tetuzi akiyama/tom carter/christian kiefer: darkened mirror

Tetuzi Akiyama: guitar, electronics, viola, and self-made instrument player. Born in Tokyo, April 13, 1964. Tetuzi Akiyama is a highly unique and experimental guitarist heavily applying free improvisation and noise. Besides guitar, he also plays electronics, viola, and self-made instruments. Akiyama became an enthusiastic hard rock fan when he was 11 years-old, and started playing electric guitar at the age of 13. Later, he also came to be very interested in free improvisation and classical music. Tom Carter: born barely south of the Mason-Dixon line, and just in time for the Summer of Love, Tom Carter led a decidedly non-hippy existence being shuffled around various farm and mining towns in Maryland and Ohio by his newspaperman father, before finally making his way to Texas in 1985, just in time to watch all the good hardcore bands die. Already obsessed with American pre-punk and British post-punk, Carter dove into the lysergically spiked musical waters of Texas with both feet, augmenting rudimentary guitar skills with unreliable instruments, cranky analog electronics, and disintegrating practice amps. Over the ensuing decades, he managed to forge his evolving ideas of complete tonal immersion (and the quest for the perfect fuzz tone) into a layered sonic toolkit of rough beauty and unrefined proficiency. Best known for his work with acclaimed iconoclasts Charalambides, which he co-founded with Christina Carter in 1991. Christian Kiefer: began his life in the arts through a fascination with the written word. This fascination is reflected in a long line of publications. His poetry and fiction have appeared in many of America's most prestigious literary journals. He is the author of three novels, the most recent of which is Out of Iron.