Anthony Pateras

Australian composer, pianist, and electro-acoustic artist Anthony Pateras creates many different forms of intense, surreal experimental music. Active since the 1990s, he gained international recognition through his releases on <a href="spotify:artist:3gkJ7lXtLpE4KauFHpk2vK">John Zorn</a>'s <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Tzadik+Records%22">Tzadik Records</a> (starting with 2004's Mutant Theatre) and <a href="spotify:artist:7b6tYYd8jqeZfzPFdKsDow">Peter Rehberg</a>'s <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Editions+Mego%22">Editions Mego</a>, including collaborations with <a href="spotify:artist:3kEOEo1RyT2HuWOVWkCUaE">Robin Fox</a>. His numerous collaborative projects have also included the improv quintet Thymolphthalein and <a href="spotify:artist:44AMsOSBRWXnIiHQ84YanF">tētēma</a>, a noise-rock group with <a href="spotify:artist:34Ai24gPz5YJ8NbksiNFef">Mike Patton</a>. On his own <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Immediata%22">Immediata</a> imprint, Pateras has released two Collected Works box sets of his own compositions, as well as efforts with <a href="spotify:artist:1vV4uR5UoZsQo2rdpvcqEn">Jérôme Noetinger</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:6JOZsxwBJZm4bhcEy7gLIU">Stephen O'Malley</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:2C1PMifNiaHtrPqRLWZ8fD">Erkki Veltheim</a>, and others. A second <a href="spotify:artist:6JOZsxwBJZm4bhcEy7gLIU">O'Malley</a> collaboration, Sept Duos Pour Guitare Acoustique & Piano Pr​é​paré, was issued in 2023.

Melbourne native Anthony Pateras began taking classical piano lessons when he was five. After he was granted a music scholarship in high school, he took up saxophone and orchestral percussion, performed in a chamber music trio, and played in metal and indie rock bands. He then studied contemporary composition, improvisation, and audio engineering at La Trobe University. His self-issued debut album, Malfunction Studies, consisted of compositions recorded in Melbourne, New York, and Copenhagen. Pateras scored several short films between 2001 and 2006, including two which were accepted into the Cannes Film Festival. Pateras formed an improvisation trio with guitarist David Brown and drummer Sean Baxter in 2002. Coagulate, the first of several glitch/noise collaborations with <a href="spotify:artist:3kEOEo1RyT2HuWOVWkCUaE">Robin Fox</a>, was issued by <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Synaesthesia%22">Synaesthesia</a> in 2003. The two also performed as part of Martin Ng Turntable Orchestra as well as the abstract hip-hop unit <a href="spotify:artist:31UNzLFbN7LPLUdx2Bd5yi">Beta Erko</a>. Mutant Theatre, a collection of piano, percussion, and quintet works, was released by <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Tzadik+Records%22">Tzadik Records</a> in 2004. Two further joint efforts with <a href="spotify:artist:3kEOEo1RyT2HuWOVWkCUaE">Fox</a>, Flux Compendium (2006) and End of Daze (2008), appeared on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Editions+Mego%22">Editions Mego</a>. Chasms, a solo prepared piano work, was released by <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Sirr%22">Sirr</a> in 2007, and Pateras' second <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Tzadik%22">Tzadik</a> collection, Chromatophore, appeared in 2008. Pateras formed the duo <a href="spotify:artist:1dB19EBvZBqs4uAS3ZwTit">PIVIXKI</a> with grindcore drummer Max Kohane, issuing two albums and eventually leading to a live collaboration with <a href="spotify:artist:34Ai24gPz5YJ8NbksiNFef">Mike Patton</a> in San Francisco.

Pateras participated in the improv quintet Thymolphthalein along with Clayton Thomas, <a href="spotify:artist:1vV4uR5UoZsQo2rdpvcqEn">Jérôme Noetinger</a>, Natasha Anderson, and <a href="spotify:artist:27qn8O93WZHy2SwhvBbvdi">Will Guthrie</a>. Their debut, Ni Maître, Ni Marteau, was released by <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Editions+Mego%22">Editions Mego</a> in 2011. Pateras' score for the psychological thriller Errors of the Human Body was issued by the same label in 2012. Pateras then established his own imprint, <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Immediata%22">Immediata</a>, which was launched with his five-CD box set Collected Works 2002-2012. Working with <a href="spotify:artist:34Ai24gPz5YJ8NbksiNFef">Patton</a> again, Pateras formed <a href="spotify:artist:44AMsOSBRWXnIiHQ84YanF">tētēma</a>, issuing their debut album Geocidal on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Ipecac%22">Ipecac</a> in 2014. The second Thymolphthalein release, Mad Among the Mad, appeared on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Immediata%22">Immediata</a> in 2015, and the label issued albums by several other Pateras-involved projects in quick succession, including Astral Colonels (with <a href="spotify:artist:5pgG0WAfRftFGmj05N0LsD">Valerio Tricoli</a>), 176 (with <a href="spotify:artist:0MM1T4gXG5NjxaIhrPdaBK">Chris Abrahams</a>), and North of North (with <a href="spotify:artist:2C1PMifNiaHtrPqRLWZ8fD">Erkki Veltheim</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:613c7a0HNsGcAGaMBw3BBM">Scott Tinkler</a>). By the end of the decade, Pateras also issued collaborations with <a href="spotify:artist:6JOZsxwBJZm4bhcEy7gLIU">Stephen O'Malley</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:3DpuUZxZUgyeNlCcnbSdxX">eRikm</a>, Rohan Drape, and <a href="spotify:artist:1vV4uR5UoZsQo2rdpvcqEn">Noetinger</a>, as well as Collected Works, Vol. II (2005​-​2018).

Pateras' ensemble performance Pseudacusis was released by <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Bocian+Records%22">Bocian Records</a> in 2021. The traces of a mistake, the most simple one possible the reactions of even younger children, with Drape, was issued on Superpang. Two Solos (<a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Futura+Resistenza%22">Futura Resistenza</a>) and A Dread of Voids (<a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Another+Timbre%22">Another Timbre</a>) both appeared in 2023, in addition to further efforts with <a href="spotify:artist:1vV4uR5UoZsQo2rdpvcqEn">Noetinger</a> (15 Coruscations, <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Penultimate+Press%22">Penultimate Press</a>) and <a href="spotify:artist:6JOZsxwBJZm4bhcEy7gLIU">O'Malley</a> (Sept Duos Pour Guitare Acoustique & Piano Pr​é​paré, <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Shelter+Press%22">Shelter Press</a>/La Becque Editions). ~ Paul Simpson, Rovi