Through ontol's 20 years, there have been membership changes revolving around a few core members.

Experimenting with different recording techniques, ontol's sound and style often varied greatly in the earlier days, but now is more focused on ambient landscapes, following in the giant footsteps made by such pioneers as Brian Eno and Harold Budd.

ontol dissolved in 1999 during a 3 year project in which they were attempting to produce a 'trilogy' called "This Is Not Music", with each volume containing different styles. Some of the works they had done to that point were compiled in 1999 onto an 18-track release called "Species Specific" (which was initially the subtitle of the 2nd volume of the trilogy). Species was shortened into a 12-track re-release in 2002.

ontol reformed in 2003 and released "phonography" in 2004.

You can visit ontol's myspace.com page as well.