Skip to main content

Bernard Xolotl Biography

bernard-xolotl
  • Born: in France
  • Years Active: 1970s-1990s
  • Genre: Dance & Electronic

Electronic composer Bernard Xolotl was born in France in 1951. As a teen, he was introduced to electronic music through the works of musique concrète composers like Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer, although he found the early recordings of Pink Floyd to be much more inspirational; he left home at age 17 to travel the world, along the way befriending figures including Klaus Schulze, Terry Riley, La Monte Young and Manuel Goettsching. During the early 1970s Xolotl began creating music of his own, working in studios across Europe and the U.S. before settling in California in 1974; there he slowly built his own studio, two years later making his recorded debut with Music by Xolotl. Journey to an Oracle, a collaboration with Bernard Largounez and Jean Baptiste Barriere, followed in 1978, while for 1980's ProphecyXolotl teamed with Cyrille Verdeaux. Return of the Golden Mean followed, and in 1983 he completed work on Procession; with Last Wave, Xolotl -- long associated with his work on the guitar synthesizer -- expanded his musical palette to introduce the Yamaha CS60, the PPG Wave 2.2, the Korg Monopoly, the Pro-One, the ARP Sequencer and vocoder. After a long absence from recording, he resurfaced in 1991 with Mexecho; Tristany followed in 1997. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi

Advertisement