Steinbrüchel

Hailing from Zürich, Switzerland, Ralph Steinbrüchel works under the artist name Steinbrüchel and creates experimental electronic music while also engaging in installation art. His output stays largely within the microsound idiom, shaping silence together with minimal tones into abstract sonic forms that recall the approaches of Richard Chartier and Ryoji Ikeda. Since the mid-’90s he has operated under various project titles such as Das Aktuelle Klangstudio and Multiple Magenta Mess, issuing self-released 7-inch discs and LPs from 1995 onward and the CD-R Sinus in 1999. Between 1998 and 1999 he gave his earliest laptop performances in the company of emerging experimental electronica figures from Zürich, Berlin, and Vienna—Byetone, Noto, Pita, and Roger Rotor. The newly founded Domizil imprint took notice and began presenting him in events alongside Rotor, Teleform, and Marcus Maeder. Appearances at New York’s Waveform sound-art gathering and in Paris helped raise his profile, while his installation pieces appeared in New York and Seoul during 2001 and in Los Angeles the following year. The 2002 Domizil release zwischen.raum EP marked his first relatively widely distributed recording and earned that year’s Max Brand Prize, which he shared with Volkmar Klien. Shortly afterward he collaborated with England’s SouRce Research and Cattivo.