Herbert Distel, born on August 7, 1942 in Bern, Switzerland, is a Swiss composer, painter, and photographer. He began his career by studying lithography at École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1963 to 1964. Herbert Distel's first notable sound art work was the LP We Have A Problem (1971), which featured NASA recordings mixed with a live rendition of George Gershwin’s "Rhapsody In Blue". His breakthrough album, Die Reise, released in 1988, is a field recording montage based on train sounds and natural ambient noises. This was followed by La Stazione (1990), an ambient musique concrète work inspired by Mario Peragallo's opera La Collina.
