Kai Wolff (guitars, keys, electronix, comp., turntables) was born in 1967. He plays, improvises and composes music since fourteen and won the first price in the concours "Jugend Jazzt" playing guitar in 1985. He studied piano at the Folkwang School in Essen (1986-88) and Jazzguitar at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam (1988-90). There he became involved with his fellow musicians that later founded the group "Ninsk" and an international free improv scene around musicians such as Tony Buck, Joe Williamson, Rob Armus and Han Bennink who found in the "Binnenpret" a place to perform their musical experiments.
Since 1990 he has been living in Berlin and played in countless projects with Daniel Weaver, Jason Kahn, David Watson, Blaise Siwula, Alex Novitz, Matthias Bauer, Axel Doerner, Ignaz Schick, Aleks Kolkowski, Leonid Soybelman, Mark Sanders and Toshimaru Nakamura just to name a few.
He has been touring regularly through Europe with Ninsk (first price Middelzee Jazztreffen 1993 and North Sea Jazzfestival 1994)... with Tony Buck's hardcore/improv project "astroPERIL" (the euroversion of his
legendary Tokyo based group "PERIL")... and the japanese/german formation "TON".
The noise-ambient duo TON has been formed during his stay in Tokyo in 1999 together with no-input mixing board artist Toshimaru Nakamura. They performed there with (among others): Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M, Tetzui Akiyama, Taku Sugimoto and Junji Hirose. Some of these fruitful performances were released on the cd "The Bar Aoyama improvisational meeting" recorded at the charismatic "Bar Aoyama" in
Shibuya/Tokyo.
TON extended by the canadian doublebass player Joe Williamson has been touring
throughout europe and japan and did some exiting collaboration with the modern dance group "Contact 17" from Hamburg.
He has composed and performed music for a diverse array of international dance and theatre projects and movies. For example he worked with fabrik/Potsdam (1996-98), Telling Times/Northern Ireland (1997), Paramon Theatre/St. Petersburg (1998), Contact 17/Hamburg (1997-2000) and did the filmscore for "Ku'damm Security" by Ed Herzog (DffB 1997), "Frau mit Zeit", "Ladies Nite", "halb acht" , "Die Boxerin" all by Katharina Deus (DffB 1998-2005), "China gibt es nicht" by Katrin Rothe (HdK 98) and parts of "Drei Chinesen mit dem Kontrabass" by Klaus Kraemer (Ikarus/VOX 1999).
Being drawn more and more into the endless and exiting possibilities of electronic programms and samplers (he confesses: "I'm in love with the Ensoniq ASR-10") but combining them with a rather analog approach by using analog mix boards and their lo-fi feedback possibilities he starts exploring the universe of electronics.
Together with his fellow musicians Stevko Busch (on Kurzweil K2000 sampler) and Norbert Scholly (on Reaktor) they formed the project "Box of Toads" in
2002. Box of Toads won the first price in the cologne based musical awards of JazzArt in the category of electronic improvisation in 2002.
The concept of improvising electronic music, rather then programming it, comes from their deep background in improvisation. All being very advanced and experienced jazz/rock/freemusic improvisers, skilled on "real" instruments such as piano and guitar and very experienced in the art of improvising.
After a long association with the Berlin dance music scene he starts working on turntables in 1999 to approach his unique minimalistic and rather experimental techno style as DJ Kai Maan. Kai Maan's dj style covers a great variety of styles and sounds: funky minimalistic techno, haunting minimal house with an ultra deep accent, mysterious techno, strange glitch and electro elements, bouncy dub beats and swirling echo sounds always come along
in the playful flow of his sets.
Kai Maan is constantly seeking for new sounds and ideas. He likes to twist and bend sound into a fresh and fruity mix that keeps the audience on their toes while never getting too experimental as to alienate the dancefloor crowd.
Clubs Berlin:
Tresor/Globus, WMF, Cookies, Maria am Ostbahnhof, Pfefferbank, Subground (resident 1999-2000), Bastard/inter:faces (resident 1999-2001), Deli (resident 2000-2002), tbc bar, Notaufnahme, Hangar, Sternradio, Rosi's, Stereo 33, Cassiopeia, GMT, Zurmoebelfabrik, Haus 13, Bar 25, Badeschiff ...
Gigs outside Berlin:
Dachkantine (Zurich), Douala (Ravensburg), Phonodrome (Hamburg), Fundbuero (Hamburg), Rote Flora (Hamburg), Rhiz (Vienna), Binnenpret (Amsterdam/resident 1998-2000), Paradiso (Amsterdam), Melkweg (Amsterdam), Colmillo (Mexico), Bassu Puebla (Mexico), Naked Dressing Room (Monterrey/Mexico), Depeche Mode Bar Tallinn/Estonia)
Other events and festivals:
Koniginendag 1999 & 2000 (Amsterdam), Love Parade Berlin 1999-2003, meet events 2000-2002, Loveparade Mexico 2004, Streetparade Zurich 2005, Trytone Festival 1999-2004 (Amsterdam), Sensonic Festival Hamburg & Cologne 2001 & 2002, Jazz
Festival 2002 (Copenhague), U-Site Fusion Festival 2002-2004, Dutch Jazz Festival 2004 (Tallinn/Estonia), Jazz Festival 2004 (Riga/Lituenia), Jazz Festival 2004 (Vilnius/Litva), Nation of Gondwana 2005 (near Berlin)
Discography:
2dayis2morrow EP, eintakt 12 (2006)
maan/white EP, eintakt 09 (2005)
Ninsk - ERW rec. 001 (1994)
astroPERIL - Rednote/EFA (1996)
Sisyphos Countdown, Aroma rec. 001 (1998)
The Bar Aoyama Improvisational Meeting, Setreset 002/Tokyo (1999)
Ninsk - Signs and Letters, ERW 003 (2000)
Ninsk - Check Twice, Trytone Rec. (2003)
Orkaan Orkestra - Wintermaerchen/Orkaan Fables, Orkaan Rec. (2004)
