Naut Humon is a San Francisco-based composer, curator, performer, and leader in experimental electronic music and audiovisual projects such as

Rhythm & Noise ''Rhythm & Noise'' were an American Experimental music and multimedia ensemble from San Francisco, California. The group originally consisted of Naut Humon, Nik Fault, and Rex Probe, who started the project in the mid-70s under the name Cellar-M.H ...

, Sound Traffic Control. He is the Founder and Artistic Director of Recombinant Media Labs (RML) and its internationally touring project RML CineChamber.

Biography

Humon began his career in the arts as a child actor in Seattle. Cellar-M was a musical project of Humon, percussionist

Z'EV Z'EV (born Stefan Joel Weisser, February 8, 1951 – December 16, 2017) was an American poet, percussionist, and sound artist. After studying various world music traditions at CalArts, he began creating his own percussion sounds out of indust ...

took part in this project.Hovancsek, Mik
''Z'ev: Swords into Plowshares''
. Adventures in Sound. Retrieved on November 30, 2012. He eventually moved to San Francisco in the early 70's to stage underground performances that operated outside of the traditional theater. Humon is a founding member of the

experimental music Experimental music is a general label for any music or music genre that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions. Experimental compositional practice is defined broadly by exploratory sensibilities radically opposed to, and questioning of, ...

ensemble

, who released two albums on

Ralph Records Ralph Records was an independent record label active between 1972 and 1989, best known for being initially run by avant-garde art collective, ''The Residents''. The name coming from the slang phrase for vomiting, "calling Ralph on the porcelain tele ...

. Humon has also worked with

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

vocalist and composer

Diamanda Galás Diamanda Galás (born August 29, 1955) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, visual artist, and soprano. She has campaigned for AIDS education and the rights of the infected. Galás's commitment to addressing social issues and her involve ...

, providing samples for her album ''

The Divine Punishment ''The Divine Punishment'' is the third album by American avant-garde artist Diamanda Galás, released on June 30, 1986 by record label Mute Records, Mute. Content ''The Divine Punishment'' is the first instalment of her "Masque of the Red Deat ...

'', as well as percussionist Z'EV. He has served on the Digital Musics jury of the

Ars Electronica Ars Electronica Linz GmbH is an Austrian cultural, educational and scientific institute active in the field of new media art, founded in Linz in 1979. It is based at the Ars Electronica Center (AEC), which houses the Museum of the Future, in the ...

festival in

Linz Linz ( , ; cs, Linec) is the capital of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. In the north of the country, it is on the Danube south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846. In 2009, it was a European Capital of ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

every year and is the founder of Recombinant Media Labs and was head of A&R for

Asphodel Records Asphodel Ltd ( ''Asphodel Records'') was a San Francisco-based independent record label founded by musician Mitzi Johnson and Naut Humon in 1992. The label is named after the mythological flower that grows along the banks of the River Styx in Ha ...

, both based in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. He is featured in the 2001 documentary film '' Scratch''.

Asphodel Records

Humon is well known as co-founder of Asphodel Records and working with early artists in electronic and ambient music. Artists included

Ann Magnuson Ann Magnuson (born January 4, 1956) is an American actress, performance artist, and nightclub performer. She was described by ''The New York Times'' in 1990 as "An endearing theatrical chameleon who has as many characters at her fingertips as Lil ...

Christian Marclay Christian Marclay (born January 11, 1955) is a visual artist and composer. He holds both American and Swiss nationality. Marclay's work explores connections between sound, noise, photography, video, and film. A pioneer of using gramophone records ...

Curtis Roads Curtis Roads (born May 9, 1951) is an American composer, author and computer programmer. He composes electronic and electroacoustic music, specializing in granular and pulsar synthesis. Career and music Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Roads studied comp ...

DJ Spooky Paul Dennis Miller (born September 6, 1970), known professionally as DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is an American electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics "illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntabli ...

Iannis Xenakis Giannis Klearchou Xenakis (also spelled for professional purposes as Yannis or Iannis Xenakis; el, Γιάννης "Ιωάννης" Κλέαρχου Ξενάκης, ; 29 May 1922 – 4 February 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-garde ...

Invisibl Skratch Piklz The Invisibl Skratch Piklz are an American group of turntablists. The members of the group were originally hip-hop DJs, who were among the pioneers of the turntablism movement in the 1990s; turntablists create musical pieces by mixing sampl ...

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...

Mix Master Mike Michael Schwartz (born April 4, 1970), better known by his stage name Mix Master Mike, is an American turntablist best known for his work with Beastie Boys. Life and career Born in San Francisco, California, Mix Master Mike is of German and Fili ...

Richard Devine Richard Devine is an Atlanta-based electronic musician and sound designer. He is recognized for producing a layered and heavily processed sound, combining influences from glitch music to old and modern electronic music. Devine largely records for ...

, Robert Rich,

Ryuichi Sakamoto is a Japanese composer, pianist, singer, record producer and actor who has pursued a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). With his bandmates Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, Sakamoto inf ...

, and the

X-Ecutioners The X-Ecutioners are a group of American hip hop DJs/turntablists from New York City, New York. The group formed in 1989 and currently consists of three DJs, including Total Eclipse, DJ Boogie Blind, DJ Precision. Original members of the grou ...

Recombinant Media Labs

In 1991 Humon founded Recombinant Media Labs ("RML"). In 2012 he was the artistic director behind the 360 degree surround audio and visual CineChamber, an art installation put on at MUTEK. The CineChamber commissioned important pieces by

Alva Noto Carsten Nicolai (18 September 1965), also known as Alva Noto, is a German musician and visual artist. He is a member of the music groups Diamond Version with Olaf Bender (Byetone), Signal with Frank Bretschneider and Olaf Bender, Cyclo with Ryo ...

and

Blixa Bargeld Blixa Bargeld (born Christian Emmerich, 12 January 1959) is a German musician who has been the lead singer of the band Einstürzende Neubauten since its formation in 1980. Bargeld was also a founding member of the Australian rock band Nick Cave a ...

Ryoji Ikeda Ryoji Ikeda (池田亮司 ''Ikeda Ryōji'', born 1966) is a Japanese visual and sound artist who currently lives and works in Paris, France. Ikeda's music is concerned primarily with sound in a variety of "raw" states, such as sine tones and noi ...

Maryanne Amacher Maryanne Amacher (February 25, 1938 – October 22, 2009) was an American composer and installation artist. She is known for working extensively with a family of psychoacoustic phenomena called auditory distortion products (also known as dist ...

Christian Fennesz Christian Fennesz (born 25 December 1962) is an Austrian producer and guitarist active in electronic music since the 1990s, often credited simply by his last name. His work utilizes guitar and laptop computers to blend melody with treated samples ...

Biosphere The biosphere (from Greek βίος ''bíos'' "life" and σφαῖρα ''sphaira'' "sphere"), also known as the ecosphere (from Greek οἶκος ''oîkos'' "environment" and σφαῖρα), is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems. It can also be ...

, Ryoichi Kurokawa, Speedy J &

Scott Pagano Scott Pagano is a Los Angeles-based video artist, filmmaker, and motion graphics designer, who constructs videos by re-mixing images of architecture, daily life, and intricate CG graphics. Pagano studied photography and graphic design at the Rhode ...

Chris Watson John Christian Watson (born Johan Cristian Tanck; 9 April 186718 November 1941) was an Australian politician who served as the third prime minister of Australia, in office from 27 April to 18 August 1904. He served as the inaugural federal lead ...

Thomas Brinkmann Thomas Brinkmann (born 1959) is a German producer of experimental minimal techno music. He began experimenting with records in the early eighties and released re-workings of material by fellow artists Mike Ink and Richie Hawtin in the second ha ...

Monolake Monolake is a German electronic music project, initially consisting of members Gerhard Behles and Robert Henke, Monolake is now perpetuated by Henke while Behles focuses on running music software company Ableton, which they founded in 1999 toget ...

Pan Sonic Pan Sonic was a Finnish electronic music group founded in Turku in 1993. The group consisted of Mika Vainio, Ilpo Väisänen, and Sami Salo. Salo left in 1996 leaving Pan Sonic a duo. The group was originally named Panasonic until 1998. In Dece ...

, Poie,

Matmos Matmos is an experimental electronic music duo originally from San Francisco but now residing in Baltimore. M. C. (Martin) Schmidt and Drew Daniel are the core members, but they frequently include other artists on their records and in their per ...

, Rrose, and Christian Marclay.

Recombinant Festival

In 2016, Humon and RML created the first festival Recombinant Festival with a permanent home in San Francisco's

Gray Area Foundation for the Arts Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization supporting art and technology for social good in San Francisco, California. Gray Area hosts exhibitions and music events, software and electronics classes, a media lab, ...

. From September 26, 2016 until October 1, 2016, artists pieces performed include Maryanne Amacher, Scott Arford,

Tarik Barri Tarik Barri (born Arnhem, 1979) is a Dutch audiovisual composer based in Berlin. He programmed his own audio-visual software Versum. In this 3D real-time virtual world, the artist creates audio-visual compositions. Barri has collaborated with Radi ...

, Biosphere, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma,

Paul Clipson Tarentel is a post-rock band which formed in San Francisco in 1995. Initially, the band consisted of Danny Grody and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma. The line-up altered over the years and has included John Hughes, Trevor Montgomery, Patricia Kavanaugh, Ken ...

Cut Hands Cut Hands is a British electronic music project of William Bennett, previously of power electronics band Whitehouse. Cut Hands began in 2008, and its music is heavily inspired by African and Haitian Vodou music, being very rhythmic and percussion ...

, Christian Fennesz,

Robert Henke Robert B. Henke (born 1969) is a German computer music artist working in the fields of audiovisual installation, music and performance. He was born in Munich, Germany, and lives in Berlin. Coming from an engineering background, Henke is fascinat ...

, Kurt Hentschläger, Ryoichi Kurokawa,

Ulf Langheinrich Ulf Langheinrich (born 1960 Wolfen, Germany) is a visual artist and composer. His work is mainly concerned with non-narrative environments and performances focusing on a specific approach to time, space and body. Since 2016 he is the Artistic Dire ...

, Lillevan, Egbert Mittelstadt, Scott Pagano, Jochem Papp, Markus Popp aka Oval,

Semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical resistivity and conductivity, electrical conductivity value falling between that of a electrical conductor, conductor, such as copper, and an insulator (electricity), insulator, such as glas ...

, and Masako Tanaka. In 2017, the Recombinant Festival selected a theme, "The Fall of Love: Paradise Tossed" and took place from October 11, 2017 until Octobver 15, 2017. Key pieces were performed by

Martin Rev Martin Reverby, better known by his stage name Martin Rev, (born December 18, 1947) is an American musician and one half of the influential synth-punk band Suicide. Rev has also released several solo albums for a number of record labels, includ ...

, Divine Enfant, People Like Us, Makino Takashi,

Karl Lemieux Karl Lemieux is a Canadian film director best known for his collaborations with Montreal-based post rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor and his 2016 film '' Shambles''. Biography Karl Lemieux joined Godspeed You! Black Emperor in 2010 – wh ...

, Michaela Grill,

Philip Jeck Philip Jeck (1952 – 25 March 2022) was an English composer and multimedia artist. His compositions were noted for utilising antique turntables and vinyl records, along with looping devices and both analogue and digital effects. Initially com ...

Grouper Groupers are fish of any of a number of genera in the subfamily Epinephelinae of the family Serranidae, in the order Perciformes. Not all serranids are called "groupers"; the family also includes the sea basses. The common name "grouper" is u ...

, Paul Clipson, Masako Tanaka,

Daniel Menche Daniel Menche (born December 4, 1969) is an American experimental musician and multidisciplinary artist from Portland, Oregon. Since 1989 he has recorded many albums that are categorized as electro-acoustic, noise music, dark ambient music, abst ...

Craig Baldwin Craig Baldwin (born 1952) is an American experimental filmmaker. He uses found footage from the fringes of popular consciousness as well as images from the mass media to undermine and transform the traditional documentary, infusing it with the ...

, Jeff Carey, Pedestrian Deposit, Ryoichi Kurokawa, Scott Arford, Biosphere, Egbert Mittelstadt, Lillevan, Christian Fennesz, Mark McCloud, Neha Spellfish,

Layne Layne is both a surname and a given name. Notable people with the name include: Surname: * Bobby Layne (1926–1986), American football player * David Layne (born 1939), British soccer player for Sheffield Wednesday * Jerry Layne (born 1958), Major ...

, and Humon. In 2018, RML announced the Recombinant Festival will take place from November 27 to December 2, 2018 with Herman Koglen as the key performer, who also created a set of three videos released on social media announcing the event.

References

External links