Tobias Lichtmann

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NFT - Non Fungible Tokens Are The New Fun Toys!

Ya heard? Non Fungible Tokens aka NFT are here to stay - this is what at least some people say.
I recently shopped my very first one from the gifted artist Liminal Architecture -
a surreal dream pool with a synthwave-ish aesthetic...I guess a few posts ago I mentioned that I dream of pools a lot, didn't I? Anhyow...now you know.

Oh and btw: I also minted my own NFT - shot in my secret garden - on the Foundation.app

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The Full STOP!

It just had to happen - music production came to a complete, full stop - and it all started with some heavy rainfall. Here's the background information: The studio is situated under a rooftop-terrace. A late-summer thunderstorm with some heavy, heavy rainfall was strong enough to flood the terrace - with water eventually dripping through my ceiling. "Dripping" for the first few moments, because seconds later, water was not just dripping - it came down like a waterfall. How do I know? Well, luckily, I was on site. I managed to evacuate all keyboards and almost all speakers. The sub got covered in a wallpaper-mud-mixture - and so did the entire desk. Long story short: it took some whopping two months to actually dry all walls, followed by a renovation, followed by a complete re-setting up of the entire studio. Lovely.

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RecordJet PARTY

It's the 10th anniversary of my FAV Recordjet Crew. We'll have a party! Drop by!

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Traurig 2: It’s all over now.

2018's Traurig Und Untanzbar aka Traurig 2 is over and done. We'll be back next year - plus I'll have some surprises to come up in between today and the next event. Thanks to everybody involved so far.

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I bumped into Daniel Miller

I bumped into Daniel Miller during my promotions for Traurig Und Untanzbar.
Daniel Miller discovered Depeche Mode in the early 80ies.
That's all there is to say.

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What’s next?

Next step: really get things going :-)
Feel invited to see (yeah, have a look) whether I shall defeat romanticism + nurture on reflected reality + turn all this into music ... or witness me fail ^^

Merci à tous.
Amicalement.

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Oh, nice!

Yey! The nice people from Ask Helmut have to decided to partner up with me for Traurig Und Untanzbar Vol.2 :) I'm very sad (happy!) about his, cuz sharing is caring :).

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Musikmesse 2018

Alongside with Marc Mozart and his team (who take care of the entire (!) Social-Media Channels of the Musikmesse 2018), I'll be attending Europe's most important music trade fair.

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Catching a ship long gone

I met Mads aka Monolog about a year ago. He played at my "Traurig Und Untanzbar" Event. Weeks after the show we had a chat about how he had created his very unique style of music. We browsed through his gear, pondered on memories where and why he got this or that piece of hardware. And eventually, he said something that I literally had to let sink in. The importance was not just rooted in the content of his statement, but also in the WAY he said the following:
"If you wanna get signed by a label, you might feel urged to match that label's sound. You even might be expanding the sound they currently stand for. And you might think that this is the way to get signed. Be like what they represent, but sound a little different.
But in reality, what you're hearing right now (and what is making you think the label is looking for) is nothing but a reverb, a delayed reality of what WAS what they stood for long ago!
Sounding alike or similar to a current release is like tryin' to catch a ship that not just has left the harbor. It's even worse than that: The ship you wanted to catch has by now become nothing more than a tiny dot at the horizon. It's long gone and it's gone for good.
And all that there's left are stories(=> tracks) of the discoveries others made whilst being on this boat. But these stories won't be yours."

Personally, I feel this is very right. And this makes me sad on the one hand - cuz I may have wanted to be with this or that label/ship/younameit SO badly.
But on the other hand: Why don't I build my own ship and go onto my own journey?
Leaving aside the pro and cons of being signed to a label, my very personal opinion on this is:
Be inspired by artists you like but don't be similar. Be different, get used to being rejected plenty of times. Eventually (and this is not a guarantee!) you might succeed.
But first and foremost: Expand your horizon - for example start listening to the tunes your artist-heroes listened to when they were yound. See what inspired them.
Or listen to tunes that you don't like at all.
Let all that sink in and come up with your reaction to all the input.
Your reaction.
Not the reaction you think that might suit a label's taste.

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Dix-Huit-Inspirations

Where do I find inspiration? Does it hide under my bed? Does it come canned? And if so, can I please benefit from the "buy-one-get-one-free" offer? This year, I refueled my 2018's creative jetpack in a quite remote, almost hidden spot. Un endroit filled with nothing but sand, dunes, relicts and nostalgia. Three brand-new but yet nameless tracks were written here. I'm sure they'll surface soon.

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Pop Kultur Festival 2017

Pop-Kultur-Festival, the follow up event to the Berlin Music Week. A good place to make new friends and meet the old ones. The Nachwuchs Concept really helps the music-offspring to get things going.

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Bye Bye, Music Mindmap

To make good music, follow two simple rules. One: Know the rules. Two: Break the rules. On this day, I took down my gigantic mindmap full of music production know-how (see rule 1) that covered most of the walls in my studio. But before I did so, I had a Gin Tonic and sprayed my kind-a credo over all the map.

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Unbaking the cake - track deconstruction as a mean for musical insights

Sharing is caring - this is my credo. And since I gained a shitload of insights by deconstructing other artist's tracks, I decided to share my know-how with the superb Noisy Academy Berlin audience. My songwriting still benefits from this technique up until today - if you're interested in learning it, feel free to contact me: I'm quite a good teach.