Monstrum Sepsis is an electronic music act which was originally formed in 1996 when Paul Karlik and Rob Wentz met during their first weeks of attendance at the Illinois Institute of Art's Chicago campus while studying multimedia and computer animation. Both Paul and Rob were immediately inspired by each others work and interests, in particular the music each created both being computer musicians using various forms of computer tracker programs to sequence experimental industrial and electro/EBM influenced beats and song structures.

Paul and Rob immediately worked well together - Paul's whimsical aesthetics balanced Rob's retentive sequencing to create an inventive brew of electronic music. Rob was classically trained on piano at a young age with heavy influences from an older brother who surrounded him with Moog synthesizers in the 80s while Paul was raised with artistic parents who influenced him at a young age to follow artistic intuitions. Both grew up influenced by a very wide range of bands and musicians: Skinny Puppy, Peter Gabriel/Genesis, Rick Wakeman/Yes, Philip Glass, The Residents, Chris & Cosey, Walter Carlos, Vince Clark/Erasure/Yaz and Sonic Youth to name just a few.