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.
Thomas Leisner
About Beauty and Bright Ideas
September 21st, 2016
Acrepearls Album Release
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:
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.
August 25th, 2014
Drum & Bass Sessions Day 3
Here’s the third part of my series of improvised Drum & Bass recordings I did with Abelha Supersonica. Another day, another sound. We had quite different inspirations in that session compared to the other recordings on day one and two.
The session was improvised again without any preparation or rehearsing and recorded directly to stereo in one go. Just Abelha’s voice and groovebox and my prepared drumset.
June 4th, 2014
Waiting For The Rain
I recently had the great pleasure to play with my good friend and saxophone player Kai Mader to check out a new way of recording in my studio. We improvised a little and got some fine results.
I had played together with Kai in some jazz projects many years ago, but we had lost improvisation out of sight as our electronic band Strange Fluid turned from experimental attempts to clearly arranged songs. After having a spontaneous jam on a party lately we decided to improvise together at some occasion soon, and after Kai had invited me to check out his new recording facilities at Dorfplatzmusik I in turn invited him to Delicious Drums to have this little jam here.
March 19th, 2014
Three-Axis-Model Hand Position
The Three-Axis-Model of Hand Position shows the spectrum of possibilities of holding sticks in your hands when playing the drums. There are three essential factors to consider, each one moving on an axis between two extreme points.
March 1st, 2014
Drum & Bass Sessions Day 2
This second day we met was probably the most creative and productive of my meetings with Abelha Supersonica. The result is a solid piece of improvised drum and bass, which I split into five tracks afterwards.
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.
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.
August 18th, 2012
Strange Fluid at Magnet
Our next show will be at Berlin’s Magnet Club, upcoming Wednsday, August 22nd, 2012.
August 16th, 2012
Transsylvanians
A view back into my past. For twelve intense years I have been touring Europe with the hungarian speed folk band Transsylvanians.