Michael Ormiston is the only European authorised by Mongolian masters to teach Khöömii overtone singing, an amazing style of singing where one person sings two or more distinct pitches at the same time. Michael is also a contemporary multi-instrumentalist and vocalist who has composed music for television series, such as “Last of the Medicine Men”, as well as dance and theatre. His remarkable range of vocal techniques is further expanded by playing Morin Khuur, a traditional Mongolian horse-head fiddle, and many traditional and home-made instruments in conjunction with live electronics.

Jeff Higley is a sculptor, and co-chair of the Landscape and Art Network, but also an accomplished musician who has made a speciality of the Tibetan Singing Bowls, large bowl-shaped gongs with a remarkably pure sound, which form the basis of HyperYak’s special sound quality. He also plays a Native American flute and other instruments.

Mike and Jeff have travelled together in Mongolia, and their CD “Sound Mountain” is a powerful document of their journey, a search for this mythical mountain, in which they encountered the Mongolian people in their endless landscape.


Simon Desorgher is a composer and flautist specialising in electroacoustic music and unusual performances, such as playing suspended in a giant floating sphere (heard on his "Music of the Spheres" CD). His film soundtrack "Toxic" won the 1991 BAFTA Best Short Animation Award, and his music is published by Just Flutes Edition and United music Publishers.

Lawrence Casserley is best known for his work with free improvising musicians such as Evan Parker and Barry Guy, represented by CDs such as “Solar Wind” and “Dividuality”. He has spent more than thirty years developing techniques for live processing of sound in performance, and he has created a special computer processing instrument for HyperYak. He is also a percussionist with a collection of Chinese gongs and cymbals, an instrument inventor and a vocalist.

Simon and Lawrence have collaborated on various projects for more than twenty years, most particularly the Colourscape Music Festivals, Electric Tubes (the world’s largest set of panpipes) and the Electroacoustic Cabaret (featuring musical motorbikes). They have performed together on stage, television, streets and parks in many countries.

All these diverse rivers of sound flow together to become HyperYak.

Their music combines the ancient and the modern, evokes the magic of remote mountains and the transforming power of computer processing, explores the farthest reaches of memory and emotion, creating a world of strange rituals, deep resonances and the sound of wonder.


more info:www.chiltern.demon.co.uk