Harald Grosskopf | Infuso Giallo – Foggy Notion #3

Der VVK ist beendet. Es sind noch ausreichend Tickets an der Abendkasse erhältlich.

Harald Grosskopf was in his early twenties when LSD "knocked reality away" from him, as he remembers. At that time he was still a drummer with Wallenstein. Their label boss Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser let musicians of his label Ohr und Pilz hold jam sessions under the name "Kosmische Kuriere" (Cosmic Couriers) and often administered LSD (sometimes even without the knowledge of the participants). When Grosskopf was once present at such a session, the drug helped him to gain new insights: "I sat there, intoxicated playing drums and noticed that until then I had mainly imitated other drummers. From then on I drummed liberated for the first time, without wanting to shine in a role." Thus Harald Grosskopf found his individual musical language. And he could no longer express it in a classical rock formation. Grosskopf: "The electronic music had totally intoxicated me. The absolute free in it. I had to make this music, and I knew it would be successful because it had such an energy." Grosskopf then consequently left the company at Wallenstein. "I fell into a hole and wondered what to do now. So I sold my drums and got a guitar with amplifier and echo device from the money." A few days later, he was ringing the bell. Manuel Göttsching stood in front of the door. He knew it from the Berlin electronics scene and from recording sessions for Ash Ra Tempel and other projects. Göttsching offered Grosskopf to join his new project Ashra. The rest is history: Ashra (Grosskopf, Göttsching, Lutz Ulbrich) released several successful albums in the following years. It took until the summer of 1979, however, until he dared to make his own album. "Synthesist" offers eight instrumental compositions, most of which Grosskopf recorded on his own. The melodies he produced for it, carried by synthesizers and drums, are reminiscent of the works of his Berlin electronic friends such as Klaus Schulze or Tangerine Dream and also of the "cosmic" sessions of the early seventies - but still have an individual timbre. This is one of the reasons why "Synthesist" has long been considered a classic among lovers of electronic music, reminding us of an exciting musical era and still exciting in this millennium. (Christoph Dallach)

Foggy Notion is curated by Jan Lankisch in cooperation with Dublab.