Thomas Alexander Kolbe
Thomas Alexander Kolbe is a musician, composer, producer, and interdisciplinary researcher with personal and professional ties to Nagoya, Japan, and Berlin, Germany.
Since 2019, he has been living with full disability caused by neurological, psychological, and cognitive conditions. These affect attention, stamina, and memory, and on many days make any form of structured work impossible. His current activity therefore no longer follows regular artistic or scientific schedules but consists of rare, limited periods of concentrated work whenever his health allows.
His musical and written works evolve over long spans of time, focusing on perception, memory, and inner quiet. Earlier experiences with electronic pop, club culture, piano, and experimental electronics continue to resonate in a more reduced and reflective form.
He no longer regards music as an act of production, but as a field of observation – a space in which sound and awareness can align.
He is a Buddhist.
Research
Kolbe’s research connects music, neurology, psychology, and cognition – the same areas in which his own conditions exist. Since becoming fully disabled in 2019, these subjects have turned from theoretical interests into personal realities. Research and composition are now less active projects than ongoing lines of thought that can be documented only in occasional phases of clarity and focus.
His scientific interest lies in the physiological and neurological effects of sound – for instance, how musical processes can influence blood pressure, hormonal rhythms, and cognitive states.
Because continuous work is not possible, his method relies on isolated observation, reflection, and the gradual linking of theoretical reading with lived experience.
His essays and texts emerge slowly and irregularly, often in several languages. They combine academic precision with personal perspective and reflect a lasting concern with how sound, body, and mind interact – even under limited conditions.