Atom™ & Tobias

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Territory: North America

Atom™ and Tobias Freund are both well known figures in electronic music. In fact, many would argue that they are living legends. Tobias began his career in the early '80s, mainly using the pseudonym "Pink Elln". He looks back on a long sequence of music making that has led him from mainstream pop to club music, and then onto the experimental and unclassifiable. Uwe Schmidt, better known as Atom™, has a similar musical background. He is most well known for his work under the Senor Coconut moniker, but has worked under dozens of other aliases, all with their own sound.

Atom™ and Tobias met around 1986, while both were still living in Frankfurt. The pre-techno scene was blossoming when they met in a studio. In 1990, Tobias was the engineer who helped mix and record Atom™'s first release ever. As a natural consequence, Tobias and Atom™ started to work together. Strangely, they collaborated not so much in a studio environment, but mostly playing improvised electronic music concerts. In 1992 they recorded probably one of the very first live techno recordings ever, the 12-inch "Elektroniikkaa", which soon became an underground anthem.

Even though their paths separated for a while in the '90s, with Atom™ moving to Santiago de Chile and Tobias relocating to Berlin, they reconnected their machines on a live stage again in 2003 at Mutek in Chile. Even though they had stopped working together for almost 10 years, the reactivation worked perfectly and they decided to share the stage more often. They have been playing many concerts worldwide since the successful re-launch in 2003, including appearances at Berghain, The Bunker, and Labyrinth.

Their live sets are always completely improvised, both immersing into the unknown territory of the club, the audience and the sound.