German DJ/musician Sven Vath is truly one of the driving forces behind European dance electronic music since the late 80s. As a DJ, his legendary marathon sets have received acclaim around the world. In addition, Vath creates his own innovative music: Vath's albums like "Accident in Paradise" and "The Harlekin, The Robot, & The Ballet Dancer" are landmarks of contemporary electronic music. "Contact", which includes the heralded cut Your Sweat "is a bridge between the eighties and now" says Vath.

In the meantime, his labels, Harthouse and Cocoon, has been responsible for unleashing many highly creative artists, including Speedy J, Legowelt, Anthony Rother, Ricardo Villalobos, Funk'd'void, Steve Bug, Zombie Nation. His Cocoon club in Frankfurt and Cocoon night at Amnesia in Ibiza are among the hottest spots in the world, legendary places where people dance for hours to boost their own energies. And his Coccon agency is now one of the most active in the world. Expect a deep experience!

www.cocoon.net

Computer science scholar by day, electronic musician by night, Richard Devine is one of the ever-profilerating American stable of "intelligent" electro techno producers. Formerly a skate punk growing up outside of Atlanta, Devine has graduated in digital audio software, and is recognized for producing a layered and heavily processed experimental sound, combining influences from old and modern electronic music, and never repeating the same phrase.

As a result of praise of his music from Autechre, Devine recorded an album for Warp Records which was jointly released by Schematic. As in his release on Asphodel / Schematic entitled "Asect / Desect", his music is a cerebral and physical wild ride through the far reaches of electro - acoustical experimentation and frantic pulse driven techno beatbeds. It is "funk for robots", a broken composition conceived by a highly evolved mind and mathematically reconstructed with futuristic tools. Devine records are Richard Devine EP (1995) Lipswitch (2000) Aleamapper (2001) Asect:Dsect (2003) Cautella (2005).

www.richard-devine.com

When Mr. No from Paris and Bryan Black from Minneapolis met in London, they started to compose totally un-compromised music that deliberately breaks any musical restrictions or sound barriers. It's electronic music practising a punk ethic, strangely melodic but abrasive and pulsing like a machine... They have a class of their own, and the world noticed it.

With the alias "XLOVER" they have published an album, 'Pleasure & Romance', on DJ Hell's esteemed Gigolo Records. Then, as Motor, they have remixed artists of the like of Throbbing Gristle, Depeche Mode's ('Precious' single), Marilyn Manson, they have collaborated with and prodiced for Felix Da Housecat, Princess Superstar and Japanese rock god Atsushi Sakurai. MOTOR's single, 'Sweatbox' was released in the summer of 2005, and ended up being an anthem which topped the charts of everyone from Dave Clarke, Miss Kittin, Sven Vath to Alter Ego. Their upcoming album 'Klunk', out in April 2006 for Novamute records, push things to an extreme not yet heard on the dance floor, in both power and beauty.

www.din9.com

Olivia is a contemporary composer and sound artist who combines field recordings, scored segments for acoustic instruments, and electronically generated sound. Her recorded work seeks to introduce, set at play, and ultimately reconcile nature with artifice in the realms of music and sound. In the process, "organic" sound becomes subtly processed, digitized and abstracted; "inorganic" sound becomes self-replicating and animate; and "musical" elements such as chamber instruments are defamiliarized from their traditional associations, freeing them to participate in the larger aesthetic possibilities of sound.

Her trilogy of recorded solo compositions, which includes Pure Gaze (Sedimental, 1998), Mobius Fuse (Sedimental, 2001), and most recently Change Ringing (cut, 2005), has garnered critical acclaim. She has also continued composing larger works for new music and chamber ensembles. She also performs consistently in festivals and tours throughout Europe, America, and Japan, and has expanded her work to include video.

www.oliviablock.net

Christian Vogel

Passionate for electronic music since he started university, where he studied Stockhausen and Brian Eno, he is now one of the most esteemed experimental techno producer, remixer and dj. Both in his live performances and records, he combines elements of flux and sound collage in a style of music normally concerned with strict repetition. He has been the first UK producer to play in Tresor club and release on Tresor label. He then appeared on the cutting edge label Mille Plateaux, and finally on Novamute. He also founded two personal labels: Mosquito and Quinine.

www.no-future.com/vogel_microsite

Philipp Geist

Berlin-based multimedia artist Philipp Geist is a rising star in the young art scene. He's a painter, a photographer and a videomaker, but also, and maybe moreover, a videoartist and a cutting edge club vj, esteemed for his installations as much as for his live performances. His video works have been exhibited at important international art institutions including the Central House of Artists (CHA) in Moscow, the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in London, the National Gallery in Warsaw (Zacheta), at the opening of the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, and at the Winterzauber 2005 in Zurich.

Together with the symphony orchestra OBC Barcelona and the Finnish sound ensemble Pan Sonic, Philipp Geist appeared as a video artist at the opening of the Sonar Festival in Barcelona in 2004. Then, he was represented at the Dissonanze Festival in Rome, at Clubtransmediale in Berlin and at the Mutek Festival in Montreal... to name just a few.

www.p-geist.de

'The' new techno, breaks and electro producer and DJ from the Netherlands, Jooris used to play the violin for over eight years, and later on changed to guitar. Around 1995 he become addicted to electronic music and in 1997 he started dj'ing, mixing deeper techno and house, but soon bought the MC-303 groovebox to experiment with synth sounds and drumloops. His releases (and those as Dark Science) on labels like Keynote, Sound architecture, Line, Wolfskuil, SINO, were an almost immediate successes. His high energy live sets have shaked Tresor Club in Berlin, Awakenings Festival in Amsterdam, The Loft in Barcelona and the Movement Festival in Detroit, Sonar in Barcelona, Kozzmozz in Gent Belgium.

www.jorisvoorn.com

In 1989, when very young, he participated the Italian D.M.C. championship, and was awarded a third position. From hip hop he moved towards the more electronic sound of house music, acid, electro and techno, and was the first to introduce these sounds to the Roman scene. He became one of the biggest DJs in the Italian Rave scene, and one of it's first producers, recording on Electronic Out Broading Caste and Adrena Chrome.

With 'Antisystem', an album recorded on BMG, his music became known all over the world. In 1990, with the collaboration of Andrea Benedetti, he founded SNS, SOUND NEVER SEEN, the first Italian experimental techno label. His best vinyl releases, now rare and valuable records, have been re-released on Rephlex, with some added unpublished tracks on a CD called 'SNS'. He also made the soundtracks for the movies "Scarlet Diva" by Asia Argento and "Almost Blue" by Alex Infascelli. In the meantime his DJ/laptop sets prove to be a continuous and unpredictable exploration in the electro and techno universe.

Daniel Menche

A musician that challenge music to explore new emotions, that look for a deep impact with pure sound, as long, dense layers of droning sounds and sounds amplified and processed to extreme levels, in an effort to provoke and stimulate the listeners imagination by generating intensely powerful music. Musique concrete, without ever being just 'noise'. At Dissonanze he will show his intensely physical body percussion and multi layered vocalizations creating a sonic entity of total flesh and pure sound.
He has amassed a sizeable discography on some the most discerning independent labels in the world and performed live extensively throughout North America, Europe and Japan.

www.esophagus.com

Zbigniew Karkowski

Composer and performer of contemporary music, Karkowski was born in Poland, but studied composition, aesthetics of modern music and computer music in Sweden, and sonology in the Netherlands. While in France he practised with Iannis Xenakis, Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, and Georges Aperghis, among others. Zbigniew works actively as a composer of both acoustic and electroacoustic music. He has written pieces for large orchestra, plus an opera and several chamber music pieces that were performed by professional ensembles in Sweden, Poland, and Germany, and is a founding member of the electroacoustic music performance trio "Sensorband." He strongly believes that geographical, political and social exile is a necessary condition for true creation, and true creation is the only act that really matters. Since he left Europe, he moved to USA and, from 1994, Japan, where he is active in the underground noise scene. In fact, he is not interested anymore in traditional definition of what is music and, in his opinion, all theory and systems of music as a cultural concepts have to be destroyed. So in his latest work his main concern is on realizing drama with sound electronic and acoustic walls with scores based on architectures of ruins...

One of Sweden's foremost contemporary experimentalists in concrete electronic music and conceptual visual arts. His range of activities includes everything from composing, installations and performances to curating exhibitions and running his own record label, Origin. With his sound recordings von Hausswolff documents the immaterial qualities of physical phenomena and their spatial effects. In essence, von Hausswolff challenges our conventions of aural experience. Lately concerts ARE very physical, almost brutal.

Hausswolff's music has been performed throughout Europe and in North America and Asia in festivals such as Sonar, Electrograph and I.D.E.A.L. His installations have been hosted by numerose mostre internazionali, Biennale di Istanbul e di Johannesburg, Manifesta 1 a Rotterdam, Documenta X a Kassel, "Sonic Boom" a Londra, "Sound Art - Sound As Media" a Tokyo, Biennale di Venezia 2001 e 2003

www.sinewaves.it/vonhausswolff.htm