Bleak 1999

Tomas Jirku’s music was first heard in 1999, when he sent out two demos to (then strictly online label) No Type director David Turgeon, who immediately invited him to join the label. Through a limited CD-R edition of his first web album, Immaterial, his music reaches the ears of Alien8 co-director Gary Worsley, who signs him on the spot. Meanwhile, Tomas had started a very special project on No Type, called Variants: regularly, he uploaded, changed, deleted tracks. All in all, nearly sixty tracks were composed this way. The eponymous disc (on Alien8) features 12 of these tracks and obtained great popular and critical success.

Hot on the heels of Variants, Tomas Jirku was invited to the first edition of Montréal-based festival Mutek, where he opened for the well known German minimalist Thomas Brinkmann. This show was such a success, Tomas was immediately invited to release a CD on the prestigious German label Force Inc: Sequins. This CD was followed with a “reworked” reissue of Immaterial, on new Alien8 sublabel Substractif.

As he became increasingly in demand, Tomas performed in numerous live shows, in Canada and across the world. New music was released on various compilations (Clicks & Cuts 2, The Freest of Radicals, Elektonische Musik Interkontinentale 1 & 2) as well as on many 12” singles. He could also be heard remixing artists such as Process or Electric Company. Finally, he released the Entropy CD for Montréal-based label Intr_version.

The following year was dedicated to collaboration, with a GI Joe Killaz album (a silly gangsta hip-hop project featuring the famous cartoon characters), as well as a more serious project with his accomplice Robin Judge, which yielded the CD Plusism on the Onitor label.

In 2003, Tomas Jirku is finally back on No Type with the long awaited release of Bleak 1999.