Gelbart

Gelbart is a self-taught multi-instrumentalist, composer, filmmaker, and author. His lifelong devotion to innovation has so far resulted in more than 20 LPs and EPs (on Joyful Noise, Gagarin Records, and Lo Recordings among others), compositions for live ensembles, numerous award-winning works of vegetable and/or bunny animation, and a sci-fi novel. A dive into Gelbart’s body of work uncovers a bizarre yet wholly consistent world—an absurdist mirror-universe of sound and imagery that fuses the high-brow with the low, and the accessible with the complex. To sidestep the clichéd knob-tweaking of electronica and infuse his shows with band-like energy, Gelbart has developed a signature performance method. He combines synthesizers with guitar, bass clarinet, vocoder, and a self-built blipping machine—often juggling them all at once. Gelbart’s music has been a fixture on WFMU, while his animations graced festivals from London to Japan, and his sci-fi film Vermin was screened at the US Library of Congress. In recent years, Gelbart composed a large-scale, 70-minute work commissioned for a live ensemble at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, as well as a long-form piece for string quartet and electronic voice, performed around the world and back in Berghain in his home town of Berlin. Gelbart’s upcoming solo LP, Liquids and Flesh, will be released on Egglike Records in April 2025.