About BJOOKS

Hi, I’m Kim Bjørn, the founder of Bjooks. As an author, electronic musician, and designer, I have a profound interest in – and passion for – music technology, creativity, design, and human interaction. 

I started Bjooks in the wake of the success of my first international book PUSH TURN MOVE in 2017. Working on my dream from a tiny desk in my small bedroom, I never thought it would get such attention and be loved by so many thousands of people all over the world. 

It seems like a lot has happened since I was tinkering with soldering, a 4-track tape recorder, an electric organ, and my first synthesizer – a CASIO CZ-5000 – back in the 1980s. My inspirations were film music and a lot of the synth-music from the mid-1970s, and to this day, I still enjoy attending live gigs – whether in a basement in Prague, a chillout venue in Budapest, or a jazz club in New York.

Besides the titles we publish here at Bjooks, I’ve written Danish books on visual design, and created a few ambient albums under the project name Dreamhub. When not creating books to turn up your creativity to 11, I can be found playing occasional gigs, patching my modular, programming drum machines or synths, or traveling to trade shows and synth enthusiast events around the world, from NAMM and Synthfest in California to Moogfest in North Carolina to Superbooth in Berlin. I also like to pet dogs on their cute heads, read books, and learn new things such as surfing, which I enjoy in the North Sea off the west coast of Denmark.

The mission of Bjooks is to create exciting, premium books about music technology, artists, and makers, in order to document, inspire, and explore the wonderful world of music creation. I couldn't do this without the passion and help from a lot of great people. All those who help gather content, write, photograph, illustrate, connect, review, and the like, are mentioned in each of our titles, but I have to make mention of the following core team of wonderful, creative, and dedicated people who work with me on Bjooks:

 

Nadia Struiwigh – Artist Relations & Online Events Manager
A native of the Netherlands and a well-known face in the electronic music scene, Struiwigh currently resides in Sydney. In addition to composing ambient and experimental music, performing live and reviewing music software and hardware on YouTube, she is also an experienced marketing manager and graphic designer. In her role at Bjooks, Nadia is responsible for increasing the company’s international artist relations efforts as well as strengthening its online presence.

 

Daniel Troberg – U.S. Sales Manager
Daniel Troberg is our sales manager for the U.S. and Canada. In this role, Troberg expands Bjooks’ presence in the U.S. and Canada as well as Japan. Troberg started his career at Elektron and is today heavily involved in Ashun Sound Machines as well as Japanese distributor EDG.

 

Natascha Bondo Bjørn · Shop Manager, Sales, and Social Media
Natascha started out at Bjooks by managing customer requests, and advanced into taking care of our resellers. With a background in art history and a Master’s degree in modern culture, she is now a Media Design Intern at Bjooks, churning out social media posts, layout design elements, and other creative content.

 

Mike Metlay · Editor-in-Chief, Bjooks
Mike is a musician, author, editor, and educator, who has been working in the music technology field for over 40 years. He has a Ph.D in nuclear physics, a field he left to pursue music writing full-time in 1996. His articles and reviews have been published everywhere from Nuclear Instruments and Methods to the MIT Computer Music Journal, but especially in RECORDING, where he worked for over 20 years culminating in a 5-year run as Editor. His decades-long music career, including many albums and the founding of several series of music festivals, is chronicled on mrspiral.com. Today, “Dr. Mike” runs Atomic Words, a freelance writing/editing and content creation company in the music technology sector, and is the co-founder and curator of the interactive electronic music station RadioSpiral.

 

Diana Smethurst · Associate Editor, Bjooks
Diana is a music technology writer, radio show host, musician, published author (as Diana Jarvis), and magazine editor, including 4 years as Copy Editor of RECORDING. She currently works as a Technical Copywriter at a major music technology firm, as well as with Mike at Atomic Words. She co-founded RadioSpiral, where she is in charge of the station’s presence and community in the virtual world of Second Life. You can listen to her music via her website at gypsywitch.rocks.

 

Chris Meyer · Co-Author of PATCH & TWEAK
Chris took modular synthesis lessons as a teenager, got an Electrical Engineering degree so he could afford his ‘hobby,’ and then went on to work as an engineer for Sequential Circuits, Digidesign, Tom Oberheim, and Roland R&D US. He also wrote numerous articles for Music Technology Magazine, and a column for Keyboard. Projects he was involved in include the Sequential Prophet 2000, Prophet VS, and Studio 440, Digidesign Q-Sheet, and Roland DM- 80. He is perhaps best known for his work developing Vector Synthesis. Chris creates videos, courses, and articles under the name Learning Modular – you can follow his work on Instagram and YouTube, as well as his Patreon channel.

 

Scott Harper · Co-Author of PEDAL CRUSH
Scott is the musician, filmmaker and designer behind KNOBS. He made the mistake of playing a delay pedal as a teen, failing to realize that this action would determine the course of his young life. He has designed and consulted on a number of pedals, lived in several corners of the world, and briefly practiced marine science. Now based in Toronto, Scott’s primary interest is figuring out how to be efficient every now and then, and getting some rest. Don't forget to check out Scott's creative content on Instagram and YouTube, as well as his Patreon channel.

 

Paul Nagle · Editor, PUSH TURN MOVE and PATCH & TWEAK
Paul is an electronic musician, author and synth enthusiast, whose reviews and articles have long been featured in Sound On Sound. His catalog includes five novels and dozens of albums of solo and collaborative material with projects such as Binar, Headshock and Joint Intelligence Committee. Some of Paul’s electronic music is on Bandcamp.

 

Collin Russell · Assistant Editor / Blog Editor
Collin Russell is a composer, sound designer, and educator specializing in modular synthesis and through-composed electronic music. He enjoys composing pieces for film and modern dance. Collin has worked in the electronic music instrument industry for nearly a decade. He also works as a product consultant, manual author, and service technician for Instruō Modular, a music synthesizer manufacturer. Additionally, Collin is the founder of Grainbow Sound, a music, sound design, and post production company that also offers educational workshops on music technology and sound synthesis. Collin holds a B.M. in Electronic Production and Design with an additional emphasis on Acoustics and Electronics from Berklee College of Music.