Torsten Fenslau

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Torsten Fenslau (born April 23, 1964 in Kleinheubach ; † November 6, 1993 in Darmstadt ) was a German DJ and music producer and is considered a pioneer of the early Sound of Frankfurt .

life and work

Torsten Fenslau was born in Kleinheubach, Lower Franconia, in 1964. When he was 10 years old, his family moved to Darmstadt . There he attended the Justus Liebig School, which he graduated from high school. He then began studying architecture at the Technical University of Darmstadt . During his studies he decided to turn music, which had previously been his hobby, into a profession. He founded the paraDOX studio in Darmstadt, where numerous dance and techno productions were made.

Fenslau was the resident DJ of Dorian Gray at Frankfurt Airport and co-founder and regular DJ of the hr3 Clubnight . He founded his own label Departure Records , on which he produced around 40 different vinyl maxi releases and a large number of maxi CDs. Most of the pieces he produced did not have any outstanding commercial success, but they are remembered by many as classics of German techno. Examples are: Departure - Alone (It's Me) , Culture Beat - Der Erdbeermund , LDC - Die Schwarze Zone , Near Dark (aka Thomas Lindemann) - Today is a good day to die , Klangwerk - Die Kybernauten or Tyrell Corp. - running . In addition to his own productions, Fenslau also worked as a remixer. a. for Joachim Witt or Purple Schulz .

Torsten Fenslaus pioneering work was The Dream by Out of the Ordinary from 1988 with excerpts from the speech "I Have a Dream" by Martin Luther King . His motto in life was derived from this: To have dreams and to make them come true. The sentence “I Have a Dream” can also be read on his grave.

Fenslau landed his greatest success in 1993 with the Culture Beat project he founded in 1989 : The song Mr. Vain was number 1 in the charts in several European countries for several weeks . Also known in 1993 was the track “Show Me” with the later culture beat singer Kim Sanders . In 1994 the double album "Torsten Fenslau - The Dream (Best Of Torsten Fenslau)" was released on the Dance Pool label , which contains a large part of his collaborative productions.

death

On November 6, 1993, Fenslau had an accident with his vehicle, a Mercedes 500 SL , near Messel near Darmstadt and then died in the Elisabethenstift Darmstadt . Allegedly, Fenslau had already had a long day because he was still in New York City that morning promoting the music of Culture Beat. On the drive home from Paramount Park , where a friend was celebrating his birthday, he fell asleep , came off the road, and crashed his car into a tree. In contrast to his then partner, who survived the accident with minor injuries, he was not buckled up. The last production before his death is the song Remember The Time by Shift.

His grave is in the old cemetery in Darmstadt .

Street naming

In 2017, the local advisory board 5 planned to name a street in Frankfurt to Fenslau at the request of the left. This should be as close as possible to the airport, where he was resident DJ in the Dorian Gray airport club. The idea of ​​naming a street in the new airport district Gateway Gardens to Fenslau, however, could not prevail against the concept of dedicating all streets there to aviation pioneers. As an alternative, a street near the Hessischer Rundfunk was under discussion, but this would be outside the district of the local advisory board 5.

Awards

  • echo
    • 1994: in the category "National producer of the year"

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Frank Reese: Only the good die young. In: Skyline Magazine. No. 12, 1993, p. 14.
  2. ↑ Discography of the paraDOX-Studios Darmstadt on Discogs . Retrieved January 8, 2019.
  3. ↑ Torsten Fenslau - The Dream - Best Of Torsten Fenslau at Discogs
  4. ^ Frankfurter Rundschau: Frankfurt-Süd: Pioneer of Techno . In: Frankfurter Rundschau . ( fr.de [accessed on June 9, 2018]).
personal data
SURNAME Fenslau, Torsten
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German disc jockey and music producer
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1964
PLACE OF BIRTH Kleinheubach
DATE OF DEATH November 6, 1993
Place of death Darmstadt