ZYX

ZYX was an Austrian coldwave duo behind the 1981 album Trust No Woman on OK Musica.

Members: Inge Graf, Walter Zyx

Background

ZYX emerged in Vienna, Austria, during the late 1970s through the partnership of electronic musician Walter Eberl, known as Walter Zyx, and visual artist Inge Graf.

Eberl was born in 1950 in Vienna and studied classical violin. He pursued Indian music at the Istituto Canneti in Vicenza, Italy, where he studied dilruba with Manfred Junius. He also attended the University of Vienna for psychology and philosophy. During the mid-Seventies, Eberl made experimental violin pieces under the names Ronder Rot and Roter Rot. From 1977, he explored synthesizers and electronic sound production.

Graf was born in 1949 in Vienna and trained in residential youth care. She worked with children and adolescents in municipal institutions while studying political science and journalism at the University of Vienna. In 1977, she took up photography and filmmaking, initially with portraits and experimental photo manipulation. She entered the Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst in 1980 under professor Oswald Oberhuber.

Eberl and Graf combined their respective disciplines in a series of audiovisual experiments. In 1978, they assembled the cassette Mawkish 01, a collection of six electronic pieces. They also composed music for the 1979 Super-8 film Die Un-Vertrautheit der Wirklichkeit and developed further material with electronic keyboards, tape recordings, and processed voices. In 1981, Eberl appeared as Roter Rot on the Schallter compilation WienmusikK with “Get Away Darkside,” a 1979 piece.

RCA Musica commissioned ZYX for an electronic album on the OK imprint, published by Edition Reitz. The duo undertook the visual presentation, including a four-color sleeve and promotional films for “Get Away Wisdom,” “Hey You,” and “Bad Manners.” ZYX cut and mixed the ten-track Trust No Woman between March and August 1981 at Sun Moon & Stars Studio in Vienna.

Discography:

• Trust No Woman (1981)

References and notes

• KUNSTFORUM International — Inge Graf & ZYX, 1985, pp. 148–149. Contemporary biographies document Graf in youth care and art studies, Eberl in violin and Indian music, and the partnership from 1980. (Original publication)
• Ars Electronica — Biografien, 1987, p. 35. Original artist biographies establish birth years, universities, Indian music studies, and the transition to collaborative media production. (Festival archive PDF)
• Christian Höller — Doppelleben, Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, 2020. Traces the Ronder Rot and Roter Rot identities, early violin compositions, synthesizer experiments from 1977, and the origins of the Graf–Zyx partnership. (Exhibition catalogue)
• GRAF+ZYX — ElephantsMemory archive, 1978. Firsthand production records establish the six-piece Mawkish 01 cassette, early electronic compositions, and related photographic projects. (Original works archive)
• GRAF+ZYX — ElephantsMemory archive, 1979. Documents the Super-8 film soundtrack, early tape projects, and the 1979 composition “Get Away Darkside.” (Original works archive)
• GRAF+ZYX — ElephantsMemory, Quellen. Original archive identifies the Roter Rot contribution to the 1981 Schallter compilation WienerMusikK and contemporary Austrian press coverage. (Publication and recording records)
• GRAF+ZYX — RCA/Musica production history. Firsthand account of the commissioned album, Edition Reitz publishing agreement, sleeve design, film production, and RCA promotional arrangements. (Original project documentation)
• GrafZyx Foundation — Trust No Woman, original 1981 LP. Confirms OK Records 76.23561, Musica distribution, production and composition credits, ten tracks, and original Infra/ZYX sleeve artwork. (Original pressing documentation)
• Dark Entries Records — Trust No Woman, 2016 reissue. Establishes the March–August 1981 recording and mixing period at Sun Moon & Stars Studio in Vienna. (Label reissue documentation)