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"My musical education started with classical piano and violin training. Gradually I became more and more interested in composing and improvising. At the age of 14 I started working with synthesizers. Although music had always been my greatest passion, I really didn't want to go to the conservatory. The idea of having to practice scales was just too horrifying. Also, after years of making crappy tunes on my Atari 1040, I was getting increasingly bored with the whole concept of melodies and chords. So I went to study visual arts instead. For a while... Until one night, I accidentally discovered that I could make music by just changing settings on my DX21 synthesizer, instead of playing the keyboard. I felt reborn. Around the same time my tape recorder had slipped into a terminal state of decay, which lead to quite unexpected results when recording, so it also got a second life (I'm actually still using it, now in it's third reincarnation). Not much later I found out there was a whole world of abstract electronic music out there. So I ended up in the conservatory after all. Fortunately, the Sonology curriculum didn't include practicing scales..."

Xavier van Wersch (NL 1976) obtained a degree in Sonology at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague after having studied visual arts and philosophy. His work reflects an organical approach to the field of electronic music. In his compositions, performances and installations there is always an element of controlled chaos. He explores the relation between man and machine by conceiving the two of them together as hybrid systems in which erratic behaviour is the principal condition for interaction. Another common theme in his work is recycling. Like a modern Frankenstein, van Wersch constructs his machinery from parts of deceased equipment and disfunctional devices.

To balance his usually rather noisy live performances, van Wersch produces more beat-oriented tracks under the alias 'xaf'. As a sound designer he worked with a.o. Nederlands Dans Theater, Icelandic National Ballet / Maska Ljubljana, the Poni Collective and Ivana Müller. He is the director and founder of re.Bug, an organisation that supports and develops projects in which art, technology and ecology meet. After a 4 year stay in Belgium, van Wersch now lives in Hungary. He has been invited to teach at Novus School of Arts in Budapest and is currently setting up a studio in the school.

Xaf: Gleam (release)
http://www.subliminaltapeclub.com/music/artist/Xaf/album/Gleam/Links

www.xaflab.tk
www.escrec.com
www.subliminaltapeclub.com