ArtistInfo

Thomas Näfe

*1968 DE
Electronic and Pop
A.k.a. The Artist Formerly Unknown

Born 1968 in Darmstadt (Germany) and electronic native since the early eighties at the age of 13. I have chosen the synonym "the artist formerly unknown" because I prefer the unknown part in the background of my projects. I have started in the mid 80s to produce electronic music in many projects with various singers or solo. With singer Dirk, I started the first project "Perspex Hearts in the Fog" (PHF) in 1985. The name was inspired by OMD, but the music was more experimental. I programmed some tracks on a Commodore 64 with the software "Sound Monitor" and an early C64 sample-module. The result were some very low quality synthpop-tracks trying to sound like a mixture of "art of noise", "the human league" and "omd". Maybe I will upload some of the funny tracks in near future... With singer Manfred I started "Delete Delete" in 1987. Influenced by hard industrial and EBM stuff (Klinik, aGrumh, Skinny Puppy, Throbbing Gristle, Non, Current 93, Severed Heads) and some pop heroes (OMD, Depeche Mode, Human League, New Order). We have tried to combine these influences using some nice gadgets: Korg MS20, Korg PolySix, Korg CR8000, Roland CSQ600, Roland MC202, Roland TB303, Roland TR626 and some digital devices Korg DDD1, Casio CZ101, Casio SK1, Casio SK5, Korg Poly800, Commodore Amiga 500. We released 2 Tapes in 1988 and performed some strange live gigs. In 1989 keyboarder Axel joined "Delete Delete" and we switched to be more catchy. Before the third tape was ready and maybe a record-deal was signed, we split because of musical differences. Between 1990 and 1995 I wrote a lot of pop songs using my PolySix, Korg DDD1 and the brandnew Roland JD800 sequenced by KMS on an Amiga 500. Some of these tracks were used later for "Commercial" and "The artist formerly unknown". With singer Kai I started "Banality" in 1996. We produced a demo-cd "demonstration" in 1996 which we tried to "sell" in London. We walked from door to door of nearly all London based labels, but without any success. The classical 80s synthpop was not very popular in 1996, so we were refused. Later that year we renamed the project to "commercial" and decided to sound more "90s". We released the mini-album "Concepts" (500 copies) and shipped 90 copies to various labels again. The feedback was frustrating: "The vocals are too 80s and the sound is not compatible to chart productions". We tried to produce a "hit" and released the single-cd "forever" in 1998. The refrain was sung by female vocalist "Antonia" to get more "90s". The Track was no 1 in the local Radio-Charts and No 2 in the year 1998. But no label was interested. In 1998 we produced some more tracks and performed some Gigs, but without any success we stopped producing songs together. My SetUp this time: Roland JD800, Korg PolySix, Roland JX3P, Roland JX8P, Boss Dr550, Kurzweil MicroPiano, Moog Prodigy, Roland Orchestra Module OC1, Deep Bass 9, Roland JP8000, Akai S2000, Waldorf PulsePlus, Roland S330 and various effects. Since 1995 I switched to Cubase on a MAC for sequencing. From now on, I recorded some demotracks with various vocalists and I produced many instrumental tracks as "The artist formerly unknown". First I wanted to produce Trance, but soon I decided to ignore all genres and I produced melodic, danceable, instrumental, electronic music. Somewhere between trance, ambient, synthpop and soundtracks. In 2000 I switched from Cubase to Logic for sequencing and additional to the commercial-setup I began to use virtual instruments. Today I use virtual instruments only, cause I sold all equipment somme years ago to pay some bills :-) Actually, I am looking for a singer (m/f) to continue writing electronic popmusic.

Genres

• Electronic
• Pop

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