Biography
Active on the Dutch improvised music circuit from the mid-'80s onward, Gert-Jan Prins remained largely overlooked in avant-garde circles until the late '90s, when his participation in MIMEO (Music in Movement Electronic Orchestra) and the appearance of his solo release Live on the German imprint Grob brought wider attention. Comparable to Lionel Marchetti and Xavier Charles, he built his standing as a live improviser chiefly through an unconventional rig that incorporates radios and televisions; by reshaping broadcast signals, adjusting FM frequencies, and pulling clicks, cuts, and noise from open-air transmissions, he fashions textures that are abrasive yet expansive.
Although formally trained as a percussionist, Prins launched his first substantial ensemble, the industrial-free jazz unit Gorgonzola Legs, which issued the sole album Piscatorial Debris in 1988. In 1992 he co-established the label X-OR alongside saxophonist Luc Houtkamp; the pair toured frequently as a duo, later documented on Houtkamp’s The Duo Recordings, and also collaborated in larger configurations that featured European free-improvisation figures such as Johannes Bauer, Misha Mengelberg, and Fred Van Hove. Numerous Prins-led recordings appeared on X-OR throughout the 1990s, yet mounting tensions between the partners culminated in his formal departure from the label in 2001.
During this period Prins gradually consolidated a presence in and around Amsterdam. His debut solo effort, Noise Capture (1998), attracted scant notice, but an invitation to join the multinational group MIMEO accelerated his profile and enabled further artistic growth. Over the ensuing three years he pushed his methods in more extreme directions; the positive reception accorded MIMEO’s Electric Chair + Table, issued by Grob in 2000, directly paved the way for his follow-up solo album on the same respected label. The initial recording from his duo with pianist Cor Fuhler, The Flirts, emerged the next year on the U.S. imprint Erstwhile. A further recurring venture is the trio E-RAX alongside Peter Van Bergen and Thomas Lehn; when Christian Fennesz substituted for Lehn at a 2000 Total Music Meeting performance, the results were later released as Dawn.
Although formally trained as a percussionist, Prins launched his first substantial ensemble, the industrial-free jazz unit Gorgonzola Legs, which issued the sole album Piscatorial Debris in 1988. In 1992 he co-established the label X-OR alongside saxophonist Luc Houtkamp; the pair toured frequently as a duo, later documented on Houtkamp’s The Duo Recordings, and also collaborated in larger configurations that featured European free-improvisation figures such as Johannes Bauer, Misha Mengelberg, and Fred Van Hove. Numerous Prins-led recordings appeared on X-OR throughout the 1990s, yet mounting tensions between the partners culminated in his formal departure from the label in 2001.
During this period Prins gradually consolidated a presence in and around Amsterdam. His debut solo effort, Noise Capture (1998), attracted scant notice, but an invitation to join the multinational group MIMEO accelerated his profile and enabled further artistic growth. Over the ensuing three years he pushed his methods in more extreme directions; the positive reception accorded MIMEO’s Electric Chair + Table, issued by Grob in 2000, directly paved the way for his follow-up solo album on the same respected label. The initial recording from his duo with pianist Cor Fuhler, The Flirts, emerged the next year on the U.S. imprint Erstwhile. A further recurring venture is the trio E-RAX alongside Peter Van Bergen and Thomas Lehn; when Christian Fennesz substituted for Lehn at a 2000 Total Music Meeting performance, the results were later released as Dawn.
Albums