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PNFA is now friends with Joe Eskimo and Ru1

February 28

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PNFA is the creative audio and video output of Wolfram Gruss's mind. He was born on July 07.07.1980 in Wasserlos, Bavaria, Germany which is an insignificant 3000 inhabitants village near Frankfurt - the financial centre of Europe and also the place where a person called Andreas Tomalla invented in 1982 the word techno to describe a couple of electronic music styles while working and sorting vinyls in a record store. Right when techno slowly developed into the type of independent music, that it still is these days, Wolfram became incredibly obsessed by the thought of creating his own compositions, after hearing the first releases on the radio. At the age of nine he started taping every bit of electronic music and created his own remixes just with a double cassette recorder. Meanwhile Andreas Tomalla became Talla 2XLC and together with Tillmann Uhrmacher he lead through the Mainz based radio show "Maximal" which was a pioneer project in Germany and the only source for him to listen to this new, exciting underground music. Wolfram spent uncountable hours of listening and taping and labelling the tapes and anxiously waiting for the following Friday evening when the next volume was aired. The only way he could do his own music was by playing on the piano in the house as well as on a half finished organ his dad constructed himself. He loved the sound of it because it just had saw tooth waves and some filter switches which made it almost sound like the rhythmic noises that were aired so rarely at that time. This way he also taught himself how to play the keys.
The popularity of techno increased dramatically soon and it became a fashion to split it up into sub categories like trance or ridiculous sub sub categories like piano trance which is when in 1992 he bought a used Commodore Amiga 500 from a friend for 400 Deutschmarks and on one of the hundreds of 3,5 software inch disks labelled "Amiga Apetizers" a simple composing software was stored. This finally opened up a real possibility for Wolfram to let out the so long collected ideas. His first attempts disappointed him massively though. On the one hand it was of course the fault of 8 bit sound quality and only two stereo channels which he used as 4 mono channels, the limited choice of sounds and the dullness of the software, but on the other hand he would have never expected that it is so much work and so difficult to produce music. Instead of giving it up he became even more crazy about it and bought himself a tiny sound cartridge for his Amiga that allowed him to record his own samples and switched to a tracker software called "Pro Tracker". That was a highly complicated thing because it was only numbers and hexadecimal codes, since these kind of tools were originally created for programmers to add music to computer games. His strong will helped him with ideas of how to get really the best possible sound out of the still little possibilities and soon the first tracks that did not have to hide behind professional productions were recorded on cassettes and spread among his friends as well as given to the DJ of the only disco in the area.
Still being kind of isolated by living in the country, he was 14 when he first learned about affordable real studio equipment. He started working as a paperboy for a whole year saving every penny until he was able to afford his first synthesizer, a Yamaha CS1x - a machine made for techno. Again the limited polyphony and especially the fact that it did not sound like a Roland TB 303 - it was the acid wave at that time - were not quite satisfying. This for he kept going and tweaking and combined it with the beats of his Amiga software creating a huge amount of trance tracks that still do not have to hide.
At the same time techno became too popular and this for nothing special anymore and bored him. Since all of a sudden there was Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers he began experimenting with break- and hiphop beats. After having worked as an assistant

Hometown:

Darmstadt, Germany

Personal Website:

http://www.pnfa.net

Portfolio Site:

http://www.pnfa.net

Favorite Films:

Serenity, Tideland, Vidocq, The Last Tide, Robotic Angel, Kaena - The Prophecy, Old Boy, Miller's Crossing, Alien, La Haine, Ali Zaoua - Prince de la Rue, Save the Green Planet, Snatch, The Eye, Adam's Apples, A Tale of Two Sisters, Bystanders...

Favorite TV Shows:

Heroes, Lost, Star Trek, Simpsons, Futurama, Robot Chicken...

Favorite Comics:

Ghost World, Oink - Heavens Butcher, Strangehaven, Sandman, Obsidian Butterfly, Kabuki,...

Favorite Books:

Carlos Riuz-Zafon - Shadow of the Wind, Telephonebook....

Favorite Music:

Amon Tobin, Prefuse 73, James Holden, Makai, Fauna Flash, Timo Maas, Future Sound of London, Panacea, Phoneheads, Goldie, Ed Rush and Optical, Noisia, Nightmares on Wax, The Crystal Method, Portishead, Future Sound of London, Thievery Corporation, Solar Moon System, UNKLE, Summit, Omni Trio, Yello, Tricky, Massive Attack, Squarepusher, Mono, Mr, Scruff, Dj Shadow, Adam F, The Cinematic Orchestra, Journeyman, 9Lazy9, Pest, Dj Friction, Josh Wink, System 7, Autechre, Aphex Twin, Terminalhead, Bonobo, A Forest Mighty Black, Air, Adham Shaikh, Quantic, Talvin Singh, Klute, Teebee, Four Tet, Kid Loco, Minus 8, Funkstoerung, Japanese Seizure Robots, Oozish, Roots Manuva, Tosca, Badmarsh & Shri, Blockhead, Dillinja, Jazzanova, Nils Petter Molvaer, Sofa Surfers, Yonderboy, Venetian Snares, Calibre, Jaga Jazzist, Kid Koala, Red Snapper, Kraak and Smaak, Mampi Swift, Exocet, Kosheen, Dom and Roland, Calyx, 4 Hero, Visit Venus, Dj Vadim, Dj Krush, Waxolutionists, Up Bustle & Out, Technical Itch, Sixtoo, The Advent, Dj Krust, Photek, Fathless, Roni Size, Nathan Fake, Morcheeba, LTJ Bukem, Lamb, Peace Orchestra, Kid 606, Hefner, Groove Armada, Gotan Project, Ian Pooley, Dj Cam, Cornelius, Boozoo Bajou, Benny Benassi, Beck, Dj Wildchild, Patife, Shantel, Terra Nova, the sound made by an air conditioner, the voices in my basement, the prophets in my dreams...and every other sound made by man using a machine.

Favorite Robots:

Nr 5, Maximillian...

PNFA's Videos

Flashbaxx - Changing Tides (2008)

Added by PNFA
Flashbaxx - Jack of all Trades (2008)

Added by PNFA
Danger Case Trailer (2008)

Added by PNFA

PNFA's Blog

Crushed by Velvet on Merging Records Mixtape A

The incredible collaboration between PNFA and Japanese Seizure Robots from Austin, Texas, USA is now available as part of the compilation Merging Mixtape A published and distributed by Merging Records (http://www.merging-records.de/). It is an online compilation available on any major mp3 store (Itunes etc.). There are tons of other tracks by very talented triphop and electronica artists in the mix. So check it out. Crushed is also directly available from my website http://www.pnfa.net/ (paypal… Continue

Posted on March 7, 2008 at 5:59pm —

The Janitor on French Video DVD Compilation "Le Cube Nr. 2" of the Talents label

I'm happy to announce that my animated shortfilm "The Janitor" is being released as part of the next special edition DVD compilation of the art label Talents in collaboration with the French digital art house LeCube. It is especially composed for the "Cube Festival" with the theme of urban future. The festival will take place in the town centre of Issy-Les- Moulineaux from June 3rd to June 8th 2008. This is also the release date of the DVD. Find out more about the Talents label at:

http://www.t… Continue

Posted on March 7, 2008 at 5:07pm —

The Janitor as Part of the latest Sabotace.tv podcast

Again news about the "Janitor": My little animated short movie is being featured on the latest issue of the German video Podcast Sabotace.tv. That's a really cool internet TV channel created by 3 very engaged students, who run the show among a couple of helpers out of pure idealism. Find out more about sabotace.tv and watch the latest podcast at http://www.sabotace.tv

Posted on March 5, 2008 at 5:00pm —

The Janitor screening at the M Bar in Los Angeles, California, USA on March 6th 2008

The just founded arts and entertainment company Slope Entertainment from Los Angeles honors me with a screening of my animated short "The Janitor" among other short films during their first event called "Sloped" at the M Bar, 1253 North Vine Street, Hollywood, California.Open doors after 10pm. So if you're around and in the mood for some cool music and films, don't hesitate and go!

Find out more at http://www.slopeentertainment.com or watch the movie for free here or at http://www.pnfa.net

Posted on March 1, 2008 at 4:30pm —

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