Gert-Jan Prins

Born 1961 in Ijmuiden, Netherlands, Gert-Jan Prins has been known for twenty years as one of the most challenging Dutch sound artists and established himself as one of the central performers on European improvised electronics scene. His unique self-developed live-electronics make use of radio and transmitter technology and create sounds with great physical energy. Starting off as a rock drummer, Prins continued as an improviser, later re-emerging as a master of self-made electronic machines in the mid-90's. He focuses on percussive and environmental noise creating a music that's characterized by pure rawness in volume and sound, but also utilizing subtlety in color through specific use of scraping, rasping and other noise sounds. Besides being one of the Vacuum Boys, he also released a number of solo and collaborative albums with Cor Fuhler, Domenico Sciajno, Tomas Korber, Anla Courtis and others on GROB, Erstwhile Records, Editions Mego and other highly acclaimed labels. He was also a co-founder of X-OR label in 1990, which ten year later went on without him, led by Luc Houtkamp and Wiek Hijmans. Prins had a number of projects with fellow artists, including E-RAX (with Thomas Lehn and Peter van Bergen), The Flirts (with Cor Fuhler) and others. G-J Prins also played with Lee Ranaldo, Peter Rehberg, Fennesz, Anne la Berge, Misha Mengelberg and Luc Houtkamp, as well as being a member of MIMEO ensemble.