Markus Wormstorm
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[edit] Markus Wormstorm: Cape Town electronic / glitch musician
Hailing originally from Pretoria, Markus Wormstorm moved to Cape Town at the age of 19 (2001), where he has risen to be among the city's most prominent electronic musicians.
His musical adventures began at age 12, and he received substantial classical piano training. He soon bored with traditional instruments and began exploring electronic music forms. He graduated from the Pro Arte School of music, art and drama in Pretoria, where he created a number of theatrical writings and won school awards for music and literature.
In Cape Town he met like-minded musicians with whom he could collaborate. The earliest of these collaborations was alongside well-known IDM producer Felix Laband. Together they created ‘Killed by Dwarf’, a series of experiments spawned from jam sessions which unfortunately were never released. In late 2001, Markus was invited by African Dope Records to submit music to their production music libraries. This resulted in a number of minor synchronisation licenses, which Markus quickly spent on hand-making copies of his “album”, which he would hand-out at gigs and to friends. This brought him to the attention of noted rapper/composer/protagonist/satirist Waddy Jones, front man of Johannesburg’s then ruling hip-hop group Max Normal. When Jones summarily disbanded Max Normal in early 2002, he and long-time DJ partner Sibot invited Markus collaborate on Waddy’s ambitious The Constructus Corporation project, which resulted in the enigmatic concept album / graphic novel ‘The Ziggurat’ (ADOPECD009 African Dope Records 2002).
When The Constructus Corporation disbanded in early 2003, Markus and Sibot intensified their collaborations, giving rise to The Real Estate Agents, whos have become a household name on the Cape Town party and live music circuit, and continue to tour South Africa and the world on a regular basis.
Meanwhile, a copy of Markus’s "demo" album had found it's way into the hands of Alex Threadgold; owner of New York-based electronica / IDM label Sound-Ink, which resulted in a 3 album deal for Markus, alongside stablemates M Sayeed of Anti Pop Consortium and MF Doom. Although the release schedule has shifted somewhat from the original plan, his first album for the label, ‘Rachel the Bear’ was eventually released in digital-only format in 2006.
Back in Cape Town, Markus had begun to build a reputation for his unique approach to composition for TV and film. Together with Simon Ringrose (Sibot) and his brother Duncan Ringrose (long-time collaborator and manager of The Constructus Corporation and The Real Estate Agents), he formed the corporate sound design agency ‘SAYTHANKYOU’, which has become a prominent composition and sound design agencies in South Africa, testified by a number of Gold and Silver Loerie Awards for Composition and Sound Design. Markus’s works have provided the soundtrack for ad campaigns for the likes of MetroFM (South Africa's biggest urban music radio station), VR Brandy, Audi, Ford, B.O.E., South African Design Indaba, Nokia and local mobile network CellC.
In December 2004, African Dope Records, in association with management label Sshadoworkss, released Markus’ self-titled debut South African album, bundled as part of the 3CD pack 'The Real Estate Agents' (ADOPECD012 African Dope Records 2004).
Markus is also writer and music producer for The Blackheart Gang - a collective animation artists who create short film stories. The Gang shot to prominence in late 2006 with their film ‘Tale Of How’, which has been touring with Resfest 2007 and has won several animation awards including Chanel Plus – France and a BAFTA – UK.
In 2006, together with vocalist and long-time collaborator Spoek Mathambo, Markus launched a new collaborative music project called Sweat.X which they describe as "Afro-electro". Subsequent to an intensive networking effort on MySpace, Sweat.X signed a deal with the UK label, Citinite, in March 2007 and toured Europe in June/July 2007.
