JILL FRASER
Jill Fraser is a composer and electronic music pioneer with a career spanning over 40 years, creating music for films, commercials, games, and, as she puts it, "in the wild" as entertainment. Her deep and ever-evolving curiosity about music as both a scientific and spiritual force comes to life in her forthcoming album, Earthly Pleasures. This project reimagines American revival hymns from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, using early Serge systems alongside modern tools like the Ableton Push 3. More than just creating expressive, personal music, Jill's work contemplates themes of death and the afterlife while considering how today's sources of meaning might be understood by future generations and technologies yet to come.
Jill Fraser set her sights on this creative path early in her career. Mentored by Morton Subotnick and studying with luminaries like Mel Powell and Earle Brown at CalArts, she also attended master classes with influential figures such as John Cage and Lou Harrison. These experiences, combined with her own artistic instincts, shaped her into an expansive and open-eared composer. Her work at Serge Modular in Hollywood further honed her visionary approach to music. In the 1980s, Jill brought modular synthesizers into Hollywood studios to score films, marking a new direction in film composition. Her credits include Personal Best and Cruising (both in collaboration with Jack Nitzsche), as well as *Hardcore* (directed by Paul Schrader). During this time, she was also active in the vibrant Los Angeles punk and spoken word scene, touring with singer Buffy Sainte-Marie and performance artist Ivan E. Roth. She performed modular synth sets opening for acts like The Minutemen and Henry Rollins, and in 1988, released the CD *Alphabetical Disorders* with Ivan on the electronic label Periodic Music.
Throughout her career, Jill Fraser has composed both electronic and acoustic music for hundreds of TV commercials, working with major brands like Lexus, BMW, Honda, Porsche, Nissan, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Mattel, Carl’s Jr., NBC, Apple, Adidas, Estee Lauder, Baskin Robbins, Yamaha Motorcycles, and many others. She has won three Clio Awards for original music and is a voting member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. In 2018, she wrote and performed music with the Zzyzx Society. Currently, Jill performs live with re:VOLT and her new album Earthly Pleasures is available on Drag City Records.
peter grenader
Peter Grenader has an enduring history in electronic music. Studying composition at CalArts under Morton Subotnick, his works have been performed across the United States and Europe. His discography includes Secret Life (2013) on Coda Recordings, zZyzx Society with Jill Fraser, featuring Danny Carey, Chas Smith, and Thighpaulsandra (2018) on ZSR Records, Patch CV Two (2018) on Organic Records, Tool’s Fear Inoculum (2019) on RCA Records, and two albums with POV featuring Steve Roach, Theo Travis, Thighpaulsandra, Martin Shellard (2019/2020) distributed by Roach’s Timeroom Records.
He was a featured composer at the 17th American Composer’s Forum Salon in Venice. His Electrolux earned recognition by winning the Periòdic Music Festival in Barcelona, Spain. His work has also been showcased at numerous other festivals, including the SEAMUS National Conference, the University of North Texas, CalArts, Stony Brook University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Texas at Austin, Georgia State University's Pulse Field, the Florida Electro-Acoustic Music Festival, the 2003 Electric Rainbow Coalition Festival at Dartmouth, the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht, Holland, two wins at the Virginia Commonwealth University Music Festival, and three performances at the Los Angeles Sonic Odyssey.
Collaborations with fellow creatives include Analoglive! along with film composer Gary Chang, Nine Inch Nails keyboardist Alessandro Cortini, Richard Devine, composer and instrument designer Chas Smith, Thighpaulsandra (of Coil and Spiritualized) and video artist Paul Tzanetopoulos at the Redcat Theater in Los Angeles. Other notable collaborations include zZyzx Society, The Third Ear, POV featuring Steve Roach, and several performances with re:VOLT at The Lab in San Fransisco, The Philosophical Research Society and 2220 Arts + Archives in Los Angeles.
He was featured on David Elliot’s 2018 synthesis documentary series Patch CV: Controlling Voltage. For the past 13 years he has served as the instrument and sound designer for the progressive metal band Tool and earned an RIAA gold record for his work on their album Fear Inoculum. A past member of the SEAMUS board of directors, he is the founder and primary designer for Electro-Acoustic Research (EAR) and Plan B Synthesizers.
thomas klepper
Thomas Klepper is a Los Angeles based sitarist and student of Etawah Gharana with renoun sitar master Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan, DJ, soundbath artist, producer and electronic musician who has released records under the aliases Romeo, LoTom, Rinpoche and Thomas K for the Association of Masks label. He has performed at Burning Man, the Disclosure Festival, Music For Dancers and The Higley Center for the Performing Arts among others.
He is the host of the Library of Sounds show for Dublab Radio and aims to create thought-provoking music that is rooted in tradition while at the same time paving the way into the future.