It all began with a faulty translation:
A drunk and stoned Polish monk transcribed philosophical scrolls from Tibet and made „Staro Robota“ – which means „old work“ in Polish – into „Astroboter“. This mistake soon became a myth take and found its way into the people‘s folklore, turning Astroboter into a metaphysical entity in the shape of a robot, who is able to discharge the energies of good and evil. A role Astroboter accepted eventually and whose creator is unknown (yet?).
Armed with a Guitar and MPC (hidden in his belly), the Astroboter is witness to incidents that are caused by extreme contrarieties, but yet are so close together that it’s vexed to differ one from the other. Like a “Fail-Safe Key” he appears in various events, triggered by the beliefs & disbeliefs of human mankind. Not bound to era or location, the tale spans from 3000 BC until today, from Amon Meru to New York, from Antarctica to the Desert of Doom.
The music reflects the mythical story of Astroboter, a spiritual manifestation of Nature’s own steady metronomic dance between good and evil. Employing musical means as varied as Trip Hop, Krautrock, Ambient and Post Rock, the music evokes antique episodes and ponders timeless questions with its very own kind of sonic soundscapes and trickery.
The selftitled debut album was released on German label Switchstance Recordings in April 2012. It peaked in the US CMJ RPM Charts Top 5 in May 2012 and renowned music critic Rajotte from the French / Canadian TV channel MusiquePlus called the album simply "Magnifique!". His non-official remix for the highly acclaimed TV show Breaking Bad gained him the likes of music composer Dave Porter. The Limited Cassette Editions of his releases are found in the Best Selling Charts on Bandcamp. The tapes are hand-crafted and distributed by his own label Psychedelic Dungeon Records, which also allows him to use the labels infrastructure for diverse projects regarding Astroboter.
The human behind the Astroboter is the musician and producer David Weicht from Germany, the motherland of Krautrock. Born in Upper Silesia, raised in Eicker Wiesen and currently residing in Castle Town, he has been working under this moniker since 2005. The involvment in the former Space Rock Band "Aeronautix" and several Guitar EP's show his affinity towards the Guitar as his main instrument of choice. The purchase of a MPC2000XL in the year of 2011 led to an obvious merger of sampled Beat productions and Guitar recordings. What was intended as a Beat based project evolved into a multidimensional project over the past years.
Each release is to be seen as a standalone chapter in the vast storyline of Astroboters "lifetime" and thus the musicians own artistic direction. Not bound to a single genre or format, you'll find different sonic streams: The Beat Sutras series is his outlet for Hip Hop Beats, released in the form of classic beat tapes. His most far out adventures find their own form in the Ambient music releases like "Ambient Collection One", which is a 60 minute collection of sound sculptures. The record comes with a webapp called "Ambient Framework Generator" and allows musicians and producers to generate frameworks for their own music creations. This technique was inspired by the Musique Concrete & Surrealist direction and shows once again the multimedia aspect of the Astroboter project. The so-called "full length albums" represent the main installments of this concept story and allow all streams to merge into one big delta.
David's love for a broad range of genres is reflected by his Mixes, which are formed like collages around certain topics and moods. Installments like the "Merry Meditation Mix" or "Delights For Psychic Minds" were promoted by Los Angeles based radio station Dublab and even catched the ears of German Techno DJ Dr. Motte. The live shows cover the broad range of sounds and Astroboter remixes his songs in company with Guitar lines and Ambient interludes, thus involve more spirit than simple button pushing.
The story of Astroboter will develop throughout the artists own life and will always represent a current point-of-view of the endless architecture of the universe. In the end, Astroboter falls into a coma, forever frozen in the icy vaults of Antarctica and quite likely forgotten in the arctic nights.
To be continued… Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
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