Dear friends,
my name is Richard Gurtler and I am saying hello to you from Bratislava in Slovak Republic, Europe!!! I am quite new to this forum (member since August 2008), but nevertheless I would like to introduce myself. I am turning in four days 43 years and I am absolutely fascinated by ambient music. I have been listening to the electronic music since 1983, but during these early years I was into other genres, like electro-industrial, ebm... Since 1992 to 1995 I was also one of the publishers and reviewers of English written electrozine called Crewzine and until 1998 I was running also a small mail-order catalogue with related music. The turning point came around 1995 when I have discovered through Fathom/HoS and Projekt labels names like Steve Roach, Robert Rich, Michael Stearns and Vidna Obmana. My search was finally over!!!
In my real life, I live since 1996 with my lovely girlfriend Simona together with her son Daniel (21 years old) and her daughter Veronika (17 years old). We know each other since our high school years. During the season (from March till December) I work as service technician for irrigation lawn sprinkler systems. During the winter time I have part-time job in one of Bratislava's theatres (Studio L&S) where I work as podium technician (building the scenes...) plus some occasional work with scanning lights. Simona works as a teacher (2nd grade in elementary school). We enjoy sporting activities (especially inline and ice skating), watching sports, hiking, taking photographs of nature, good food and good beer (Belgian Leffe Brune is our top fave...). We live in Bratislava, the capital city of Slovak Republic in Central Europe, which used to be a part of former CzechoSlovakia (split up in 1993).
Back to ambient music. Unfortunately, during the years 1999-2007 I was totally out of music. My family, smaller kids (very serious collecting of hockey cards with my son Daniel), my work, some sporting activities (active inline speedskating for four seasons), very expensive US dollar here in Slovakia at the end of the 90's, broken CD player and discman... all this took me out of music completely. No ambient music at all... It took me almost 10 years to return and re-explore magnificent sonic worlds of ambient music. I was back again in the good old days and stronger than ever. So I am now a great fan of this music, big collector of CDs and I am again in contact with many really nice people within this musical genre, including some of you from this Hypnos forum. Hello to Mike & Lena of Hypnos, Bill Binkelman, Jeff Pearce..., it's my great pleasure to be in contact with all of you!!!
When mentioning Mike & Lena, I also want to express my big thanks to both of you for doing great job with Hypnos and all related projects and activities. Thank you for putting together this community and please keep on going!!!
Okay my friends, all the best, have a wonderful time and enjoy the music!!!
With friendly greetings, Richard