Marcus Schmickler is one of the most versatile sonic architects from Cologne, Germany, a city which has experienced a renaissance in music since the early 1990s. An academically trained pioneer of digital production, Marcus Schmickler has always run his own studio at different spaces in the city — first the Kaspar Hauser Studio in a former warehouse, and then the state-of-the-art chamber he calls Piethopraxis. There he has concocted a number of records, amongst others under his other name Pluramon, as well as a stream of computer compositions and live electronic improvisation.