Biography

Simon Wickham-Smith (born Rustington, East Sussex, February 2, 1968) is a British musician, translator, academic and sometime astrologer. He first came to the attention of the experimental music underground with the release of Lake, a collaboration with Richard Youngs issued under the moniker R!!!S!!!. He and Youngs would go on to make many more albums including Ceaucescu, Pulse Of The Rooster and Metallic Sonatas for labels such as Forced Exposure, Majora and VHF. He has also released a handful of solo albums, including one for Campbell Kneale’s Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label but he is not as prolific in this regard as his erstwhile partner. He is an occasional member of the Helsinki Computer Orchestra, an indication of his move towards computer based music during the late ’90s and early part of this decade. A new collaboration with Richard Youngs was released in 2006, the product of a five-year plan in which the duo recorded just 10 minutes of music each year. The album was titled 5 Years.

In 2006, with Pekka Kumpulainen, Wickham-Smith began the Inari Festival of Experimental Music (iFEM) in northern Finland. This small scale musical festival is thought to be the world’s most northerly music festival.