In 1997, San Francisco composer/guitarist Ernesto Diaz-Infante began the Pax Recordings record label which is dedicated to the documentation, preservation, and contagion of music from the margins of our culture and psyches. He and filmmaker Marjorie Sturm run Pax Recordings.
Ernesto Diaz-Infante has released over forty recordings on his own and others’ labels such as Ramble Records, scatterArchive, Muteant Sounds, Tape Drift Records, Loma Editions, Ruralfaune, Erototox Decodings, Public Eyesore Records, Zzaj Productions, and Kendra Steiner Editions. His musical compositions span a broad perspective: transcendental piano, noise, free and structured improvisation, avant-garde guitar, field recordings, lo-fi four-track manipulations, and experimental song. ED-I has performed throughout Europe and the United States, and his music has been broadcasted internationally.
Born in Salinas, California, Ernesto Diaz-Infante is Chicano (Mexican ancestry). He received his BA from the College of Creative Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara and his MFA in Music Composition from California Institute of the Arts, where he studied with Stephen L. Mosko and Wadada Leo Smith. Diaz-Infante co-founded the Big Sur Experimental Music Festival (1999-2004) and the San Francisco Alternative Music Festival (2000-2003).
Ernesto Diaz-Infante composed the music for filmmaker Marjorie Sturm’s The Cult of JT LeRoy. and many of her other works. They live in San Francisco with their son Ezra Sturm and daughter Shoshana Sturm.
"He makes a dangerous playmate" --The Wire
"A composer and performer with an instinctive way of creating sound paintings" --Josef Woodard, Los Angeles Times
"Ernesto is by now to be considered one of the most attentive, ear-opening, brain-splitting creatives in the new music scene" --Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes.