Axel Mundi, a veteran of the Sixties and Seventies social and literary counterculture in Salt Lake City, and survivor of the Nineties Seattle Music Scene, is a genre-free musician and sound artist working from his home studio on the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington State. A long and winding trail of experimental art recedes behind him.

In the early 1970s, in Salt Lake City, he co-founded Babylon Theatre with Nolan Palmer. An audio dramatic collective that included up to five members, the group performed at literary events in the underground poetry scene, and recorded unique improvised word-plays. Babylon Theatre continued until 1983, in several configurations, and migrating from SLC to Southern California to Seattle.

After moving to Seattle in 1982, Axel, a life-long musician, began to study ancient musical traditions and the work of modern composers influenced by them. His interest in meditation led him to develop a style of drone trance music with his bass clarinet, using the low tones to produce altered physical and mental states. In a ritual style he performed this music for individuals and groups, publicly and privately, and occasionally lectured on the subject.

This led directly, in the 1990s, to his helping found the trance-rock band, Diamond Fist Werny. Combining his electrified woodwinds with real-time-sample drumming by Tim Soba and Tibeto-hawaiian surf guitar/vocals by Todd Werny, DFW clawed its way up through the local music scene, which was in a world-famous phase due to the rise of the Northwest Grunge rock bands. Although unable to attract a recording deal beyond Seattle, the unique band become one of the city’s most popular club acts.