Thomas Köner

One of the few musicians with ties to the unrelated but somewhat connected fields of contemporary avant-garde, techno, and indie rock, Thomas Köner has released albums of sparse ambience for the Dutch <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Barooni%22">Barooni</a> label, recorded similarly skeletal and lo-fi techno (with Andy Mellwig) as <a href="spotify:artist:47yoe54A38qmHti0GlTPXR">Porter Ricks</a>, and appeared on albums by <a href="spotify:artist:5RISqKCcrhGITX2TQAPGPL">Bill Laswell</a>'s <a href="spotify:artist:3FROb2clYlJC7rbiwMCbYW">Divination</a> as well as <a href="spotify:artist:4lBmxg4Z1e9NTDD05a2mhI">Sonic Boom</a>'s <a href="spotify:artist:2IcFCj6c6iRJQhXhNGu6dT">EAR</a> collective. A native of Germany, Köner began recording with 1990's Nunatak Gongamur, the first in a series of LPs for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Barooni%22">Barooni</a>. The album was created entirely using gongs as its source material. The haunting, surprisingly bass-heavy Teimo followed in 1991, and the album helped establish Köner's name in the ambient music world. The aptly titled Permafrost followed in 1993, to more acclaim. The sparser Aubrite appeared on the same label in 1995.

In 1996, Köner appeared on Distill, an album by <a href="spotify:artist:5RISqKCcrhGITX2TQAPGPL">Bill Laswell</a>'s ambient-dub project <a href="spotify:artist:3FROb2clYlJC7rbiwMCbYW">Divination</a>, which called upon a roster of experimentalist composers including <a href="spotify:artist:4GEmOIz5qiiY8fDIMMqzZ2">Paul Schütze</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:1zdrhzkCEqTrUrIiRzVeQ3">Pete Namlook</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:483hYXnMW88DowwGAmowzG">Anton Fier</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:370nbSkMB9kDWyTypwWYak">Haroumi Hosono</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:3LQ6aBKxUDVOsSjrzaNVde">Mick Harris</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:48xy52hexfHntZtDNtIoNy">Tetsu Inoue</a>. Also lending his name -- literally -- to an <a href="spotify:artist:2IcFCj6c6iRJQhXhNGu6dT">EAR</a> (<a href="spotify:artist:2IcFCj6c6iRJQhXhNGu6dT">Experimental Audio Research</a>) album titled The Köner Experiment, he produced the work with rhythm and programming help from Andy Mellwig. Mellwig and Köner had already recorded several EPs of shadowed techno as <a href="spotify:artist:47yoe54A38qmHti0GlTPXR">Porter Ricks</a> (later collected on the 1996 <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Chain+Reaction%22">Chain Reaction</a> quasi-compilation Biokinetics). In 1997, <a href="spotify:artist:47yoe54A38qmHti0GlTPXR">Porter Ricks</a>' self-titled second album appeared on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Mille+Plateaux%22">Mille Plateaux</a>, and the label issued Teimo and Permafrost as a double CD. Köner also contributed a disc called Nuuk to Driftworks, a four-CD ambient box set released by <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Big+Cat%22">Big Cat</a>. The Köner solo effort Kaamos followed on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Mille+Plateaux%22">Mille Plateaux</a> in 1998. <a href="spotify:artist:47yoe54A38qmHti0GlTPXR">Porter Ricks</a>' split album with <a href="spotify:artist:0wnipczytUzHtDCCoCWV6L">Techno Animal</a> appeared on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Force+Inc.%22">Force Inc.</a> in 1999.

Köner began working with the German avant-garde label <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Die+Stadt%22">Die Stadt</a> during the early 2000s. He formed a project called Kontakt der Jünglinge with <a href="spotify:artist:1VR7bz3EQSo38riLKO8oJK">Asmus Tietchens</a>, and the pair released several albums through the label. He also released limited split 7" singles with <a href="spotify:artist:1VR7bz3EQSo38riLKO8oJK">Tietchens</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:1pmtGfcKECwptYY0ayQzMD">Illusion of Safety</a>. Köner's solo album Unerforschtes Gebiet appeared on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Die+Stadt%22">Die Stadt</a> in 2001, initially released as a picture-disc LP. He continued to record for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Mille+Plateaux%22">Mille Plateaux</a>, with the live recording Daikan appearing on the label in early 2002 and a collaborative double CD, Zyklop, following in 2003. The label's short-lived successor, <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Mille+Plateaux%22">Mille Plateaux</a>, reissued Nuuk with a DVD in 2004.

After a hiatus, Köner returned in 2009 with La Barca, an ambitious album featuring field recordings from the world's major cities. In 2010, <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Type%22">Type</a> reissued Köner's first three albums; a Biokinetics reissue followed on the label in 2012. The same year also saw the release of Köner's Novaya Zemlya on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Touch%22">Touch</a>. He collaborated with <a href="spotify:artist:4fCXWSHQemkqb0Qm03Uvxx">Jana Winderen</a> for a live performance in Normandy, France in 2014, and <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Touch%22">Touch</a> released the recording as the digital-only album Cloître. Köner's sparse, piano-centered Tiento de las Nieves appeared on the German label <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Denovali%22">Denovali</a> during the same year. In 2015, The Futurist Manifesto, Köner's mini-opera about the Italian Futurist movement, was released on DVD by the Von label. Tiento de la Luz, the second part of the Tiento trilogy, was issued by <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Denovali%22">Denovali</a> in 2016. The following year, he reunited with <a href="spotify:artist:47yoe54A38qmHti0GlTPXR">Porter Ricks</a> collaborator Andy Mellwig for Anguilla Electrica, the duo's first album of new material since 1999. Also that year, his live album with <a href="spotify:artist:4fCXWSHQemkqb0Qm03Uvxx">Winderen</a>, Cloître, received a physical release from <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Touch%22">Touch</a>. ~ John Bush & Paul Simpson, Rovi