Aloof Proof | en

In the early 1990s, a resurgence of pure electronic music occurred, centered around the then-burgeoning rave and techno scenes of the world. Ambient music, in particular, experienced a renaissance of style and popularity, making a previously marginal, though useful and relevant, musical form suddenly available in many mainstream record shops.

During this heady time, and separate from the disposable trends of the day's sunny and often forgettable ambient-techno, Michael/Michel Fibe quietly released three, apparently private-pressed, CDs on his Carbon Base label, beginning in 1994: Expo One, Expo Two: Piano Text, and Inside the Quiet under the mysterious moniker of Aloof Proof. These releases, difficult to obtain when they were first sold, quickly disappeared into the hands of radio stations, private collectors, and lucky fans (and, in some cases, disappeared into warehouses to be unearthed years later) of ambient music. They have since achieved legendary notoriety within the ambient music community for their high-quality and groundbreaking sound as much as for their rarity.

Many, if not most, US listeners were introduced to the haunting, heart-rending sound of Aloof Proof through two of Asphodel's "Sombient" series of drone compilations, Swarm of Drones and A Storm of Drones. These influential collections, intended to present a deeper, darker, and more subterranean style of the ambient favored at the time, allowed Aloof Proof's music to stand proudly beside such ambient and electronic luminaries as Lull, Robert Rich, Robert Fripp, James Plotkin, Steve Roach, Vidna Obmana, Stuart Dempster, Asmus Tietchens, and others. Many who purchased these collections for the more famous artists involved were struck by the emotional charge of the two Aloof Proof tracks, edited down from their longer counterparts on the Expo Two: Piano Text CD. To this day, these tracks are the only US documentation of Aloof Proof's music.

After the intervening decade, ambient music's brief dalliance with mainstream popularity seems like a particularly pleasant pipe dream. Nevertheless, Fibe's cult status—perhaps increased by his reclusion and the confounding lack of availability of his brief oeuvre—has created a cult-classic buzz throughout the sparse but passionate ranks of ambient music fandom. Despite this, there has never been a great amount of information on the internet regarding Aloof Proof, his Carbon Base label, or the excellent short-form work by the mysterious PVH, also released on Carbon Base. Our Aloof Proof fansite seeks to fill this void, to serve as a central location for Aloof Proof's existing fans to learn more about the elusive artist, and as a flagship location for future fans to experience the deep pleasures of his music.

Our current intention with the Aloof Proof site is to provide what information we have thus far aggregated by our own efforts, and to collect information from you, the viewer of the website, if you've any to offer. We have supplied images, sound samples, and other ephemera, as well as our own thoughts regarding these releases, in the hopes that more and more appreciators of ambient will be drawn to the high-quality art of Aloof Proof. If you have any information, press clippings, old reviews from magazines, or material similarly relevant, please do not hesitate to contact us. We plan to display such items in the Archive.

Please note that we are not officially affiliated with Fibe/Carbon Base and cannot, thus, supply original CDs or copies of any of the music discussed. We have heard, however, that a US label, Infraction Records, has contacted Fibe, and tentatively plans to reissue the works of Aloof Proof sometime in the near future. We wait with bated breath for this to occur. In the meantime, enjoy our site! .