Norman Ismael Müller (NM) is a sound artist/improviser, music and radio play producer. He runs the Meersburg-based sound art and intermedia studio Soundindex. Recent and upcoming releases include collaborations with Bryan Day (Eloine), Hans-Joachim Irmler (Faust), Josephin Böttger & Felix Kubin, Simon Whetham, Ross Scott-Buccleuch (Diurnal Burdens) and Stefan Krausen.  Productions by or including NM have been released on CD, LP, Lathe Cut, cassette and digitally by labels in the UK, USA, Finland, Belgium, Indonesia and Germany and are available through direct sales and selected retailers. 

Since 2022 he has been an academic staff member for programme development and research, responsible for Trossingen University of Music's masters programme in composition offering pathways AI in "music design", electroacoustic composition and instrumental/vocal composition. He is co-curator and co-moderator of international symposia such as AI in Music: Agency, Performance, Production and Perception (HfM Trossingen, 2023); Stakeholder perspectives from practitioners, industry and academia (ibid., 2025), as well as workshops in the field of electroacoustic improvisation and group improvisation such as Peripheral Techne (AI and Immersive Media Lab Latent Space, VS-Schwenningen, 2024) and Soundindex@DKollektiv (VEWA Espace de Création, Dudelange-Usines, Luxembourg, 2024).

Bio

Born 1982 in Sankt Georgen (Black Forest) to a family of metalworkers with no connection to art or music, NM became involved with electroacoustic improvisation and composition for live electronics via detours and DIY ethos. After completing secondary school, an apprenticeship, and graduating (B.A. Honours, International Management, 2007), he initially worked for over ten years for companies of various industries and sizes, for universities in Germany and the UK, and as a freelance artist. In the late 2010s, he studied MusicDesign with Norbert Schnell at Furtwangen University, completing a part-time M.A. degree in 2021. 

Since 2004, he has been self-taught in developing experimental sound set-ups and methods for sound generation, abstraction, and contextualisation. From 2010, he began presenting this work publicly starting off in Cambridge (UK) with an audiovisual performance (sound collage with live sampling and visuals) under the project name Ypsmael at a finissage (Changing Spaces, 29 June 2010), followed by a shop display window exhibit (art brut/mixed media assemblage) as part of a group exhibition (Independents, 30 September to 14 October 2010), as well as a sound performance (live electronics, textural noise music) in the programme of a concert evening with Dieter Moebius (Cluster; as part of the Bad Timing concert series, 3 November 2010).

In the following years, his solo projects and collaborations expanded to over 200 performances, three self-booked tours in the USA and invitations to concert series and festivals in over ten European countries (alphabetical selection from 2012 onward): Bonner Theaternacht, Bonn (2014), Canessa Gallery, San Francisco (2018), Center for Contemporary Culture and Community, Indianapolis (2012), Coaxial Arts Foundation, Los Angeles (2018), Cornell University, Ithaca (2013), Donauhallen, Donaueschingen (2020), Dortmunder U, Dortmund (2014), Goldsmiths University of London, London (2013), High Desert Soundings, Joshua Tree (2018), Iklectic, London (2016, 2023), SuperCoda, Brooklyn/New York City (2013), Werkstatt für Improvisierte Musik, Bern (2014), Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge (2012), ZKM Center for Art and Media (next_generation), Karlsruhe (2019).

In 2012, NM founded a concert series for improvised music under the project name MaeLyps in London and Cambridge. At the end of 2016, he was one of the founders of the Global Forest 2017 project group in Sankt Georgen, Germany. He was co-initiator and artistic director of Dual Session#1, a symposium for auditory culture at the German Phonomuseum, and a founding member of the Global Forest Kunstverein (art association) and its Klangspiel concert series in 2018. In 2019, he was co-initiator and team member of the Reservoir Festival at the Linachtalsperre (Black Forest) and a founding member of Reservoir e.V. (art association, now part of Global Forest). 

NM has received grants and commissions as a soloist/composer and artistic director, under various project names, from Werkstatt für Improvisierte Musik (short-term residency with two performances for WIM's Zentral-deZentral concert series, Bern, 2014), Global Forest Kunstverein (artist residency, St. Georgen, 2019), StiftungErlebnisKunst (maker workshop and performance for Global Forest, St. Georgen, 2019), STMWK (interdisciplinary performance and production in Munich, 2022-2023, published by Steep Gloss, 2024), and Musikfonds (interdisciplinary performance and production for Reservoir Festival, 2023).

His first short-format radio play, Dein und mein Wald, conceived and realised under the SmaelyP moniker (text by Dominik Irtenkauf), was among the award winners for the best production of the year at Hörspielwiese festival (Cologne, 2022). The Radiophrenia festival presented the English-language version of the play (Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, 2023), as well as its sequel, Dein und mein Meer (2025).