Gelbart

Draft:Gelbart (musician)

User:רועי מנחם מרקוביץ/Draft of article- Gelbart

Gelbart
Birth name	Adi Gelbart
Also known as	AKA Gelbart, The Lonesomes
Genres	Experimental pop Electronic Contemporary classical
Occupation(s)	Musician, composer, animator, author
Labels	Gagarin, Joyful Noise, Egglike, Defekt, Fact
Website	gelbartcorp.com

Gelbart (born Adi Gelbart, 1975) is a Berlin-based composer, multi-instrumentalist, animator, filmmaker, and author. A self-taught artist, he has been releasing and performing music since the early 2000s, working across experimental electronic, jazz, and modern classical styles. He is known for his live multimedia solo performances as well as collaborations with other musicians and ensembles.

Work and methods

Instruments and equipment

Gelbart primarily works with electronic instruments and equipment, including analog and modular synthesizers, preset drum machines, vocoder, tape machines, digital audio software, and custom-built electronics. He builds circuit-bent instruments as well as Arduino-based devices. Gelbart also employs a wide range of acoustic instruments, including bass clarinet, saxophones, trumpet, string instruments, harpsichord, harp, guitar, and drums.

Video, animation, and multimedia

Gelbart creates the videos for most of his music works. He has also produced short films, including Vermin and VISIONS for Orchestra, Electronics and Bunny Theater. He employs techniques such as stop-motion, digital animation, puppetry, and compositing of animated and live-action footage. Both films feature vegetables, with Vermin using them as characters and VISIONS turning them into complete visual environments.

In Gelbart’s live shows, video is an essential component, synchronized in real time with the music and controlled via his synthesizers. The visuals respond directly to his playing, complementing both electronic and acoustic instruments. His setups employ modular interfaces, allowing for dynamic interaction between video and music throughout the set.

Compositional approach and processes

Gelbart works across two distinct modes: self-produced albums in which he performs and records all instruments himself, and notated works for ensembles, combining written parts with electronics and his own performance. Examples of the latter include Poems by Alpha (2019) and The Portal, Finally (2022).

In his choice of instruments, Gelbart combines electronic resources such as synthesizers and computers with acoustic instruments, using the latter to introduce contrasting timbres and textures.

Gelbart’s work includes collaborations with the Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, larger ensembles including a jazz big band, and drummer and artist Ignabu.

Musical style and influences

Gelbart’s music is melody driven and combines elements of experimental electronic music, space-age exotica, 8bit music, early European electronic/concrète traditions, and jazz noir. Critics note a cinematic, surrealist sensibility and a hybrid of analogue synthesis with chamber and jazz instrumentation.

He has stated that he does not feel connected to current trends in experimental or electronic music, noting that much contemporary experimentation focuses on beats and sound design. Gelbart has stated a preference for the style of early electronica and emphasizes broad artistic experimentation.

Key composers and musicians who have influenced him include Olivier Messiaen, Béla Bartók, György Ligeti, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and John Cage on the compositional side, and jazz figures such as Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman and Duke Ellington for his big-band and jazz work.

Gelbart's visual and symbolic influences encompass childhood imagery, stop-motion aesthetics, early science fiction films and literature, surrealism, and plush toy iconography.

Themes

Gelbart frequently incorporates symbolic motifs such as eggs, birds, rabbits, aliens, vegetables, manta rays, sharks, cats, triangles, and pyramids, some of which recur across multiple works to construct mythologies within his compositions and multimedia projects. These motifs are often paired with a contrast between the cold, computational sounds of computers and the warmer, more organic qualities of acoustic instruments and human collaboration, reinforcing the interplay between technology and life.

Discography

Albums

• My Favorite Vacation (2001, Fact Records)
• Four Track Improvisations (2003, Defekt Records)
• Mass Hypnosis by Proxy (2008, Defekt Records)
• Vermin (2013, Gagarin Records)
• Echoville (2015, Full Body Massage Records)
• Preemptive Musical Offerings to Satisfy Our Future Masters (2016, Gagarin Records)
• Egg Ray Test Hits Cow Action (2019, Joyful Noise)
• Music For Living In Magazines (2022, Le Petit Signal)
• Liquids & Flesh (2025, Egglike Records)

EPs

• Dish Washing EP (2001, Fact Records)
• Music for Living in Magazines (2002, Camera Obscura Gallery)
• Tokomon (2002, Fact Records)
• Porky Pig (Standard Oil Records New Music Series, 2004)
• Cops Kill Basketball Playing Creatures Police State 2004 (2004, Defekt Records)
• Ducks Don't Swim In Swamps - Vol. 2 (2005, Ak Duck)

Singles

• The 11th Voyage (2008, Economic Thought)
• Tekno (2012, Gagarin Records)
• Submarine (2012, Defekt Records)
• World War I Hamster Diorama (2014, Defekt Records)
• Music For And Against Egglike (2018, Defekt Records)

Other projects

The Lonesomes

• A Tribute to the Great Outdoors (2003, NMC)
• This is Cow-Fi (2004, LoAF)

AKA Gelbart

• Banjo Tapes (2010, Birdsong)
• Please Please Me (2015, self-released)

Works for Ensembles

Poems by Alpha (2019)

Poems by Alpha is a multimedia composition for string quartet and speech synthesizer, premiered by Ensemble KNM Berlin at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, in 2021. The piece features poems generated by Alpha, a sentient supercomputer character from Gelbart's novel Egglike, whose voice is realized through a custom-programmed speech synthesizer. The work explores themes of artificial intelligence, identity, and the intersection of human and machine creativity. The performance juxtaposes the mechanical voice of Alpha with the expressive capabilities of the string quartet, creating a dialogue between technology and human emotion. The composition later had additional performances, notably at Berghain in Berlin and at Casa del Lago in Mexico City.

The Portal, Finally (2022)

The Portal, Finally is a large-scale composition for a 13-piece ensemble, harp, harpsichord, and electronics, commissioned for the "Cosmic Awakening" festival at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. The piece blends influences from avant-garde jazz, early science fiction film soundtracks, and classical modernism to create a sonic exploration of first contact with another universe. The performance featured a physical triangular screen above the stage, symbolizing the "portal" through which communication with the beyond was imagined.

Filmography

Short films

• Vermin (2013) – sci-fi short animated film which marks Gelbart's first narrative audiovisual work. The film features animated vegetables as characters and explores the concept of first contact with alternative forms of intelligence. Notably, Vermin was screened in the U.S. Library of Congress as part of a symposium on astrobiology. The film’s soundtrack was released on Felix Kubin’s Gagarin Records, who also narrates the film.
• VISIONS for Orchestra, Electronics and Bunny Theater (2021) – a surreal, psycho-spiritual animated film, set on a mystical "planet of bunnies". The film explores themes of time, loneliness, and the illusory nature of reality.

Music Videos

All videos directed and animated by Adi Gelbart

Year	Title	Techniques / Notes
2001	My Favorite Vacation	Digital animation on still photographs, ASCII art
2002	Please Don't Use Drugs	Digitally animated ASCII art
2008	Junk #19	Live action with puppet
2012	Tekno	Digital animation, puppetry
2013	World War I Hamster Diorama	Digital animation over live video
2013	Mass Hypnosis by Magnets (WORM-Studio Version)	Digital video with vegetable puppets
2013	The Device	Stop-motion
2014	The Big Sleep	Compositing of miniatures and digital animation over live-action
2015	Poem Competition	Digital video
2015	Minipops Tune	Live action; camera: Yael Elbee
2016	A New Language Atomic	Digital animation
2018	March of the Thinking Machines	Digital animation over live-action
2025	Weeping Monolith	Stop-motion, puppetry

Books

• Egglike (2018) – Gelbart’s novel Egglike was published by Defekt Books. The story follows a protagonist who wakes up in a surreal, constantly shifting world, encountering bizarre landscapes and figures that challenge their perception of reality. The novel explores themes of identity, transformation, and the boundaries between different types of intelligence. One of the main characters is Alpha, a sentient supercomputer whose persona was later adapted into Gelbart’s musical work Poems by Alpha. The book was accompanied by a 7" vinyl single, Music for and against Egglike.

External links

• Official Website
• YouTube Channel
• Bandcamp
• Gelbart discography at Discogs
• Spotify
• Instagram

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