Natalie Beridze

Natalie "Tusia" Beridze (b. 28 Mar 1979, Tbilisi), formerly known as TBA, is a Georgian experimental electronic music composer, songwriter, and producer. Beridze is a member of Gudrun Gut's open artist collective Monika Werkstatt and Georgian creative laboratory Goslab. She teaches songwriting and music production at the Creative Education Studio-CES. Natalie Beridze is represented by Gabriele Loschelder's agency Media Loca. Beridze began her artistic career in the early 2000s, initially making short films and music videos. Her video for Nikakoi's song Game (2001) won the 2nd prize at the Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen festival. In 2002, Tusia's early solo tracks appeared on 12112977 compilation, and she also sang in a duo with Nika Machaidze/Nikakoi on his debut album 106252 and 12" 59562 released by German label WMFREC. From 2002 to 2008, Beridze worked and lived in Cologne, Germany, where she relocated after landing a record deal with Thomas Brinkmann's label Max Ernst. Tusia adopted a new alias TBA — meaning "Lake" (ტბა) in Georgian and also a common abbreviature "to-be-announced" in English. Her debut album as TBA, 299799 LP (accompanied by a "self-titled" max.E.-CD5 version), came out in 2003. In 2005, Tusia Beridze was one of four musicians featured on the 2x12"/CD compilation in a new series from German label Monika Enterprise, representing Georgia alongside Rosario Bléfari (Argentina), Èglantine Gouzy (France) and Catarina Pratter (Austria). Independent press hailed her as the first female Georgian electronic musician to reach widespread recognition in Europe. She released four more full-length albums at Max Ernst, including 700574 under her minimal techno alias TBA_Empty, and an ambitious 2007 trilogy consisting of a conceptual double album inspired by Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland," Size And Tears, and 1127474 CD. In 2007, Natalie Beridze returned to Tbilisi, Georgia. She released her next CD album 3702625, credited to TBA_Natalie Beridze, on Laboratory Instinct. The next year, Beridze released 2452509 EP on Monika Enterprise, followed by her first full-length album for the label, 2793927 CD, in 2011. In addition to her solo projects, Beridze has collaborated with many renowned artists, including Thomas Brinkmann, Antye Greie-Ripatti (AGF), Gudrun Gut, Greie Gut Fraktion, Jörg Follert (Wechsel Garland), Marcus Schmickler, Nika Machaidze (Nikakoi), Gacha Bakradze, Post Industrial Boys, T.Raumschmiere, and Ryuichi Sakamoto. She also participated in an online "mail art" project, Chain Music, initiated by Ryuichi Sakamoto & David Sylvian. Natalie Beridze wrote soundtracks for several movies, such as Salome Machaidze's "Trigger Tiger" (2006) and "Dima" (2009), or Zaza Rusadze's "A Fold of my Blanket" (2011). Some of her piano compositions were performed by [a2353908]. To date, Natalie Beridze released 11 full-length albums, with her most recent work, 24051653, published by renowned Australian ambient label Room40 in July 2022.