Уве Шмидт: От Lassigue Bendthaus до Señor Coconut и Atom™

German composer, musician and producer
the German musician

Uwe H. Schmidt (born 27 August 1968), also known as Atom™, Atom Heart, or Señor Coconut, is a German composer, musician and producer of electronic music. He was active in the development of electrolatino, electrogospel, and aciton music. In the nineties, Schmidt moved to Chile and developed part of his career there, adopting the alias Señor Coconut.

Uwe Schmidt was born in Frankfurt. He began making music in the early 1980s, first playing drums, then switching to programming a drum computer after he had heard a Linn Drum on the radio. In 1986, he co founded the cassette label N. G. Medien, on which various tapes of international artists, including the Canadian electronic body music act Frontline Assembly and his first musical work under the name Lassigue Bendthaus, entitled The Engineer's Love, were released. Soon after, he started to work on what would become his first official Lassigue Bendthaus record release, the album Matter. The recordings and production for Matter began in 1986 and took almost four years, until the album finally came out in 1991 on the German Parade Amoureuse label. Matter as well as its related singles and maxi singles were recorded and mixed by Tobias Freund (Pink Elln). That same year, he released his debut dancefloor track, 'Whitehouse'. More releases followed on labels like Cyclotron, Rising High, and Pod Communications, for which (as Atom Heart) he co created with Ata and Heiko the 12" vinyl Mihon. Lassigue Bendthaus, until that point, was musically categorized as EBM, even though part of the success of Matter may have been the fact that it did not quite fit the category and already incorporated musical elements of the 1990s. Uwe Schmidt played his first live show as Lassigue Bendthaus as the opening act for the British group Meat Beat Manifesto at the Frankfurt Batschkapp in 1989.

Still living in Frankfurt, Uwe Schmidt was directly influenced by the emerging "pre techno" movement of the late 1980s known as house and acid house. A sub label of Parade Amoureuse released some of Schmidt's dance floor oriented productions under the alias Atom Heart which he adopted as his main artist name from then on. Pop Artificielle stylistically may be considered as being one of the first productions that merged song structures with sounds coming from a '90s techno background. Many refer to it as an initial point for the development of the glitch genre. During the production process of Pop Artificielle, the idea was born to cover the German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk in a yet to be defined style and as a different production. Meant to be rough sketches, Uwe Schmidt started to program a couple of Kraftwerk cover versions in traditional cha cha cha arrangement and decided to make this the second Señor Coconut album. Entertained by the result of the first programmings, he produced a total of 4 songs which he sent to some record companies. One of those companies, Tōwa Tei's Akashic Records, immediately licensed the album, entitled El Baile Alemán, releasing it upon completion of the production in 2000. Uwe Schmidt obtained official permission by Kraftwerk themselves to release El Baile Alemán, though had to remove his version of "Radioactivity". European and North American record companies remained uninterested until triggered by the hype El Baile Alemán had caused in Japan. Soon a European, North American, Mexican, Hong Kong and a Russian release followed and the title "Showroom Dummies" was featured in the Mexican movie Y Tu Mamá También. Señor Coconut's first European tour started on 19 August 2000 in Germany. A US headlining tour was scheduled, but had to be canceled because of visa problems of one of the 7 Chilean musicians that accompanied Schmidt. In parallel to Señor Coconut project, Schmidt continued working on rather obscure ideas, some for Rather Interesting, some that were released on other labels, such as the Geeez 'n' Gosh (2000 and 2002) albums which musically merge abstract electronic programmings and gospel vocals. Geeez 'n' Gosh was released on the German Mille Plateaux label, which went bankrupt in 2004, leaving Schmidt as well as many fellow musicians, unpaid. The Flanger project was also continued, Friedman and Schmidt recording the Inner Space/Outer Space album in Santiago de Chile, which was then released in 2001.

Apart from his own productions and various collaborations he was solicited to remix artists such as Depeche Mode, Martin L. Gore, Air, Cesária Évora, Juan García Esquivel, Sketch Show, Tōwa Tei, Moreno Veloso, Merzbow and many others. An exclusive track entitled "White Car" was produced for and released on the Japanese anime movie, Appleseed. Still, Uwe Schmidt spent most of the time touring with his Señor Coconut moniker, which had grown to a full 9 man orchestra. The Señor Coconut album Yellow Fever! was released in 2006. The album contained cover versions of Yellow Magic Orchestra songs and became a very successful release in Japan. Amongst the YMO members themselves (Haruomi Hosono, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi) a large number of musicians appeared on this album such as Mouse on Mars, Akufen, Jorge González and others. Yellow Fever! was performed live at Sónar Sound Tokyo the same year, with both Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi performing each one song with the full orchestra on stage. The Señor Coconut album Around the World was released. It contains guest participations of Stephan Remmler (Trio) and the Austrian crooner Louie Austen.

Uwe Schmidt's Rather Interesting label remains his largest unified body of work. To date, R. I. alone has over 46 full length releases under numerous aliases and styles, of which most of them are written, recorded, mixed and mastered by Schmidt himself. Additionally, Schmidt handles all the label management and most all of the album artwork and design. Remixes for Les, Pérez Prado, Jamie Lidell, Plaid and Japanese superstar Kumi Koda have been continuing to garner attention for Uwe Schmidt. The collaboration Surtek Collective with Vicente Sanfuentes, invented yet another musical style called aciton, a blend of acid and reggaeton. Surtek Collective mainly tours Latin America, playing shows in Mexico, Venezuela, Brasil, Argentina and Chile. The Flanger album Spirituals was released in 2005 on Bernd Friedmann's label Nonplace and the HEADZ label for the Japanese territory. A couple of years later songs from Spirituals got licensed for the Hungarian movie Bibliotheque Pascal. From 2007 until 2010, collaborating with Japanese composer Masaki Sakamoto, he produces the album Alien Symphony and the modified (online) version of it, called Meteor Shower which was released in 2010. The same year sees Atom™ acting a mini role in the Mexican movie Orol. By the end of 2010 a short South American tour is played with the Sr. Coconut project. Atom™, in collaboration with Japanese musician Toshiyuki Yasuda produces a cover version of the Brazilian Bossa Nova classic "Aguas de Março", pre released on the compilation Red Hot 2 in June 2011. The vocals on this song are performed by Fernanda Takai and Moreno Veloso. A photo exhibition called Winterreise was unveiled in Tokyo in May 2011, accompanied by a Playbutton release. Atom™ performances at the Lincoln Center in New York City, Communikey Festival in Boulder, the Raster Noton/Mute festival at the Roundhouse in London, Labyrinth Festival in Japan plus many others. Exclusive contributions to Ryuichi Sakamoto's Kizunaworld project and Tōwa Tei's Mach online platform. A second Winterreise exhibition was held in Frankfurt (Germany) in October 2011 as well as the Winterreise soundtrack was released in May 2012 through Raster Noton. atom tm. com was launched in July 2012 and serves as Atom™'s official news platform and archive. As a result of the Winterreise release, Atom™ received an invitation from Richie Hawtin to play an ambient set at his club in Ibiza. The invitation was accepted and the then entitled Alpha txt ambient set created, which was then again performed, opening the Labyrinth festival in September the same year. An initially abandoned album, which in 2005 carried the working title Hard Disc Rock (as a self reference to the 1997 Atom™ title with the same name), resurfaced as HD, after some of the unfinished tracks raised interest at the Raster Noton label. The album was finished during the second half of 2012, and mixed down during January 2013. The release of HD was then scheduled for March 2013. In the middle of the HD production, the terrible news of Pete Namlook's sudden death reach Schmidt. Months later, as a practical consequence of Namlook's passing away, the Rather Interesting label, which both Pete and Atom ran together since 1994, was shut down forever. Early 2013 sees Atom™ playing various live shows, such as the double opening feature at Berlin's CTM.13, where he first performs Bauteile with colleague Marc Behrens, and later on, together with Material Object, plays a three hour Alpha txt set. Extensive promotional activities for HD, which, amongst other results, bring Atom™ on the front page of Germany's De:bug magazine and the preparation for the HD and Ground Loop live sets keep Atom™ busy during the first couple of months of 2013.