Om Shira & The Exile Orchestra

Om Shira & The Exile Orchestra is the base of an open collective of musicians, dancers, visual artists, photographers, and designers in Cologne/Germany

"We come a long way, a billion miles we travelled just to be with you..." Billion Miles / The One

What is the best response to a system that doesn't allow you access to musical instruments? You make your own! Growing up in post-revolutionary Iran, Om couldn't get his hands on an instru-ment. So instead, he devoured all the music his father saved and brought home from his vinyl-shop after he had to close it down! Arriving in Germany without the family as a teen, for Om making mu-sic was a real need to survive and to connect to people beyond language barriers. So he started to produce his early tracks on a Commodore-64, bringing friends together to form a live band and tou-ring successfully through Europe and Russia. Om always felt the urge to fill the gap between live-concerts and DJ-sets. His goal was to innovate the art of live-electronics. His vision of a real live electronic performance led a few years later to his futuristic audiovisual looping instrument called ''Freeak ''.