Thomas Ankersmit

Thomas Ankersmit (born 1979, Leiden, Netherlands) is a musician and installation artist based in Berlin and Amsterdam. Initially an improvising saxophonist, his activities expanded to include live electronic music and installation pieces based on architectural acoustics and infrasound. He has been performing solo and in collaboration with other artists such as New York minimalist Phill Niblock, Kevin Drumm, Jim O'Rourke, Gert-Jan Prins, Borbetomagus and Alvin Lucier since 1998. Since 2003, Ankersmit most frequently collaborates with Niblock and electroacoustic improviser Valerio Tricoli.
His saxophone work focusses on the abstract, timbral extremes of the instrument, combining sustained streams of intense multiphonic sound with acoustically amplified micro-events occurring inside the instrument.

His electronic music combines realtime performance on analogue modular synthesizers with digital editing and multitrack recording.
Often working closely with engineers and scientists, his recent performances incorporate a Serge modular synthesizer and a computer with prototype directional loudspeakers to create spots and corridors of sound and silence in three-dimensional space.

Ankersmit's first full length solo CD was released by Touch subsidiary Ash International in summer 2010. His other releases include a 3" solo CD, a CD-R with guest contributions by Kevin Drumm and a split LP with Jim O'Rourke.

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