Mnemonists is a collective of avant-garde musicians from Colorado (rooted in the ensemble:Mnemonist Orchestra), led by Mark Derbyshire and William Sharp. Their music is a mixture of modern classical, experimental sounds, noise, industrial, avant-garde and free jazz. Their releases were published by their own self-produced label Dys between 1981 and 1986. By 1985 the group had split off into separate groups for visual and audio work. From that time, Mnemonists operated only as a visual arts collective while the musical activity was taken over by a new group called Biota that featured a few of the musicians involved with Mnemonists as well as many new members. The two groups co-exist and share only a few members.