T.Raumschmiere

Marco Haas, who performs under the surreal alias T.Raumschmiere borrowed from William S. Burroughs’s story The Dreamcops, first surfaced as an anti-hero refusenik. His cranky electro-punk fuses industrial rock with hip-hop and other elements into a single fuzzed-out, danceable, post-apocalyptic assault, evident on the unruly 2003 album Radio Blackout and the equally brash 2008 release I Tank U. Even at its most abstract and minimalist, as on the 2015 self-titled album and 2017’s Heimat, the music retains an unsettling edge while venturing into ambient techno and downtempo terrain.

Previously a member of the German hardcore band Zorn, Haas issued an EP by his indie-rock outfit Stormbow on the Shitkatapult label he founded in 1997. Around the same period he launched the experimental improvisation project Shrubbn!! alongside Ulli Bomans. After relocating to Berlin in 1998 he began issuing raw, damaged electronic music as T.Raumschmiere on Shitkatapult as well as Kompakt and Hefty Records. He coined the term “gnarz” for his approach, derived from the crackling sound of a vinyl record’s runout groove that he sampled to build tracks. The debut full-length Stromschleifen appeared on Shitkatapult in 2000; two years later he simultaneously released the brutal, experimental The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle on the same imprint and the rusty, abrasive manifesto Anti on Hefty.

Radio Blackout, T.Raumschmiere’s most accessible album to that point, surfaced on Novamute in September 2003. Guests including Miss Kittin and the seductive MC Soom T. help propel the nervy set through destructive metallic Euro-dance and slinky virtual-sex soundtracks gone haywire. Singles such as the minimalist yet menacing “Monstertruckdriver” and the wailing, anarchic “Rabaukendisko” received remixes from Dabrye and the Bug. The 2005 follow-up Blitzkrieg Pop continued in a comparable vein, adding guest vocals from Ellen Allien and Quasimodo Jones, whereas the 2006 Shitkatapult collection Random Noize Sessions, Vol. 1 shifted toward downtempo ambient glitch.

After a 2007 hardcore-punk album by Haas’s band the Crack Whore Society and a techno single from Shrubbn!!, T.Raumschmiere returned in 2008 with I Tank U. Featuring appearances by Warren Suicide, Barbara Panther, and the Puppetmastaz, the record favored a song-driven live-band aesthetic more than any prior project release. Following guest spots on 2010 singles by Warren Suicide and Yasmin Gate, T.Raumschmiere issued the party-ready The Rave Is On EP in 2011. Shrubbn!! delivered the dark experimental dub album Echos in 2012. In 2014 T.Raumschmiere shared a split 10-inch with Cristian Vogel for Record Store Day and collaborated on an EP with D-R-U-N-K, the solo project of MOTOR’s Olivier Grasset.

Once he established the Albumlabel imprint, T.Raumschmiere issued a self-titled full-length in 2015 that leaned closer to the experimental Random Noize Sessions than his more song-oriented work. Shrubbn!! released its second album, Europa, in 2016, and T.Raumschmiere teamed with Caspar Brötzmann for a 10-inch EP on Shitkatapult issued for Record Store Day in 2017. That same year he returned unexpectedly to Kompakt with the lush yet propulsive ambient-techno set Heimat. A split 12-inch with Reinhard Voigt appeared in the label’s Speicher series the following year.