Markus Nikolai

Born in Frankfurt, Nikolai learned several musical instruments from his grandfather, a conductor, incl. piano, guitar, drums, percussions and, most prominently, accordion. In 1983, Nikolai gave up this instrument and found his first EBM / industrial band Whetzon Churchill. The group performed regularly in Frankfurt area, and played a concert at a small venue No Name, where a legendary weekly Techno Club party was held. Nikolai also started DJ'ing in 1986-87. In 1992, Thomas Franzmann (mostly known as Zip) joined one of Markus' bands Bigod 20 (which also included Front 242 vocalist Jean-Luc De Meyer), and their collaboration ends up being of the most resourceful and symbiotic for the artist. In the mid-nineties, along with graphic artist [a=Chris Rehberger], the trio founded audio-visual project Pile, an experiment in melding music, graphic design, philosophy, film and architecture. In 1997, they released Modern album on Sony / Epic and 2 years later the group toured in Europe as part of Daimler Chrysler futuristic art exhibition Lab 0.1. Later that year, Markus and Zip launched their own label, Perlon.