Ernst Karel works with analog electronics and with location recordings, sometimes separately, sometimes in combination, to create audio pieces that move between the abstract and the documentary. Karel’s audio work also includes electroacoustic improvisation and composition; fieldwork-based academic research in the anthropology of sound; recording, mixing, and sound design for public radio and for nonfiction film and video; solo and collaborative sound installations; etc.

Musicians with whom Karel has performed on trumpet and/or analog electronics include Josh Abrams, Jason Ajemian, Thomas Ankersmit, Jim Baker, Matt Bauder, Jeb Bishop, Olivia Block, Blowhole, Alessandro Bosetti, Lucio Capece, Cheer-Accident, Audrey Chen, Bobby Conn, Tim Daisy, Kevin Drumm, David Grubbs, Boris Hauf, Chris Heenan, Steven Hess, Giuseppe Ielasi, Jeph Jerman, Annette Krebs, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Helen Mirra, Toshimaru Nakamura, Jeff Parker, Polwechsel, Gert-Jan Prins, Key Ransone, Vic Rawlings, Gino Robair, Aram Shelton, Aiko Shimada, TV Pow, Ken Vandermark, Sabine Vogel, Weasel Walter, Otomo Yoshihide, Michael Zerang, and others. He is half of the long-running electroacoustic duo EKG, and performs regularly with the New England Phonographers Union.

Karel has mastered CD releases by Born Heller, Dragons 1976, Josephine Foster, the Fred Lonberg-Holm Trio, Helen Mirra, Brendan Murray, Skeletons Out, Howard Stelzer, and others, and remastered classic releases for CD by Tod Dockstader, Gamelan Son of Lion, Ilhan Mimaroglu, David Nzomo, Kenneth Patchen, J.D. Robb, Ramon Sender, and others.

Karel currently manages the Sensory Ethnography Lab and the Film Study Center at Harvard University.