A detour from his electronic post-punk/synthgaze solo project Never Knows, artist Marc Kate creates static experiments in synthesis that embody the opposite of New Age music. These static, spacious sounds, while haunting and etherial, are anything but spiritual. Instead, Kate’s music is visceral, material and deeply human. Originally trained as a filmmaker and visual artist, San Francisco based producer and composer Marc Kate applies a cinematic and conceptual approach to music and audio production. Faint outlines of melody and song are buried and burdened by an ocean of distortion, self-doubt and melancholy. In effect: a music that undermines itself. Each track is a calculated performance of cathartic release, pitting delicate gesture against brute force. For those familiar with Tim Hecker, Lawrence English or Rafael Anton Irisarri, Kate similarly creates a tension between serenity and dissonance, crossing vintage analog with laptop experimentation. He most recently released “File #08”, his debut for San Francisco label Computer Tapes.

Joshua Kit Clayton, better know by his stage name Kit Clayton, is a San Francisco-based electronic and digital musician and computer programmer. In addition to his musical work, Joshua is a programmer for Cycling '74, where he is responsible for further development of the Max/MSP MIDI/audio programming environment. He is a significant contributor to Jitter as well, a multi-dimensional data set processing and visualizing architecture with applications in audio, video, and 3d graphics, which is part of the multimedia package Max. Clayton uses Max, MSP, and Jitter extensively in his own abstract musical compositions, which have been described as including aspects of ambient computer music and glitch. Clayton continues to compose, perform and further develop Max, MSP, and Jitter.

Samantha Weinert is a frequent collaborator with Marc Kate and is interested both in live improvisational performance and exploring new ways to expressively and meaningfully interface with electronic instruments.  She aims to deconstruct commonly-held assumptions about how such instruments are played, and feels strongly that new paradigms of instrument design lead to new modes of experience and inevitably to new forms of music. Her exploration of these ideas has led to her current instrument, a synthesizer played by breath controller and modified polypressure keyboard. She studied fine art, music, and philosophy at the University of Illinois (Urbana) and currently works as a synth tech at Waveformless in Temescal, Oakland.  

(Photograph by Robin Russell). The performing moniker of Tasho Nicolopulos in techno ambient guise, Its Own Infinite Flower  is also a line from Aleister Crowley’s 1905 ode to the Rosicrucian ‘Rosa Mundi’ and symbol of the meeting ground where esoteric and erotic semiotics overlap. In similar fashion Nicolopulos’s synth explorations, which XLR8R calls “crystalline cosmic fuzz” approach performance as a ritual mode similar to a seance or a conjuration. His music is an experiment in rhythm, repetition, and harmony without using some of the conventional tools of synchronization and resolution. Nicolopulos is also a fixture in the Bay Area underground music scene and is one third of promoter trio Hostile Ambient Takeover (another reference, this time to the 2002 Melvins album) together with C.L.A.W.S and Solar.

Bézier (Dark Entries Records) is the moniker of all-live analog electronic musician Robert Yang from San Francisco. Influenced early on by the Cybernetic Broadcasting System (CBS), Robert started DJing (un)classic underground sounds as Robot Hustle before joining the Honey Soundsystem collective in 2007. Robert writes hooks, patterns and melodies in an automatic, stream of consciousness fashion. Memory and nostalgia play a big part in constructing his music. Influences range from the futuristic landscape of Syd Mead to the melodic energy of Patrick Cowley and the subdued, hidden motifs of My Bloody Valentine’s “Loveless.” Bézier blends elements of Hi-NRG and dark dance that drive mysterious underwater instrumentals that entailed a release through the critically acclaimed Dark Entries label his debut record “Ensconced”.   Robert as both DJ and live musician has performed in various parts of the US from his home base of San Francisco to Chicago as well as the far reaches of Shanghai, China. 2014 was a productive year for his live PA. In the summer Robert embarked on an east coast US tour with artists from the Dark Entries roster including: Max & Mara, redredred to celebrate 5 years of output by label owner Josh Cheon. The group performed live shows in Chicago, Detroit Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York and Brooklyn. In the winter of 2014 Robert travelled to Europe to perform in Berlin (with Mannequin records label owner Alessandro Adriani), Madrid, at the acclaimed Moog Club in Barcelona and the punk club La Residencia in Valencia. 2015 sees more live shows from Robert as well as appearances with Honey Soundsystem as scheduled residents for the Smart Bar in Chicago.

Born and raised in the South of France, and based in Los Angeles, CA, Hugo Paris creates finely crafted live hardware electronic music with a unique focus on expressivity and raw emotion. Label mate with Terry Riley, Coleen and Amulets (Beacon Sound) Hugo’s adventurous albums translate into an engaging live journey involving modular synths, keyboards and percussions. He is the creator of the acclaimed 4MS Spherical Wavetable Navigator module (SWN). Hugo’s albums (3) have received attention from press outlets such as XLR8R, Fact Magazine and Resident Advisor.