Dr.Schmidt's Page

Dr. Schmidt

Techno, Electro, BreakBeats and Industrial......

Born in Germany in the mid 70’s, for Andreas Schmehl aka Dr. Schmidt everything about
music started with the mid 80's synthpop from bands like Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, Human
League, Heaven 17, and of course with the "Neue Deutsche Welle" (The New German Wave)
or NDW. NDW was the very first Germany based youth driven music movement, heavily
influenced by avantgarde electronica and often delivered with quite minimalist lyrics and
rather strange performances. Already leaning towards electronic music, Dr. Schmidt was hit
by the ebbing wave of Industrial and EBM, a short but very important phase, that shaped his
musical taste through bands like Front 242, Skinny Puppy, The Fair Sex, Frontline Assembly,
Cassandra Complex, The Invincible Spirits, The Normal and many more. This short period
brought his introduction into darker, deeper, but nonetheless powerful electronic music that
should soon become reminiscent in his own productions. Prepared by EBM and Industrial for
the things to come, the 90's came rushing in, and if one should give those years a headline,
then this would definitely have to be Techno.

For Dr. Schmidt it started off with HardHouse and early Trance, but he soon found his way
again into harder, deeper and darker territories. Claude Young, Speedy J, James Ruskin,
Surgeon, Chris Liebing, Steve Stoll, Marco Carola…....all on the list. Despite his focus on the
4/4 drum, rather accidentally he fell in love with BigBeat, HardHop, and BreakBeats in
general in late '96. With the downfall of BigBeat came a smooth transition to NuSkool
breakbeat like it was done at that time by Adam Freeland, B.L.I.M., Freq Nasty, Tsunamie
One, Kevin Beber, High 8, Evil 9, Tipper.......to many names to list them all.

In the late 90’s, when Techno and NuSkool for him became more and more schematic and
predictable, Dr. Schmidt once again was looking for new influences to fire his passion for
music and rediscovered his early love for Electro. In 2003, after seven years of DJing and
producing, he decided to confront what he felt to be a gap in the electronic music scene by
starting his own label - Maschinen Musik - to bring his main influences, Techno, Industrial,
Electro and BreakBeats together under one unified sound. After five years of work and after
12 releases, Maschinen Musik has created its own trademark sound. As a professional
platform, today the label supports new German talents like Solar Chrome, T.R.O. and
Electronic Confessions and works together with big scene players like Scape One, Circuit
Breaker, The Dexcorcist, and Boris Divider.


Discography:
Volt: on "It's a Berlin Thing Vol. 2" CD-Compilation (Dangerous Drums)
Borg EP (Maschinen Musik)
Machine Music (Maschinen Musik)
Styx: on "It's a Berlin Thing Vol. 3" CD-Compilation (Dangerous Drums)
Lessons in Logic (Maschinen Musik)
Many Machines (together with Circuit Breaker / Maschinen Musik)
Steel Mill / Subkutan (Maschinen Musik)
The Raid (Maschinen Musik)
Resonator (Maschinen Musik)
Remix of: T.R.O. - REC (Dangerous Drums mp3 release)
The Engines of God / Quellcrist (Maschinen Musik)
They're Here/Warning/Flesh (Maschinen Musik)
Adrenochrome/Tremor Hall (Maschinen Musik)

Upcomming:
Undweg/Brave New World (Maschinen Musik)
Human Resource Management (Glack Audio)
Global Surveyor Remix (Dominance Electricity)


References (excerpts):
Dangerous Drums 50 @ Pfefferbank / Berlin
We Play Hart Techno @ Tresor / Berlin
Thursday Club @ Circus Maximus / Koblenz
Mindset 2003 @ Kongresszentrum Rosengarten / Mannheim
Breakser Clubnight @ Sackfabrik / Magdeburg
Breaker Slacker @ Distillery / Leipzig
Nature One 10 @ Rocket Base Pydna / Koblenz
German Breaks Meeting 2008 @ Ruderclub Mitte/ Berlin