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Called »the godfather of american noise« by Ukrainian MTV, Jeff Surak is a veteran experimenter
from Washington DC, who works in the grey areas between free improv, drone, musique concrete and composed musics.
Since his early recordings under the name -1348-, Surak established himself in the international
hometaper underground network of the 1980s, releasing tapes on the his own Watergate Tapes
imprint, along with such artists as Controlled Bleeding, F/i, and Kapotte Muziek; and collabo-
rating with icons like Zan Hoffman, Crawling with Tarts, and John Hudak. At the same time
Surak performed with the notorious DC area industrial band New Carrollton.
The 1990s found Surak living and performing in Russia. There he formed the group Sovmestnoye
Predpriyatiye which created site specific works using found materials and sounds.
At the turn of the millenium Surak created a new duo, V. which quickly blew out of the its initial
framework of free improv into a unit that pushed the limits of composition, constantly reinventing
itself with each recording and performance. After 11 albums in 2 years, the duo disbanded,
leaving Surak to further continue explorations under his solo project called Violet. Found objects,
microcassettes, damaged cds, prepared acoustic instruments, and old record players outfitted
with foil are the tools of choice. Violet has collaborated with Alexei Borisov, Frans De Waard,
Betrand Denzler, Michael Gendreau, Andrey Kiritchenko, Kotra, Francisco Lopez, Andreas
Tilliander and many others. Since 2002 Violet has released numerous recordings in a variety of
formats and has performed across the USA and Europe.
Surak also directs the annual Sonic Circuits Festival in Washington DC, presenting such artists
as Faust, Jandek, Phil Niblock, Wolf Eyes, Evan Parker, Matmos, Andrea Parkins, Elliott
Sharp and hundreds of others.
Official site: www.zeromoon.com/violet ..
MySpace: www.myspace.com/microk7
Selected Discography: »Violet Ray Gas & The Playback Singers« (CD, Sentient Recognition
Archive, 2009), »Iron Music For Uncorrigated Youth« (Cassette, Fukk Tapes Lets Erase, 2008),
»Universam« (CDr, Live Reports, 2006), »Blind From Staring Too Long At The Sun« (CDr,
Zeromoon, 2006), »Violet Ray Gas« on »The Wire Tapper 21« (CD, The Wire, 2009), »Priznak
Aluminium« on »The Wire Tapper 12« (CD, The Wire, 2004)
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