Grounded Circle is the pseudonym of Elliot Little, a music student completing his final year at Newcastle University in 2006. He creates emotive, intricate and melodic Electronica on his computer, cross fertilizing compositional techniques of established composers with contemporary influences.

Elliot gained a grounding in instrumentation and rhythmical techniques whilst playing guitar, trumpet and drums in local groups around the Norfolk area. This education seems to have served him well for the migration into the purely digital domain.

Describing his music as "electronica that takes on minimalist principles" we can hear a melting pot of conceptual ideas within modern forms and structures. Elliot's interest in composers such as Steve Reich, Stockhausen and John Cage permeates his sound without the results becoming purely conceptual, the balance appears to be just right.

Elliot plays live around Newcastle in the Grounded Circle incarnation as well as being active in project called The Creatures of Conditioned Reflex. This group use live sampling of vocalisations and beatboxing as the source for their material for their compositions.

HAL really epitomises the whole polymorphic ethos. It has always been a strong belief of the folk down here that much of electronic music is far too segregated. HAL absorbs the myriad of sound available and uses these disparate sources to weave sonic textures of his own. There are very apparent influences coming through some tracks but also enough variety and contrast to keep things sounding fresh . Too much dance music is scene based and people become too used to hearing things in a very particular manner. One of the key goals here seems to be to introduce cross fertilisation and appeal to heads and feet alike on numerous levels.

Hyperlanguage, an art installation and recording project founded by Si_Comm, & S.E.T.I. and now joined by N-Spaces will present a live, improvised installment at Netaudio 06.

Baz Nichols

Level & Si_Comm are projects by Baz Nichols. Level is, for want of a better description, a minimal project which experiments with traditional ideas of composition, and “deconstructs” sounds in order to create something very different. Recent releases on the Polymorphic netlabel and Spekk in Japan. Si_Comm retains the minimalist ethic, but translates this into hard digital manipulation. Following on from previous installation work, this project aims to unify concepts of sound, pattern, mathematics and evolution into an experimental platform. Of equal concern to both these projects and equivalent importance as the musical element is the networks created as a result of its dissemination, and how these networks can be usefully engineered to spread ideas, and ignite collaboration.

Andrew Lagowski

Andrew Lagowski (S.E.T.I.) has been recording and releasing electronic music since 1982, under the names Lagowski, S.E.T.I., Nagamatzu and Legion and in collaboration with Lustmord, Terror Against Terror, Si_COMM and Isolrubin B.K. As S.E.T.I. he has performed live in Aarhus Planetarium in Denmark, St. Paul’s Church, Opwijk (Belgium), the Phonotaktik Festival (Vienna Planetarium) and at Ten Weyngaert, Brussels, alongside Fennesz, as well as in Germany on several occasions.
“S.E.T.I.’s quest for capturing unknown intelligence is one of virtuous discourse and unbridled exploration.” – IglooMagazine/T.J. Norris.

Paul Wilson

Paul Wilson (N-Spaces) is a designer, creating typographies of both sound and place: where databending collides with visual/verbal language and where alphabetic and linguistic rules and principles are applied as strategies for the creation, organisation and manipulation of sound and sonic artefacts. Letterforms are reprocessed into sound and broken. All manner of sound-texts are created. Sonic typefaces are designed and words, phrases and sentences are written as sound.

In 2006, Paul Wilson has been commissioned to transform a year’s worth of Wire magazine covers into a twelve-minute sound-text; presented an installation sonically and visually reprocessing the cover to The Fall’s ‘Twenty Seven Points’ LP as part of the Paintwork exhibition in Berlin, and performed a live online a/v mix based on the extreme environment of the former atomic weapons research establishment at Orford Ness for the Furtherfield organisation, as part of their ‘Month of Sundays’ programme.

Level served an apprenticeship writing and reviewing for many of the underground magazines of the late 80's and 90's (Empty Quarter, EST, Immerse, Noisegate, Resonance Sound Projector, Overload). He instigated the now infamous "Pushing Against The Wire" arts festival which led to a collaborative project called ECM:323, a multimedia installation showcased at Sonar (97 & 99), the ICA, South London Gallery and the Royal Society Of British Sculptors.

Be sure to check out the SETI & SI_COMM release - PROBE on Vivo records. More info can be found on the SI_COMM blog or over at his myspace area.

Level's sound is ultra minimal, subtly shifting electronic pulse data interspersed with a highly organic warmth. A much welcome addition to the Polymorphic roster.

The Q-work sound is a mixture of abrasive beats and harmonies. The sound is raw and the vibe is heavy.. The jukebox tracks are from around 2000 and range from broken-beat, tech influenced thrillers to reflective jazz tinged numbers and swirly, looping syncopated synth patterns. Enjoy :)

Sébastien Biset, historian of art and musician from Belgium, created Sepia Hours in 2004, with a first Ep on the Belgian netlabel Sundays in Spring. After a second release on SiS, the artist has been populating other netlabels with a few releases on Social Fashion Records (Belgium, 2005), Beat is Murder (Austria, 2006) and, now, Polymorphic (England, 2006).

Sébastien has to centre all his ideas and desires into different pieces without falling back on the too brazen sound impulses that do not contribute to a coherent whole. Sepia Hours is an indietronica, experimental and post-modern songwriting, an emphasis on fragmented forms, discontinuous narratives, and random-seeming collages of different materials. It appears that research on the voice had come to a dispersion of the words in certain pieces. Words become echoes, they appear and disappear again, the voice always somewhere between singing and whisper mixed with the guitar airs and electronic lines. His blurry low key vocals wander through some interesting soundscapes created from gently slipping amalgams of guitar lines, splintered minimalism and the odd unexpected sonic detour. The mood is not however dark, but rather calm and peaceful.The landscape of sound is very serene. Dreamy vocals and ambient grooves, layers and melodies continue to appear, a series of interconnecting lines move with the waves of music. Harmonies and playful quality made it accessible… Between instrumental minimalism, indie songs, experimentation and electronics, whispers and veiled samplers, between attempts and unavoidable errors, sounds investigations try to come as pure organic material.

Sébastien Biset is also active in the platform Social Fashion Records (netlabel, performances, exhibitions, etc.) which promote music and art in margin of the practices of listening, while widening this field with a broader reflexion on our contemporary culture, its problems and directions.

Lee has been involved in audio / visual art for around 15 years spanning the multiple disciplines of composition, graffiti, design and djing. He has a keen ear for experimentation which is fully explored through this project, aimed squarely at the deepest core of the psyche. Lee has also previously collaborated in the Counter Convention project contributing to some of the output included on the site.

The project was conceived after many studio sessions deemed too rigorous to be fun ! One of the challenges for group involvement in the electronic sphere is to maintain a level of spontaneity and participation from all the individuals involved. It was to this end that it was decided to just load up sounds and leave that DAT running... Hopefully this collaboration will lead to more output in the near future.

The music is based on the concept of a story where a magical flower absorbs all the energy released by an atomic catastrophe and transforms the energy back into good. The Flower makes new seeds which turn into a multitude of great things. The Flower also generates music.

This is what they try to convey.

They play once a month at a small tea shop in the Southside of Glasgow called Tchai Ovna.