Ben Michels Wheeler

Ben Michels Wheeler (1986) is an experimental musician, composer, and ethnomusicologist based in Tbilisi, Georgia. His work features the musical structures of folk traditions meshed with electronic music and lo-fi aesthetics. He teaches synthesis courses at Creative Education Studio in Tbilisi and is heavily involved with the experimental music scene in the South Caucasus, playing regularly in local clubs and festivals in all three countries. He is the co-founder of Mountains of Tongues, a project dedicated to preserving and promoting lesser known music from the Caucasus region. He has recorded songs in languages that have rarely been caught on tape, instruments that only exist in extremely small numbers, and performances from a variety of underrepresented ethnic, religious, and linguistic minority communities throughout the region.