John Sellekaers is a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

-born

musician A musician is someone who Composer, composes, Conducting, conducts, or Performing arts#Performers, performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general Terminology, term used to designate a person who fol ...

and

audio mastering Mastering is a form of audio post production which is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device called a master recording, the source from which all copies will ...

engineer. Born in 1973 in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

he later moved to

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

. Beginning with his project Xingu Hill in the 1990s, he has released over 60 records under various aliases such as Night Sky Pulse, Feral Cities, Meeple, and Dead Hollywood Stars on labels such as Ant-Zen, Hymen Records, Nova Zembla and

Disques Hushush Disques Hushush Inc. (also known as Disques Hushush or more simply as Hushush) is an independent record label created by Dimitri della Faille (aka recording artist Szkieve) in Montreal (Quebec), Canada in 1998 in music, 1998. Hushush mainly releas ...

. His style ranges from

experimental music Experimental music is a general label for any music or music genre that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions. Experimental compositional practice is defined broadly by exploratory sensibilities radically opposed to, and questioning of, ...

electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mos ...

Biography

Around 1988, under the influence of electronic music pioneers such as Cabaret Voltaire and

Tangerine Dream Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music band founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The group has seen many personnel changes over the years, with Froese the only constant member until his death in January 2015. The best-known lineup of the grou ...

, he began experimenting with

synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

s. Later, in the early nineties, he started a magazine devoted to

underground culture Underground culture, or simply underground, is a term to describe various alternative cultures which either consider themselves different from the mainstream of society and culture, or are considered so by others. The word "underground" is used ...

entitled "Noyade mécanique" (for Mechanical drowning). Other contributors for this magazine included Belgian artists such as Olivier Moreau and Seal Phüric. Besides his main incarnation, Xingu Hill, Sellekaers has recorded under several aliases and in numerous collaborations. These include Dead Hollywood Stars, Urawa, The Missing Ensemble, Uncotones, Ambre, Moonsanto, Ammo, and Torsion. He has collaborated with artists such as Mick Harris (of Scorn), David Thrussell (of Snog and Black Lung), Olivier Moreau (of Imminent), Séba Dolimont (of Aïboforcen), C-drik Fermont, Silk Saw, and Mathis Mootz (of

Panacea In Greek mythology and religion, Panacea (Greek ''Πανάκεια'', Panakeia), a goddess of universal remedy, was the daughter of Asclepius and Epione. Mythology Panacea and her four sisters each performed a facet of Apollo's art: * Panac ...

). During his career, John Sellekaers has extensively played live in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

and

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

. Since 1998 he has owned and operated the Metarc mastering studio, currently located in Montreal. Despite having released music under a number of monikers over the years, he didn't release music under his own name until 2019 with the release of ''Residual Broadcast'', which was followed by releases in 2021 of ''Observer Effect'' on Glacial Movements and ''Foilum'' on the Oreille Gardee label. His more recent works trend towards ambient and atmospheric soundscapes, infused with elements of

field recording Field recording is the production of audio recordings outside recording studios, and the term applies to recordings of both natural and human-produced sounds. It can also include the recording of electromagnetic fields or vibrations using diff ...

Xingu Hill

His first project, Xingu Hill, began circa 1994 when the Belgian underground

techno Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempos being in the range from 120 to 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time ( ) and often ...

, ambient and IDM record label Nova Zembla signed Sellekaers for three albums. 1995 saw the release of his first album as Xingu Hill, ''Maps Of The Impossible''. The remainder of the three-album deal included ''(Fiction)'' (1996) and ''Relay'' (1997). In 1999, Xingu Hill released ''Alterity'' on the Ant-Zen label imprint, Hymen Records. The same year, Ant-Zen released ''The Andronechron Incident'', a collaboration between Xingu Hill and Black Lung, as a limited 10" vinyl with a subsequent CD release in 2002. In 2005, Xingu Hill and Austin, TX, band Tamarin collaborated with former BYU professor

Brian Evenson Brian Evenson (born August 12, 1966) is an American academic and writer of both literary fiction and popular fiction, some of the latter being published under B. K. Evenson. His fiction is often described as literary minimalism, but also draws ins ...

on the soundtrack and spoken word interpretation of Evenson's fiction work ''Altmann's Tongue'', also released on Ant-Zen. In 2021, Xingu Hill released a retrospective compilation entitled ''Strange Echoes 95 — 99''. In 2023, Xingu Hill released ''Grigri Pavilion'', the first new material in 20 years.

Moonsanto

Moonsanto is an

and political project by Sellekaers, C-drik Fermont, Gabriel Séverin and Marc Mœdea. Active since 2000, Moonsanto can be called an industrial supergroup as it consist of members of Xingu Hill, Dead Hollywood Stars, Silk Saw and Ammo. Moonsanto's first full-length release is called ''Fraud Hell Dope''. It is in fact a play on words about

Monsanto Company The Monsanto Company () was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901 and headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto's best-known product is Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide, developed in ...

's motto, "Food Health Hope". It is a multinational company active in the

genetic engineering Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification or genetic manipulation, is the modification and manipulation of an organism's genes using technology. It is a set of Genetic engineering techniques, technologies used to change the genet ...

market.

Discography

As John Sellekaers

* ''Residual Broadcast'' (2019) Cass; Oreille Gardée * ''Machines Inutiles'' (2019) Cass, Falt * ''Isolation Postcard'' (2020) Digital; Self-released * ''Observer Effect'' (2021) CD, Digital; Glacial Movements Records * ''Folium'' (2021) Cass, Digital; Oreille Gardée * ''Approaches'' (2021) Cass, Digital; Falt * ''What Happens at Night'' (2022) Digital; Self-released * ''Phaenomena'' (2024) Digital; Self-released * ''Territoires Anonymes'' (2024) Digital; Falt

With Patrick Graham

* ''Lacuna'' (2019) Digital; Parenthèses Records * ''Innerland'' (2019) Digital; Parenthèses Records * ''Unnatural'' (2020) CD, Digital; Parenthèses Records * ''Next of Kin'' (2020) Digital; Parenthèses Records

As Concrete Garden

* ''Furtive'' (2020) Digital; Self-released * ''In A Sealed Box'' (2020) Digital; Self-released * "Vénéneux" (2020) Digital; Self-released * ''Magnetic Dawn'' (2020) Digital; Self-released * ''2:55 AM'' (2020) Digital; Drunken Forest * ''On Vanishing'' (2022) Digital; Drunken Forest

As Feral Cities

* "Remote" (2019) Digital; Self-released * ''Near Strangers'' (2019) Digital; Self-released * ''Unconscious Places'' (2020) Digital; Self-released * ''Slow Light'' (2020) Digital; Self-released * ''Arcs & Layers'' (2021) Digital; Fallen Moon Recordings * ''Double Shadow'' (2022) Digital; Heol Ddu

As Meeple

* ''Temporary Fantasy, Pt. 1'' (2019) Digital; Self-released * ''Temporary Fantasy, Pt. 2'' (2019) Digital; Self-released * ''Modern Cosmonautics'' (2020) Digital; Self-released * ''Micronations'' (2021) Digital; Drunken Forest * ''Diagrams'' (2022) Digital; Drunken Forest * ''Citadel'' (2022) Digital; Self-released * ''Polychromatic'' (2024) Digital; Self-released * ''In Unfamiliar Ways'' (2024) Digital; Self-released * ''Across the Continent'' (2024) Digital; Self-released

As Nicolas Hall

* ''At Nightfall'' (2022) Digital; Self-released * ''Sea Cave'' (2022) Digital; Self-released * ''Ebb'' (2022) Digital; Self-released * ''Instant Future, Pt 1.'' (2023) Digital; Self-released * ''Instant Future, Pt 2.'' (2023) Digital; Self-released * "Magnetic Midnight" (2023) Digital; Self-released

As Night Sky Pulse

* ''Arcana'' (2019) Digital; Self-released * ''The Hive'' (2019) Digital; Self-released * ''Habitat'' (2019) Digital; Self-released * ''No One We Know'' (2019) Digital; Self-released * ''Sole Witness'' (2020) Digital; Drunken Forest * ''Metamorphic'' (2020) Digital; Drunken Forest * ''These Possible Lives'' (2021) Digital; See Blue Audio * ''Superlunar Lounge'' (2022) Digital; See Blue Audio * ''Chromosphere'' (2024) Digital; Adventurous Music

As Tuttle & Buttle

* ''Fourth Wall'' (2022) Digital; Self-released * ''Offworld'' (2022) Digital; Self-released * ''Velvet Night Valley'' (2022) Digital; Self-released * ''Sun Echoes'' (2022) Digital; Self-released * ''Telltale'' (2022) Digital; Self-released * ''Airglow'' (2022) Digital; Self-released

As Xingu Hill

* ''Maps of the Imposible'' (1995) CD, LP; Nova Zembla * ''(Fiction)'' (1996) CD, LP; Nova Zembla * ''Relay'' (1997) CD; Nova Zembla * ''Alterity'' (1999) CD, Hymen Records * ''The Andronechron Incident'' (with Black Lung) (1999) 10" (2002) CD; Ant-Zen * ''16 Bit Golem'' (2003) 7"; Mirex * ''Altmann's Tongue'' (with Tamarin and Brian Evenson) (2005) CD; Ant-Zen * ''Archives (1995-1997)'' (2020) Compilation, Digital; Self-released * ''Strange Echoes 95 — 99'' (2021) Compilation, Digital, LP; Traumgarten * ''Grigri Pavilion'' (2023) LP, Digital; Subexotic Records

References

External links

John Sellekaers website

Villa Cyclope (John's photo project)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sellekaers, John 1973 births Canadian electronic musicians Living people Musicians from Montreal