Thomas Leisner

About Beauty and Bright Ideas
May 16th, 2019

2. Wilde 13 Festival 2019

The second edition of Wilde 13 Festival is about to come, on 31. of Mai and 1. of June 2019! Andreas and I, who organized the festival this year, too, are pretty mad about it. But this time it’s not only us, but a great deal of helpers from our neighborhood joined us this year. 

Preparations for our very big little open-air-festival at Flora-Kiez, Pankow, Berlin, are going for more than half a year. Now everything has been thought about thoroughly and the party may go off. On both evenings six artists each will perform, and as an addition in this year we added a brunch on sunday: The street still will be blocked and everyone will meet once again to finish the festival – having another bit of live music, of course. 

September 2nd, 2018

2. Unpluggedival 2018

Summer isn’t really past and the sounds of our open air festival from june still are ringing, yet it’s time for the Unpluggedival again. Autumn is coming, even if summer is still strong. The second edition will present even more locations and artists, so people can move freely from one space to another getting lots of impressions and inspiration. 

Of course also the 2. Unpluggedival 2018 has been prepared for a long time. As it’s mainly about unamplified music, according to it’s name, there isn’t too much of an effort for me in this regard. The artists mostly use amplification, but they care about it themselves, also by connecting with each other in this turn. It’s my part to organize everything in advance, and then to check and help where ever it’s needed at the festival days. This isn’t always easy though, with over 40 concerts at more than 10 locations.  

May 17th, 2018

1. Wilde 13 Festival 2018

As the Unpluggedival in autumn of last year has been a great success, we dared to finally realize our original goal, a real Open Air Festival in our hood: Wilde 13 Festival. Two days of live music on a blocked road, directly in front of my house’s door. And where else could it be? 

While Unpluggedival spreads many concerts about many small and in parts unusual locations due to the cold period of the year, our Wilde 13 summer festival concentrates all concerts in one spot: an open air stage in the centre of our neighborhood. In two days the festival presents twelve artists with a wide range of musical soundscapes. No fees for entry, everybody welcome, but so are donations. Hot temperatures and a vibrant atmosphere are guaranteed.  

October 12th, 2017

1. Unpluggedival 2017

For the first time I am organizing a festival instead of playing with my band at that festival. Together with my good friend Andreas Gerts who is already experienced in organizing events we invented the 1. Unpluggedival 2017 at our neighbourhood in Berlin. 

Andreas and I had already worked together at the Florakiezfest, where he was the main organizer and I was the responsible technician at the big stage of the festival. Since then we had the idea of organizing our own festival for music only. The result of it is this indoor festival, spread over ten locations and featuring nearly 40 acts on two evenings: October 20. and 21., 2017.

Unpluggedival

Look at the festival’s own website for details. By the way that website was realized by myself, as well as me developing of the festival’s logo. The idea for the logo came from Matthias Lopp of Graphscape, who also made the print design in correspondence to the website’s design. 

September 21st, 2016

Acrepearls Album Release

My current band Acrepearls just published their first release “Mikrokosmos” on Lalonova. The album features the band’s first team including Kai Mader – saxophone, Joh Weisgerber – bass and myself on drums. It was recorded in 2014 at Kanin near Potsdam.

August 8th, 2016

Acrepearls Live

Here is a video I made from our last concert with Acrepearls at “Stadt für eine Nacht”, Potsdam. It was a beautiful warm summer night with an outstanding atmosphere.

The friendly people at Fabrik, Potsdam, provided us with excellent technical support. I was especially happy about the beautiful light show reflecting on the white tent roof above our open air stage. But we also got a multitrack audio recording of our concert, which I mixed  and combined with the video at my studio.

May 12th, 2016

Acrepearls Snippets

We mixed a short medley of beautiful moments from our public live recording session at Spartacus, Potsdam. The video gives an impression of the band’s concept of playing improvised contemporary music.

January 24th, 2016

Acrepearls Public Recording

I am happy to announce the recording of Acrepearls‘ second album. The first one is only close to finished and has yet to be published, but we’re on our way for a second album already! This time it will be a live recording session, so you are welcome to drop in and participate in the process by simply listening, watching and enjoying the atmosphere.

Acrepearls is an experimental jazz trio improvising freely and heading towards electronic club beats. It consists of my good old friend Kai Mader on saxophone, the piano player Nicolas Schulze and myself on drums. We all added some electronics to our setup to extend the sonic possibilities. In Nico’s case he also plays a synth bass, whenever there is a need for it. This is especially interesting since Joh Weisgerber, our bass player on the first album, is no longer with us. The trio got an interesting new quality and sound by Nico’s talent on grand piano, and still we enjoy the analog bass sound we liked so much from Joh’s playing.

The public recording will take place at freiKlang studios, Potsdam, on February the 3rd and 4th, 2016. Visitors are welcome in the evening of both days. See the flyer images above for details. The recording space is a large hall suitable for up to 800 people, but we will have just a small stage for the three of us in the middle of the big room, with maybe a handful of guests sitting or walking around with wireless headphones, enjoying studio quality sound. Should be a nice atmosphere! On the website of Lalonova there are some additional informations and a map, in case you wonder how to get there.

Potsdam’s Newspaper “Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung” has published an Acrepearls Feature as an announcement to the public recording. I hope this link will stay active, so you can still read the article later on. For just in case I also pasted the article to the comment below.

August 24th, 2015

Drums for Anna Margolina

I recently joined the band of fabulous Jazz singer Anna Margolina for a studio session and some live gigs in Berlin. Here are some very short impressions.

March 28th, 2015

Lasma Rock Show

Belarussian guitar player Sviatlana Paklina, better known under her artist name “Lasma“, asked me to join her current live project, an atmospherically dense and intense rock show. The big sound of her music asked for electronic drums with lots of effects on my side.

We had a short rehearsal the week before the first concert and decided for an electronic drums setup. This was an excellent opportunity for me to experiment with the very powerful software drum synth “Ultrabeat“, which runs on Apple’s live performance software “Mainstage“. I had this plan for quite a while and know Ultrabeat well, but it still astonished me how responsive and creatively inspiring it’s sound and performance in conjunction with the flexibility and ease of use of Mainstage is. As always with electronic setups it was quite work-intensive to prepare everything for the first gig, but also very rewarding, as this short video shows:

 

February 12th, 2015

Julia Toaspern & Band

Here is a demo recording for Julia Toaspern & Band I recently produced at Delicious Drums. It features four original tracks with Julia’s brand new acoustic band.

We met one day in December to record the whole band at once, playing together live in my studio, to capture the most authentic live feeling. Following the new concept of the band we aimed for a clear and acoustic, yet modern sound.

Musicians on this recording are besides Julia Toaspern on vocals and guitar: Brian Haitz on vocals, guitar and flute, Ralph-Eric Berg on double bass and Anselm Bresgott on beatbox. Compositions by Julia Toaspern, Arrangements by herself and her marvelous band.

Recording, editing, mixing and mastering by myself. I’m looking forward to hearing some more great tracks, and maybe to record an album soon at Delicious Drums!

 

 

November 16th, 2014

Flow

Here is a little recording I did together with my good old friends of Strange Fluid these days in my freshly refurbished little recording studio at Delicious Drums.

After two months of reconstruction at Delicious Drums everything looks shiny and like new. I wanted to show the new “Sound Kitchen” to my friends, talk about the good old times and just by the way we whistled one or two notes, the result of which you can listen to right here.

Besides Kai Mader on Saxophone, tracks three and four feature T. C. Mabemba of Strange Fluid on vocals. As my favorite bass player Joh Weisgerber was so busy recording Ratatöska‘s new album at his own studio, Jürgen Munder jumped right in for him on the last track, playing the bass on a keyboard for the very first time! As far as I know that was his first time for him playing an instrument on a recording, and it definitely was a big fun and pleasure for the other three of us, as we only knew him as our effects specialist at Strange Fluid before.

January 30th, 2014

New Stoppok Album

The good news is: There will be a new Stoppok studio release coming soon! We just met for a weekend at his house near Bremen, where we played and experimented a little together.

The less good news – at least for me personally– is: I won’t be his drummer once again. Well. Stoppok had invited me some years ago when he was in preproduction for his last studio album “Sensationsstrom”. We spent some days in his studio then to experiment, rehearse and record. At that time he decided on Benny Greb, who recorded the album and was the drummer of Stoppok’s live band during the past five years.

Now we had a great time playing and talking. As a drummer I was most concerned about finding a new concept and feeling to play without bassdrum and adding some odd percussive sounds and a little electronics. I think it worked out pretty well. But Stoppok had already told me beforehand that he had jammed with Wally Ingram and liked his feeling and energy very much. It seems like he finally convinced Wally to leave Los Angeles for some time and come over to Germany for recording and touring. Stoppok has booked Bremen’s “Studio Nord” for the beginning of february.

As a drummer and percussionist Wally certainly integrates with Stoppok’s new concept perfectly. Stoppok will play the part of bassdrum and snare himself while singing and playing guitar, just as he does when he performs solo. A complete drumset is not needed with that concept. But nevertheless I think it still perfectly fits the older rock-style songs, especially when performing live with a band. I’m curious how things will turn out during progress in the studio and on stage. I definitely wish everybody involved a wonderful time and result. There are tons of great songs, but you will have to be a little patient now until they are officially available.

January 28th, 2014

Drum & Bass Sessions Day 1

In wintertime it’s good to remember the last summer sometimes. I specifically remember my sessions with Abelha Supersonica, a vocalectro live act from Berlin. With just her voice and a few little boxes she creates a superbly flowing performance.

September 10th, 2013

Polkaholix Summer Shows

During summer I played with the Polkaholix. I was asked by the band’s drummer to replace him for some shows this summer. The last concert for me at the end of a little touring throughout Germany was at the Radio Eins Parkfest in Berlin. 

March 4th, 2013

Drums for Xell

Last year I was asked to join Berlin based band Xell, as their drummer was unsure if he could maintain the job. Xell play a mixture of Heavy Metal and Folk resulting in a very dense atmosphere also reminding me of  film music in many parts.

Unfortunately this didn’t work out as expected for me, as the band’s drummer decided to stay with the band, and my work of three months this summer was of no use for me except learning and enjoying this fine music.

December 5th, 2012

Keys for Ewa Firsowicz

From 2008 to 2010 I played keyboards with Ewa Firsowicz, a singer born in Poland and living in Berlin. I joined the band that was formed to present the studio productions live on stage.

When I met the producers for the first time to think about our live presentation the first album “Songs für einen Nachmittag” had just been released, but a second album called “Das Meer” was to follow the next year. A band was put together, and my job on keyboards was to reproduce the sound design of the studio production as closely as possible. I decided to use a laptop and Midi equipment for that purpose. I worked with Logic and Mainstage in my live setup for the first CD and with Live and Kore for the second CD.

You can listen to some songs of the two albums at Ewa Firsowicz on Myspace.

To invite people to our shows we sent a newsletter by mail, including a video I had cut together using live material from the last show and promotion fotos, along with a track from CD. I was happy I still found two of those teaser video clips on the web. I had forgotten about them for quite a while.

 

August 30th, 2012

Lessons and Coachings

I offer private lessons for drums, vibraphone and piano, as well as coachings covering all aspects of sound engineering, music production and band training. See here for details.

August 28th, 2012

Strange Fluid Magnet Video

With Strange Fluid we had a good time performing at Berlin’s Magnet Club last week, as you can see, or better hear, from this little quick and dirty bootleg video compilation.

August 22nd, 2012

Strange Fluid Hybrid Kit

With my band Strange Fluid I play a hybrid drumkit for more than ten years now, as the mixture of electronic and acoustic sounds belongs to the concept of this band. The symmetry of this drumkit is based on my personal preferences.

The perfect symmetry of this setup means there is no preference of right or left. It allows me to play everything with my right or left hand or foot at any time. It helps me to get equal performance on both sides which always was my first goal in drumming. It also was part of the concept for Strange Fluid from the beginning, as it helps to play unusual combinations that occur when using electronic equipment.

The electronic part on this latest update of the drumkit for our 2012 concerts is not quite obvious to see on these pictures. Of course the self-built pads on the outsides allow for playing samples. But the most interesting part is hidden in the acoustic instruments, the sound of which is beeing picked up by microphones and can be used as is.

Using my self built Quadra Pad switch in the top middle of the set, I can now add up to two layers of samples onto the acoustic sound and spice up the whole thing by using time-based and colour-based effects, usually delay and distortion. The Quadra Pad controls the software on my laptop and indicates by red lights if a layer of effect is currently active.