Arius Blaze = sound artist, instrument designer, composer and mastermind at folktek instrumental works and folktek records. see; folktek.com = folktek.blogspot.com = folktekrecords.blogspot.com

Alessandro Cortini is an Italian musician, producer, composer, and instrument builder. 

Cortini is one of the foremost figures of contemporary electronic music, best known for his haunting, atmospheric work. Alongside being a longstanding member of Nine Inch Nails, he is highly prolific and has released a steady stream of his own heady music on luminary labels including Mute, Hospital, and Important Records for the past decade. Throughout his shadowy rise to fame, he has collaborated with the likes of Lawrence English, Daniel Avery and Merzbow (to name a few). Balancing dark ambience with smokey, pulsing rhythms, his compositions are perfectly restrained, textured and mesmeric. 

Cortini was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020 through his work with Nine Inch Nails, making history as the only Italian musician to have ever been honored with this recognition. 

In 2021, in collaboration with boutique synth builders Make Noise, Cortini released his own, custom-designed, semi-modular synth, “Strega” (Italian for ‘witch’). That same year, he used Strega to build his latest full length, Scuro Chiaro [Mute], which Pitchfork described as “pitched somewhere between purgatory and the planetarium ... consistently managing to thrill and surprise”. 

In addition to years of extensive worldwide touring, Cortini has also soundtracked fashion shows including Alexander McQueen, Dior, and several of Fendi’s presentations. In 2022, he exhibited a high-concept audio installation called “Nati Infiniti” for Sonar 2022 at Museu de Lisboa’s “Fábrica de Moagem.” A live version of “Nati Infiniti” is set to debut at Berlin Atonal in 2023.

Alessandro Cortini’s music has been licensed for use in television, film and documentaries, games, and commercials, including FX’s hit show The Bear, “Thank You Very Much” a documentary about Andy Kaufman, Samsung, BMW, Sony, and Netflix. Remixes have also been a part of Cortini’s identity – remixing the likes of Depeche Mode to Mogwai to Death Cab For Cutie, Yann Tiersen to Vatican Shadow, and more between and beyond.

With over 100 physical releases since its inception by Taylor Deupree in 1997, New York-based music label 12k has decisively defined and developed the concept of minimalism in the realms of electronic music for more than a decade. Fusing elements from Ambient and Electro-Acoustic Composition with carefully arranged digital textures and associative micro-noises, the label's aesthetics revolve around a precisely-outlined, yet deeply emotional concoction of the technological and the organic. Eschewing the typical marketing mechanisms of the commercial music industry, Deupree has sculpted a platform whose influence today extends well beyond the confinements of the experimental community. 12k's integral approach, in which the label's instantly recognizable, elegantly spartan artwork enters into an inseparable symbiosis with the music, has created a timeless audiovisual language respected and appreciated all over the world.

WD4D blasts the hinges off genre definitions with his inventive and eclectic style. Not only a knowledgeable producer, but an engaging performer and deejay as well. WD4D was named champion of Seattle’s 2010 Battle of the Mega-Mixes.

When he’s not pushing forward his unique beat-flipping sound, WD4D is supporting the musical community and promoting other artists who blend futuristic hip hop & soul with electronic possibilities. This busy individual is also a resident at the Soulectro monthly (one of Seattle’s most forward-thinking nights of music) w/ deejay’s Sho-Nuph & OC Notes.

 With plenty of initiative and industry savvy to match his sharp deejay & production skills, WD4D is an unstoppable force that brings new music to light- and then sets it on fire!

Shared stages w/ Machinedrum, Pezzner, Lunice, B. Bravo, Slugabed, Daedelus, Onra, Sweatson Klank, and countless other major influences. 

Performance Highlights:
- Low End Theory (LA)
- Beat Geeks (Berlin)
- LavaLava (Budapest)
- Decibel Festivel (SEA)

Projects:
Mood Organ [solo]
Master Musicians of Bukkake [bass / synths]
Sound Cipher [synths / bass]
Sort Sol [keys / electronics / baritone guitar]
DIAD [electronics duo with Raica aka Chloe Harris]
Masters Chemical Society [my record label]

Selected Discography:
Master Musicians of Bukkake - Further West Quad Cult [LP on Important Records, 2015]
Mood Organ - Outer Heaven [12"/digital on MOTOR, 2015]
Raica / Timm Mason - Division [cassette on Further Records, 2015]
Midday Veil - This Wilderness [LP/CD on Beyond Beyond is Beyond, August 2015]
Timm Mason - The Lost Levels [CD on Debacle Records, 2014]
TJ MAX – Wrong To Run [CD on Debacle Records, 2013]
Master Musicians of Bukkake – Far West [CD/LP on Important Records, 2013]
Midday Veil – The Current [CD/LP on Translinguistic Other, 2013]

Remixes:
Meridian Arc - 01032016 (Mood Organ mix)
Apartment Fox - Dead Crossing (Mood Organ mix) [MOTOR011]
HOM – Bound (Mood Organ mix) [MOTOR002]
Airport – Sweat (Mood Organ mix) [MOTOR001]

Studio Contributions (on modular synthesizer):
Randall Dunn - Beloved [Figure Eight]
Eyvind Kang - Plainlight [Abduction]
Sort Sol - Stor Langsom Stjerne [Sony]
Wolves in the Throne Room - Celestite [Diadem]
Akron/Family – Sub Verses [Dead Oceans]
Jessica Sligter - A Sense of Growth [Hubro]
Splashgirl – Field Day Rituals [Hubro]
DRKWAV - The Purge [2xLP/CD on The Royal Potato Family]
Modern Ruins - Modern Ruins [digital, self-released]
Timba Harris – Nexus: Cascadia [Tzadik] (track 5 “Black Bear I”)

solo Discography:
Raica / Timm Mason - Division [cassette on Further]
Mood Organ - Outer Heaven EP [12" on MOTOR]
Timm Mason - Escape Artist [MCS]
Timm Mason – The Lost Levels [CD on Debacle]
Timm Mason / Cathartech - Sleep Study 1 [cassette on MCS]
Timm Mason - Time Release [cassette on MCS]
Mood Organ – Calcinatio [52xC13 on MCS]
Mood Organ – Visiting a Burning Museum [CD on Debacle/digital on Aphonia]

    [Mason] forges études that recall the sublime tranquility of Terry Riley, the penetrating, disorienting exactitude of Morton Subotnick, and the lonely, stark blues of Loren Mazzacane Connors. Mood Organ’s Visiting a Burning Museum (Debacle Records) achieves the impressive feat of creating pieces that induce both meditation and a profound existential dread. This is music for peering inward into your mind and soul and pondering life’s big questions.
    -Dave Segal, The Stranger

    Mason inscribes his music with poetic details that reward headphone listening: lonesome guitar, rustles of wind, swelling tones, and keyboards that sound like they’re underwater, blurred by shivering eddies and ripples.
    -Chris Delaurenti, The Stranger

    To me, Mood Organ has this Philip K. Dickian vibe of like some kind of biofeedback machine to make you a better human.
    -Mike Pursley, Foxy Digitalis

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