Mike's Page

Michael Angelo Ruberto is the driving force behind the writing and recording of Somnium Seven's songs. He started taking an interest in making his own music in the late 1980's and got involved with a handful of experimental bands. The 1990's finds him starting bands of his own in the Philadelphia Industrial Music Scene. By the end of the 90's he was performing solo work in New York City with a homemade modular analog synthesizer. After a personal crises caused him to lose all of his music equipment and recordings in 2002 he spent a few years away from making music. In 2006 Michael Angelo found himself tired and frustrated with the new music he heard where the majority of the bands seemed to be cookie-cutter replicas of each other making the same exact sound and completely lacking in originality. Unable to enjoy most of this new music he decided to get back into writing the music he wanted to hear and that is how Somnium Seven was born.

Michael Angelo was exposed at a very early age to music of all kinds by his completely music-crazed older siblings who all have exceptionally eclectic music collections and interests. Punk Rock became the first music genre he would fall in love with as a kid. As he matured he adopted New Wave, Goth, Industrial and many other genres as they emerged from the Post-Punk, sonic-slurry of the early 80's. During this period of his life he was introduced to Midi music production by a very forward-thinking high school music teacher. Michael Angelo grasped and embraced this powerful "new" technology and began his love afair with music synthesizers after purchasing his first instrument, a Casio CZ-230s. In 1990 with the assistance of his brother Michael Angelo managed to obtain his first Digital Sampling Synthesizer, a Casio FZ-1. This combined with a borrowed computer allowed him to realize the musical dreams he had been formulating for almost a decade. Since these early introductions to electronic music production Michael Angelo progressed ever more deeply into uncharted areas of music composition and music technology. Eventually he reached a point where it became necessary to create from scratch the technologies he required to continue his musical pursuits and began building his own audio processing units and analog synthesizer systems.

The ideas and inspiration for the music of Somnium Seven go back a very long way. Michael Angelo's oldest brother has always been a huge fan of the Long Island Rock band, Blue Oyster Cult. The band is well known for their dark subject matter which inlcudes the topics of Vampires, Witchcraft, the Occult, suicide, ghosts, monsters and science fiction among other things. As far as Rock bands go these guys are very strange indeed. Naturally, much of the meaning in this band's music was explained to the young Michael Angelo by his brother. This began his interest in the concept of intelligent meaning applied to art and gave him a taste for topics of a darker shade. Later on Michael Angelo would identify heavily with the anti-athoritarian messages found in Punk Rock. And later find himself fascinated once again in darker subject matter with the introduction of New Wave, Goth and Industrial. His earliest inspiration and interest in electronic music was found in the works of Gary Numan and Caberet Voltaire. The highly experimental nature of this music enlightened him and expanded his outlook beyond the confines of traditional music genres. After expressing his interest in such bands to a middle school music teacher, the teacher then introduced Michael Angelo to musique concrète and the classic recordings of Subotnick, Stockhausen and Ussachevsky which further inflamed his passion for experimental composition.

Further music education broadened his knowledge to include the history and ideas of Jazz, Classical, Gregorian Chant, the Impressionist era and of course the origins of Rock and Roll. Having come full-circle in music history Michael Angelo began absorbing other new styles and genres that interested him includng Metal, Trip Hop, Rap, Trance, Industrial Dance, EBM, IDM, Thrash, Ska, Reggae and many others. With this broad and eclectic love for music he still found himself drawn to his old loves and hugely inspired by such artists as Caberet Voltaire, Numan, Joy Division/New Order, The Damned, The Chameleons U.K., Bauhaus, early Depeche Mode, Severed Heads, Throbbing Gristle, Foetus and yes, even Blue Oyster Cult.

Michael Angelo believes very deeply in the idea of originality and invention in regards to music. He works very hard to make music that might be described as original and inventive even if it results in music that is inaccessible to the average music enthusiast. He believes that art should engage the mind and emotions of the spectator and not be a mass produced commodity of entertianment for the purpose of commercial profit. However, he won't complain of somebody gets the notion to pay him for his efforts.

Michael Angelo is also the single parent of a beautiful little boy with an indescribably large brain. He is employed as a software engineer working for the United States Coast Guard and also does repair work on vintage audio equipment including analog synthesizers. His interests beyond music include electronics engineering, sociology, philosophy, traveling and cooking - he makes a mean chili!