Paul Wirkus
Paul Wirkus, born 1967 in Poland, lives in Cologne. Since the late 90s Wirkus has emerged both as solo performer (electronics, drums) and with several projects ranging from modern improv to minimal electronica. Apart from solo releases such as "Inteletto d'Amore" and "Déformation professionnelle" Wirkus has collaborated live and on CD with musicians of various musical backgrounds, e.g. Barbara Morgenstern and Stefan Schneider (To Rococo Rot) with whom he formed September Collective, Ekkehard Ehlers, and Johannes Frisch (Kammerflimmer Kollektief) who has joined Wirkus in the free jazz trio Wirkus/Trzaska/Frisch. Wirkus is also part of the drummer duo Moretti/Wirkus.
Paul Wirkus has appeared at various renowned festivals such as SONAR, Barcelona; Musiques Volantes, Paris; c/o pop, Cologne; Les Urbaines, Lausanne; Wien Modern, Vienna. His releases have been well received in magazines like The Wire, De:Bug, Spex or Pitchfork, and his solo album "Inteletto d'Amore" was the month's selected CD in The Wire in march 2004. His recent collaboration with Ekkehard Ehlers (Berlin) resulted in the album "Ballads" that was released by Staubgold early 2009.
Furthermore, Wirkus has been expanding his musical activities into multidisciplinary projects in the last years. As a result, he composed music for theatre together with Mikolaj Trzaska for the Schauspielhaus Duesseldorf, performed at Parma's performance festivals, and provided musical accompaniment for the Suhrkamp readings of Andrzej Stasiuk. He has also created a radio play for Czech Radio in Prague.
