CH88 IBAN 4V5K 4RD1 1207 0 (previously know as Av Skardi)’s practice incorporates his diverse interest and activities in the fields of language and linguistics, photography, and fine art. Through the sensitivity to concepts and aesthetics that emerges, paired with his uncompromisingly critical personality, Av Skardi’s musical compositions take on the form of a response to contemporary conditions of consumerist platitudes and marketable homogeneity. Drone driven, passionately minimalist, ardently ambient, with a keen historical awareness of modern and experimental music forms, CH88 IBAN 4V5K 4RD1 1207 0 massages these various stimuli into techno. His approach does not isolate itself to any one genre, rather, mixes many, with a penchant for experimentation. Characteristics of his musical productions include multiple repetitions, the use of electronic cello, 4/4, hi-hats, reverbs, echo, and delays. An aesthetics of obsession comes to color his sonic practice, translating into DJ sets that favor acceleration: high speeds that maintain intensity without dealing violence. EBM, techno (deep, acid, contemporary as well as old-school), house, new beat, and rave are registers he moves through and between, juggling what has preceded him with an awareness of today’s current approaches. __________________________ 08.10.2021 Hi everyone, I felt the need to change my DJ name. I felt that ‘Av Skardi’ was becoming too linked to my teenage passion for Scandinavia (lol), my past Berlin life, my past three relationships, that it was connected to so much disappointment and chagrin, and all in all, I always felt more uncomfortable having to bear that name I found no connection to anymore, and that I started to find ridiculous-sounding, since everyone’s been mispronouncing it. Now that clubs are eventually reopening (am I being too optimistic?), that I’ve started a new life, and I’m back on track, with an amazing lover by my side, I wanted to express that through a new nickname that’s not a reminiscence of my teenage angst and young adult’s excesses. This name had to convey something fun, striking, and remarkable, it had to be very Swiss, very unusual, yet in a meme-sque and shockingly ‘contemporary’ way. As highlighted by the Covid-19 pandemic, our lives are more than ever bound to the codes we carry in our pockets and smartphones, let them be IBAN, QR, ID numbers, insurance numbers, etc. used to identify (and track?) us, reducing us to a series of digits, in an effort of dematerialization and dehumanization. This is the dystopian, yet regrettably very actual reality I wanted to point out by changing my DJ name to a pastiche of an IBAN, since the society we live in is going through a paradigm shift imposed by governments because of a virus, and it is happening before our eyes; even so, few seem to be bothered by that. My aim was also to take the piss out of bookers and graphic designers, I’m gonna be honest, and I also wanted to incorporate my previous DJ name in an ironic way (4V 5K4RD1), alongside my postal code (1207) and my birth year (88), all that in the form of a Swiss IBAN code: Hence CH88 IBAN 4V5K 4RD1 1207 0