Harald Grosskopf
THE ORIGINATOR OF ELECTRIC DRUMMING
Harald Grosskopf has been the first drummer and percussionist in the world of electronic music who performed, by playing along with sequencer machines.
30.000 visitors adored his unique style of drumming during his performance with Ashra at Metamorphose 2008 Festival in Shuzenyi / Japan. Since 1976 he is a member of Manuel Göttsching’s minimal electronic style cult band Ashra and accompanied electronic legend Klaus Schulze on a few of his early seventieth albums.
Harald Grosskopf has released five solo albums and took part on more than 70 records with other artists.
In the 90’s he started with Axel Manrico Heilhecker the bandproject SUNYA BEAT, along with Steve Baltes (Deep Voices), who is also a member of Ashra since 1997.
Harald Grosskopf performs an extraordinary, breathtaking Trance electronica live drumming act along with different young musicians.
http://www.myspace.com/haraldgrosskopf
www.harald-grosskopf.de
SUNYA BEAT
AXEL MANRICO HEILHECKER, guitars, beats, keys, vocals
a passionate guitarplayer, started up in Cologne and played since the 80's for major audiences. Numerous wellknown German-Rock recordings as well as touring builded a platform for him as one of best known players of Germany and a composer .
As a teenager he had lessons from DON CHERRY, the legendary Jazz and Ethno musician, trumpet player, and father of EAGLE EYE and NENEH CHERRY, which inspired him since then, and gave him a universal understanding of music.
Workin' with german musicians like WOLF MAAHN, KLAUS LAGE or HERBERT GRÖNEMEYER , and as well the later connection to the TV showband of HARALD SCHMIDT, where he met KING CRIMSON saxplayer MEL COLLINS and again long time fellow ROSKO GEE, member of CAN and TRAFFIC, and backed up numerous artists like BRIAN FERRY, ERIC BURDON, JIM CAPALDI, OLETA ADAMS or GRACE JONES, made him noticable for the major german public.
But his personal roots came strong in his projects and album releases within' a high output since the 90's, featuring both, his music as well as his facilities as a producer.
Besides productions of african and indian music, he produced some Experimental-Rock albums and released a couple of albums and soudtracks with his Avantgarde-Folk band "PHONOROID", based in the USA.
In this period he founded his instrumental appearence "FISHMOON" (2 Albums) and met German-Rock legend HARALD GROSSKOPF : the start of SUNYA BEAT.
Meanwhile Axel runs a music label, on which Sunya Beat's Live Album "Comin' Soon" and Fishmoon's new album "Two Moon Music" have been released.
In April he won the IIFF AWARD for the best US-Documentary with "Cinderellas of Santa Fe", directed by Vanessa Vassar, his partner with "Phonoroid". He worked out the music and co-produced, too.
HARALD GROSSKOPF, drums, beats, keys
started his musica career a bit earlier than Axel in the 70's.
His style of drumming became part of the sound of german classic Prog-bands like ASHRA or Klaus Schultze.
Connected to those musicians he played venues around the globe, released some famous albums, some under his name and direction, and became a benchmark of exceptional drumming within' old school elektronic music from Germany.
Another to memorize "Kraut"-band, he stayed with was WALLENSTEIN, the band of nowadays cooking-guru JÜRGEN DOLASE .
His ability of creating archaic drum patterns combined with minimalistic structures of overtones, like known from Serial-music still made him important for new frontiers.
In the 90's he founded several projects with Steve in explicit Tekno-style, started building drums and Djembes out of the most unbelievable materials, played with 17 HIPPIES and MARC RIBOT, PHONOROID and founded together with Axel : SUNYA BEAT.
Both, free in use of any kind of music and sound are perfect playmates.
STEVE BALTES, beats, keys
as the youngster of the band Steve made up his musical yourney with electronic sounds of the 80's.
He continously became one of the well acknoledged Tekno-mixers from Germany playing big venues from San Francisko to L.A.
Workin' most of the time strictly dancefloor orientated, he could place a couple of remarkable hits all over Europe, lately with DEEP VOICES.
Nevertheless he is a real Space-boy and very much attracted by handmade music and sound, and various musical styles from Rock to Jazz, which explains the big affinity to Harald's and Axel's abilities, and made him a great partner for Sunya Beat.
His pulsating sequences, Dub-mixing and spacy layers are an congenious part to guitar and drums, which was attractive cool enough for ASHRAto invite him for a couple of concerts....
PARTNERS are :
MEL COLLINS, NIPPY NOYA, GEE HYE LEE, ANDREAS LUDWIG, VANESSA VASSAR, WEISSE ROSE
www.myspace.com/sunyabeat
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