He was exposed to the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen at a young age, and began making experimental music during the late 1980s, releasing industrial cassette Nach Schweiz with Frank Dommert, and participating in his Entenpfuhl collective along with other artists such as C-Schulz and Georg Odijk. Many of these musicians also started the group Kontakta, which was initiated during a jam session on New Year's Eve in 1990, and later released a self-titled album on French label Odd Size. Schmickler's solo debut, Onea Gako, was issued by the same label in 1993. He formed the trio Pol with C-Schulz and Christoph Kahse, releasing the Krautrock-dub album Transomuba in 1994, and the soundtrack Baby, I Will Make You Sweat the following year. Also in 1995, Schmickler co-founder the Cologne-based A-Musik record store and label with Odijk and Jan St. Werner, and the trio formed the DJ collective Brüsseler Platz 10A-Musik, named after the shop's original address. Schmickler began composing for film, theater, and radio that same year, and he performed electro-acoustic music under the name Wabi Sabi, sometimes collaborating with video artist Joerg Pfeiffer. The project's self-titled album was released in 1996. Around the same time, Schmickler began releasing electronic post-rock as Pluramon. Debut album Pick Up Canyon was issued by Mille Plateaux in 1996, followed by Render Bandits in 1998; both releases garnered a considerable amount of critical acclaim. Schmickler joined MIMEO (Music in Movement Electronic Orchestra) in 1998; other members of the ensemble included Christian Fennesz, Rafael Toral, and Kaffe Matthews. He also ventured into minimal techno, releasing a 12" on Thomas Brinkmann's Max imprint. Schmickler completed his studies in electronic music and composition in 1999, writing his thesis on Gottfried Michael Koenig. His generative composition Sator Rotas was released the same year. In 2000, Schmickler and fellow MIMEO member Thomas Lehn issued BART, the first of many duo collaborations, on EAI label Erstwhile Records. Pluramon also released the abstract remix album Bit Sand Riders, with contributors including Matmos, Lee Ranaldo, and Merzbow, as well as the techno-focused 12" Reservoir, with mixes by Cristian Vogel and Brinkmann. Schmickler's orchestral solo work Param was released in 2001, and the disco-influenced house EP Chevrolet Corvette (with Brinkmann) appeared on Max Ernst the same year. Schmickler further explored dance music with the 2002 full-length Mein Kopf Verlor Ein Dach, credited to Marc Ushmi Meets Reverend Galloway on Ernst Busch. Rabbit Run, a collaboration with Lehn and Keith Rowe, appeared on Erstwhile in 2003. 2003 also saw Karaoke Kalk's release of Pluramon's third album, Dreams Top Rock, a more shoegaze-influenced effort that featured dream pop chanteuse Julee Cruise (of Twin Peaks fame) as well as contributions from Kevin Drumm and Felix Kubin. Continuing to issue improv collaborations on Erstwhile and A-Musik, he released the solo work Demos (For Choir, Chamber Quintet and Electronic Music) in late 2006. Amazing Daze, a drone album with bagpipe player Hayden Chisholm, was issued by Swedish label Häpna in 2007. Pluramon's second album with Cruise, The Monstrous Surplus, appeared later in the year. Schmickler and Peter Rehberg formed the duo R/S, releasing One (Snow Mud Rain) on Erstwhile. Schmickler's solo work Altars of Science was issued through Rehberg's Editions Mego as a hybrid disc, containing a multi-channel DVD-audio mix on one side, and a stereo mix playable as a CD on the other. Two albums with Lehn, the LP Kölner Kranz and CD Navigation Im Hypertext, were issued by A-Musik in 2008. Deployment, an improv set with Frank Gratkowski and Simon Nabatov, came out on Leo Records in 2010. Schmickler's second Editions Mego release, the computer music album Palace of Marvels [Queered Pitch], arrived in late 2010. The same label issued Live Double Séance [Antaa Kalojen Uida], an LP and surround sound DVD recorded with Lehn, in 2011. Later in the year, Lorenzo Senni's Presto!? label released Schmickler's noisy LP Bari Workshop, and a collection of orchestral and ensemble compositions called Rule of Inference came out on A-Musik. Additionally, an R/S album titled USA, documenting performances from the duo's 2009 American tour, was issued by PAN. Politiken der Frequenz, a collaboration with Julian Rohrhuber, was co-released by Editions Mego and Tochnit Aleph in 2014. In 2015, Schmickler began working as an assistant professor at the Institute for Music and Media in Düsseldorf. Timekeepers, a collaboration with John Tilbury, was released by A-Musik that year, and Neue Bilder (with Lehn) appeared on Russian label Mikroton Recordings in 2017. The immersive solo composition Particle/Matter-Wave/Energy was issued by Kompakt in 2019.
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