Hilton Theissen

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hilton Theissen 2015

Hilton Theissen (born March 5, 1974 in Cape Town ), grew up in Germany, is a composer , music producer , singer and multi-instrumentalist who publishes as part of his regular projects Dark Millennium and Akanoid , as well as various other musical projects, collaborations and productions.

Career and activity as a musician

Hilton Theissen began learning to play the guitar and drums at the age of six and experimented with multitrack sound recordings and self-constructed technology at an early age, until he finally found Christoph Hesse, the first musical companion and later co-founder of the progressive death metal band Dark Millennium , in 1989 . Between 1992 and 1994 the young band released two demos and two albums and gave various concerts at festivals and tours.

After the band broke up and the grunge project Cherub was released in 1994, Theissen was discovered as a singer and in 1995 he launched the Rape - Children of a Lesser project with Christoph Hesse (drums), Gerold Kukulenz (bass, synthesizer) and Rafael Karnowski (guitar) God via Polydor . This also represented the first point of contact with electronic music , which from then on became an integral part of all other in-house productions. Between 1996 and 1998 he experimented within the latter band structure and in cooperation with Martin Hirsch (Jester's March, House of Spirits , Secret Discovery ), who replaced Rafael Karnowski on guitar and was involved in the production, in the field of alternative and electronically influenced rock, until finally in 1998 the label Semaphore signed the band under the project name Hilton and started an album production in the Düsseldorf Crownhill Studio for the acoustic recordings, the studio of the psy-trance artist Tarsis for the electronic programming, and the studio room 3 by Heiko Maile ( Camouflage ) in the Stuttgart media house for the mixing with the assistance of Jochen Schmalbach. Semaphore GmbH filed for bankruptcy while production was still going on, and the album was never released, whereupon the band broke up.

In 1999, Hilton Theissen together with Uwe Lübbers alternative and electronically based band Akanoid that to 2003 when in Cologne resident, and Zoomia group Stuttgart associated label insolation two albums, three vinyl singles, a Best of and various features and compilation tracks recorded .

In 2000, Theissen successfully participated in the RTL television show Deine Band around the cast band Public Animals, but then focused again on their own projects in the newly founded Elektrofish Studio, in which their own bands Akanoid, Sphere, also with Insolation Records under contract, as well as the psy-trance project Spacefish, whose vinyl singles were released on the trance label Spirit Zone.

After the elimination of the side projects and the third album published in cooperation with the publishing company Popfloor / BMG Ufa via Alive Distribution, Theissen signed with band colleague Uwe Lübbers in 2004 with the still young independent label Echozone , which had two albums and various singles respectively until 2011 EPs released.

Between 2012 and 2014 Theissen volunteered as a board member of the Soest- based artist house Bem Adam in matters of art and culture as well as the promotion of young regional musicians and was a guest guitarist in the band projects Pentarize and the herb rock formation Weltraum.

After the production of the band Leichtmatrose for an EP and the album ich, du und die other , which followed in 2015 , Theissen made guest appearances as their guitarist and background singer in the opening act of Joachim Witt's Neumond tour and at Witt's birthday concert in Hamburg's Grünspan in 2015.

Theissen was responsible for vocals, guitars, songwriting and coproduction for the pop band Seadrake, which was founded in 2015. Other members are Mathias Thürk ( Minerve (band) ) and Rickard Gunnarsson, the son of ABBA bassist Rutger Gunnarsson .

In 2019, due to internal differences at Seadrake, Hilton Theissen founded the band Zoodrake, which released its debut album purified in March after three digital singles .

Career and activity as a producer

In 2000, Theissen founded the Elektrofish Studio, which is still in operation today, together with Uwe Lübbers and Linus Wessel (Tarsis).

After numerous in-house productions, collaborations (including with Darrin Huss from Psyche , Thomas Elbern from Escape with Romeo and Marc Heal from “ Cubanate ”) and remixes for other artists, as well as Linus Wessel's departure, the Elektrofish studio expanded and expanded from 2006 to the Elektrofish Studios Soest and Olsberg.

From 2006 the Elektrofish Studio was also used for third-party productions, mix-and-mastering jobs and commissioned compositions for bands, labels and publishers such as BMG Rights Management and the “ Universal Music Group ”. Among other things, the last studio album by British bassist Paul Raven ( Killing Joke , Ministry ) called Mob Research was co-produced, mixed and mastered in collaboration with Mark Gemini Twaithe ( The Mission , Peter Murphy , Tricky) and Tim Palmer . But also stylistically overlapping topics such as a vocal house album for the Paco Rabanne Black XS campaign by Douglas , the overall production of the album Tourist in Your Own Town by the British indie group Friday Night Hero around frontman Alex Uhlmann ( Planet Funk ) or the Atari 8bit - soundtrack published 2014 retro game Dimo's Quest took place there.

Discography

With Akanoid

With cherub

With Dark Millennium

With Majune

  • 2002: In <Ear> Flavor (Insolation Chilling)

With rape

With Seadrake

  • 2015: On the Run (Single, SDRK)
  • 2015: What you do to me (Single, SDRK)
  • 2018: Isola (album, SDRK)

With spacefish

  • 2001: Voices EP (Spirit Zone Recordings)
  • 2001: The Construct (Spirit Zone Recordings)

With Sphere

  • 2001: Rotation (album, insolation)
  • 2001: Still (single, insolation)
  • 2001: Rotation (EP, Insolation)
  • 2001: Symbiont / Angela's Anger (single, insolation)

With zoodrake

  • 2019: sent to you (single, electrofish)
  • 2019: our light (Single, Elektrofish)
  • 2020: death bloom (Single, Elektrofish)
  • 2020: purified (album, electrofish)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Theissen, Hilton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African-German musician
DATE OF BIRTH March 5th 1974
PLACE OF BIRTH Cape Town