Still not heard 'electronic' music by Atom™? Chances are you have and you did'nt even realise it. In case your an electronic music lover or producer or DJ, not having heard Atom is a bit sad. It's like not being aware of Don Quixote in Spain. So without too much blah-blah-blah lets get to into an 'atomised' feature about one of the world's most genre-bending, hard-working, ever-changing music producers. Atom™!
Atom™ (also known as Atom Heart and Señor Coconut, real name Uwe Schmidt) is a German composer, musician, DJ and producer of electronic music. He lives in Santiago Chile for the last twenty plus years. As an artist with multiple monikers and bands, he has released more than 140 albums and some 250 singles in the last 3 decades. Most artists manage 15 to 20 albums given the timespan or sustained creativity. The sheer archive of his music is staggering, massive in numbers and continuously changing in form, structure, moods and ideology. He is often cited as the inventor of proto-genres. It's fair to say that as an artist and composer, Uwe Schmidt has been eons ahead of what was going on in the late 90s and even today. Atom did invent proto-forms which we hear today as electro-latino, electro-gospel, para-glitch and 'aciton' (acid-reggaeton) music. The story of Atom is obviously way more pacific and warped than what words can capture. We try!
2015
Fifteen years into the not-so-new millennium, and more than a hundred twenty albums past, Atom shows no signs of slowing down or even falling into a predictable form of sorts. Dare we call 'Atom' a meta-genre by now?! As an artist he has indeed traversed limitless forms and spaces riding on an ever expanding universe of sound. Post 2014, Atom witnessed rising fame and following in Japan and back in Europe. A photo exhibition called 'Winterreise' was unveiled in Tokyo in May 2011, accompanied by the release of 'Playbutton' album. As a live artist, he toured in the US, Germany, Switzerland and Spain, widely across South America as well and releasing a number of albums with musicians from around the world. Reuniting with old collaborators as Flanger and Tobias Schmidt. Forming new collectives and wrapping in emerging electronic music producers like Boys Noiz, Surtek and Marc Behrens. The legacy of Atom's electronic music, be it dance, be it drastic rule bending, or lush meditative or be it ludicrous, cheeky, zany or plain rebellious, had taken on mythical proportions around the world. Yet as an artist, the fame and cult status managing to stay far from the pop treadmill. Not based in Berlin, nor seen on the cover of industry idol magazines and none software branding. The 2014 'Ich bin meine Maschine EP' blew the roof, of hundreds of nightclubs across Berlin, Barcelona, Paris, Rotterdam and wherever else - folks were praying for the next-big-wave and ATOM was there to define it!
Epilogue.
Atom™ (also known as Atom Heart and Señor Coconut, real name Uwe Schmidt) is a German composer, musician, DJ and producer of electronic music. He lives in Santiago Chile for the last twenty plus years. As an artist with multiple monikers and bands, he has released more than 140 albums and some 250 singles in the last 3 decades. Most artists manage 15 to 20 albums given the timespan or sustained creativity. The sheer archive of his music is staggering, massive in numbers and continuously changing in form, structure, moods and ideology. He is often cited as the inventor of proto-genres. It's fair to say that as an artist and composer, Uwe Schmidt has been eons ahead of what was going on in the late 90s and even today. Atom did invent proto-forms which we hear today as electro-latino, electro-gospel, para-glitch and 'aciton' (acid-reggaeton) music. The story of Atom is obviously way more pacific and warped than what words can capture. We try!
1985
Circa early 80s Uwe took to playing drums, then quickly switching to programming a drum-computer after he had heard about the Linn-Drum, on the radio. In 1986 he co-founded a cassette label 'N.G. Medien', which managed to feature international artists, including the Canadian EBM act 'Frontline Assembly'. Uwe created 'Lassigue Bendthaus' as his first moniker, calling his music "The Engineer's Love". We think, given all the conflicting claims, that Lassigue Bendthaus debut was released early 1990, titled Automotif and Whitehouse.
1992
Living in Frankfurt, Uwe Schmidt was deeply influenced by "pre-techno", the sounds and forms happening around late 70s and early 80s. Recreating genres was not something Uwe Schmidt was ever bothered with. A local label, Parade Amoureuse released many of Schmidt's early dance floor oriented productions under the alias 'Atom Heart' in 1993/94. Uwe picked up this new moniker as his mainstay for a long while. At a manic rate, Schmidt released around 20 albums during 1993-1997. Following it's initial voracious flight, the label went bankrupt and packed up. Pioneer producer and ambient music guru, Pete Namlook took notice of Atom Heart, as he founded FAX Records in 1996. An artistic and personal camaraderie that would enrich both for almost 20 years, till Pete Namlook's passing away in mid 2012. Around 1996, somewhat lost and a bit disenchanted by main-land europe's cultural hiatus, Uwe Schmidt moved to Costa Rica and to then to Chile in late 1997. A whole new paradigm change was set in motion. We cannot stress further, the importance of Morphogenic Fields and Milagro, released in 1994, for a budding new electronic music producer of today.
2005
Having released more than 30 odd albums since his flight from Germany, by now Atom had 'transmutated' into Señor Coconut, Lisa Carbon, Los Samplers, Datacide, Flanger, Roger Tube-Sound, DSP and Jet Chamber. During the production process of 'Pop Artificielle', the idea came about to subvert, or lets say radically redefine, and remix, the German electronic pioneers 'Kraftwerk'. Under a new definition and as unheard of production. Initially as rough audio-sketches, Uwe Schmidt programmed a couple of Kraftwerk cover versions in traditional Cha-Cha-Cha. The roll-down was a whole bunch of singles and the 2nd Señor Coconut album. The flip-out point of this electro-latin barrage is the remake of Daft Punk's 'Around The World'. An epic hilarious yet meticulous piece of production to say the least. European and American record companies remained uninterested, unaware even, until the hype of El Baile Alemán, the album which went through the roof in Japan. Call it the case of the dull industry versus the far-out genius. In the year 2000 alone, Atom had released 12 short albums!
Circa early 80s Uwe took to playing drums, then quickly switching to programming a drum-computer after he had heard about the Linn-Drum, on the radio. In 1986 he co-founded a cassette label 'N.G. Medien', which managed to feature international artists, including the Canadian EBM act 'Frontline Assembly'. Uwe created 'Lassigue Bendthaus' as his first moniker, calling his music "The Engineer's Love". We think, given all the conflicting claims, that Lassigue Bendthaus debut was released early 1990, titled Automotif and Whitehouse.
1992
Living in Frankfurt, Uwe Schmidt was deeply influenced by "pre-techno", the sounds and forms happening around late 70s and early 80s. Recreating genres was not something Uwe Schmidt was ever bothered with. A local label, Parade Amoureuse released many of Schmidt's early dance floor oriented productions under the alias 'Atom Heart' in 1993/94. Uwe picked up this new moniker as his mainstay for a long while. At a manic rate, Schmidt released around 20 albums during 1993-1997. Following it's initial voracious flight, the label went bankrupt and packed up. Pioneer producer and ambient music guru, Pete Namlook took notice of Atom Heart, as he founded FAX Records in 1996. An artistic and personal camaraderie that would enrich both for almost 20 years, till Pete Namlook's passing away in mid 2012. Around 1996, somewhat lost and a bit disenchanted by main-land europe's cultural hiatus, Uwe Schmidt moved to Costa Rica and to then to Chile in late 1997. A whole new paradigm change was set in motion. We cannot stress further, the importance of Morphogenic Fields and Milagro, released in 1994, for a budding new electronic music producer of today.
2005
Having released more than 30 odd albums since his flight from Germany, by now Atom had 'transmutated' into Señor Coconut, Lisa Carbon, Los Samplers, Datacide, Flanger, Roger Tube-Sound, DSP and Jet Chamber. During the production process of 'Pop Artificielle', the idea came about to subvert, or lets say radically redefine, and remix, the German electronic pioneers 'Kraftwerk'. Under a new definition and as unheard of production. Initially as rough audio-sketches, Uwe Schmidt programmed a couple of Kraftwerk cover versions in traditional Cha-Cha-Cha. The roll-down was a whole bunch of singles and the 2nd Señor Coconut album. The flip-out point of this electro-latin barrage is the remake of Daft Punk's 'Around The World'. An epic hilarious yet meticulous piece of production to say the least. European and American record companies remained uninterested, unaware even, until the hype of El Baile Alemán, the album which went through the roof in Japan. Call it the case of the dull industry versus the far-out genius. In the year 2000 alone, Atom had released 12 short albums!
2015
Yes, there's too much electronic music out there. Chances are most of the time, you are listening to the top-of-the-pops, or what is known as mainstream (safe) electronica. Chances are, your listening to music only on Spotify, Soundcloud and or Youtube. Maybe you love and worship Four Tet or Dead Maus or Skrillex or The Chemical Brothers or Aphex or Squarepusher or Burial or Daft Punk or Avicii or Afrojack or what-have-you dancing on the world charts. But then chances are, you are jaded by the mainstream, industrial electronic music, and prefer to listen to something profound, worth listening again and again? Careful of stupid labels and buzz-words (future-bass, jackhouse, vaporwave, tecno brega etc etc). The current zeitgeist of electronic music is full of soundalike, lookalike, handsome clones, who are here to enthral us and take us on some trip. Speaking of a trip, we are talking of a lifelong, sonorous, seminal and brilliant one. Have you still not heard electronic music by Atom™?
MIX-ATOM by Audio Pervert (55Minutes featuring 16 selected tunes)
MIX-ATOM by Audio Pervert (55Minutes featuring 16 selected tunes)
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