Markus Stock
Markus Stock , also known under the pseudonym Ulf Theodor Schwadorf , is a German musician and music producer . His main projects are Empyrium and The Vision Bleak .
Musical career
Musical socialization and first musical activities
At the age of 10 years got to stick the album The Number of the Beast by Iron Maiden know that his passion for heavy metal ignited. Starting from this point, Stock dealt intensively with classic heavy metal, thrash and death metal in the following years , until he met Darkthrones A Blaze in the Northern Sky in 1992 and as a result became part of the Norwegian black metal movement .
Stock has been active as a musician since 1988, triggered by his affinity for heavy metal. From 1988/89 to 1990 he took drum lessons for two years, and in 1990/91 he gained his first band experiences as a drummer in a duo with a bass player. Approx. 1992/93 Stock joined the death metal band Impurity. At this time he also learned to play the guitar autodidactically in order to be able to express himself not only rhythmically, but also melodically and harmonically.
Main bands
Due to musical differences, Stock left Impurity at the turn of the year 1993/1994 together with the guitarist Andreas Bach and founded Empyrium with them . Empyrium was Stock's main musical field of activity for the next eight years until he dissolved the project with the release of the album Weiland (2002) due to a lack of artistic challenge. During this time, Empyrium released a demo cassette and four studio albums.
In 2000, Stock founded the group The Vision Bleak together with Nox Mortis drummer Tobias Schönemann , which released their first recordings in 2001 with the demo Songs of Good Taste and quickly became Stock's musical priority. With The Vision Bleak, Stock has released four studio albums so far.
Other Projects
In addition to Empyrium and The Vision Bleak, Stock has had various side projects since 1998 and has acted as a guest musician in various groups:
- Sun of the Sleepless : When Stock decided in 1998/99 to only make acoustic music with Empyrium, he founded the side project Sun of the Sleepless. “Sun Of The Sleepless is for my spontaneous desires that move me right now, whether it's Black Metal, Techno or Hip Hop , it doesn't matter. There will always be a somber mood, of course, but the scope of Sun of the Sleepless is extremely broad. ” On the first release of Sun of the Sleepless, the mini CD Poems to the Wretches Hearts (1999), Stock dedicated himself to one own interpretation of Norwegian Black Metal. Other publications were the 7 "single thousand cold winter , the title track is a greatly from trip-hop influenced adaptation of Darkthrone title En ås i DYPE skogen is and simply I titled Split-album Nightmare. Then were included among others a cover- Version of Burzum's song Dunkelheit and a setting of Georg Trakl's poem Romanze zur Nacht .
- Autumnblaze :Stock played drums and basson the albums Bleak (2000), Mute Boy Sad Girl (2002), Lighthouses (2002) and Perdition Diaries (2009) by Autumnblaze and was responsible for all electronic components. Stock did not play a part in the composition or text writing of Autumnblaze, nor was he part of the live cast of the group.
- Noekk : After the dissolution of Empyrium in 2002, Stock and Thomas Helm founded the progressive rock / doom metal project Noekk, in which he operated under the pseudonym FF Yugoth. Noekk's first sign of life was the Dead Can Dance cover version How Fortunate the Man with None on the compilation Tribute to Dead Can Dance - The Lotus Eaters (2004), which was followed by three studio albums between 2005 and 2008. The main composer of all Noekk songs was not Stock, but Thomas Helm alias Funghus Baldachin.
- Nachtmahr : Stock also ran the black metal project Nachtmahr with Thomas Helm, about which little information is known. There are only four songs by Nachtmahr - three on the split album with Sun of the Sleepless (2004), one on a split EP with Helrunar (2005).
- Miscellaneous : Since 1999, Stock has been making regular musical contributions to recordings by other musicians who record in his sound studio, Klangschmiede Studio E. These are mostly short vocal contributions, but also drum and guitar recordings. During Dornenreich's live performance at the metal festival Summer Breeze in 2007, which was later released on DVD and CD under the name Nachtreisen , Stock also played bass guitar.
Discography
Empyrium
The Vision Bleak
Sun of the Sleepless
- 1999: Poems to the Wretches Hearts (EP)
- 2000: A Thousand Cold Winters (7 "-EP)
- 2004: I (split album with Nachtmahr)
Autumnblaze
- 2000: Bleak
- 2002: Mute Boy Sad Girl
- 2002: Lighthouses (EP)
- 2009: Perdition Diaries
Noekk
- 2004: How Fortunate the Man with None on Tribute to Dead Can Dance - The Lotus Eaters
- 2005: The Water Sprite
- 2006: The Grimalkin
- 2008: The Minstrel's Curse
Nightmare
- 2004: I (split album with Sun of the Sleepless)
- 2005: Helrunar / Nachtmahr (split EP with Helrunar )
Guest appearances
- Rivendell: The Ancient Glory (1999) (drums)
- Ewigheim: Murder not without a reason (2002) (undefined posts, according to the booklet "unbelievably many, great things" )
- Mysterium: Soulwards (2003) (Clean Guitar with Spiral Mystery , Drum Loops with Ambivalentika )
- Ewigheim: Heimwege (2004) (undefined posts, according to the booklet "unbelievable, great things" )
- Secrets of the Moon : The Exhibitions EP (2005, additional vocals with Under a Funeral Moon ); Seven Bells (2012, vocals with Worship )
- Nine Worlds : Forgotten Paths (2006) (background vocals at Svartalfheim )
- Amesoeurs : Amesoeurs (2009) (Spoken-Word-Passage in Recueillement )
- Dornenreich : Nachtreisen (2009) (bass guitar at Summer Breeze concert)
Producer activity
In the autumn of 1998, Stock began operating his sound studio, Klangschmiede Studio E, professionally in Zeltingen-Rachtig, Rhineland-Palatinate . In the meantime, however, the recording studio has been relocated to Mellrichstadt in Franconia . In addition to the recordings of his own music projects, Stock has so far produced primarily bands from the Prophecy Productions label (e.g. Secrets of the Moon , Helrunar , Alcest and Dornenreich ) as well as groups from the German black, pagan and folk music at Klangschmiede Studio E. Metal scene. Several albums by The Vision Bleak , Helrunar, Dornenreich, Eisregen and Maroon , recorded under Stock's aegis , also reached placements in the German album charts .
Personality and pseudonym
Stock himself sees his life determined by polarities and extreme cuts. He repeatedly points out this in a biographical interview:
“This is also typical for me, by the way: if I get to know something new or start something, the old one has to be completely destroyed or removed from my world. [...] That's how it always worked for me, I slide from one extreme to the other. [...] There are always these radical cuts in my life with which I destroy the old so that I can dig myself free again to do something new. "
With this, Stock also explains various breaks in his biography and his musical career such as B. his extreme turn to Black Metal around 1992, the change from rowdy teenager to romantic, culturally diverse young adult around 1994, the strict abandonment of Empyrium from the metal genre around 1998/99 or the consequent end of Empyrium and the parallel focus on The Vision Bleak around 2002.
As a musician, Markus Stock has worked almost exclusively under the pseudonym Ulf Theodor Schwadorf since 1999. Ulf stands for 'Wolf' and is also to be understood as a homage to the Norwegian band Ulver . The second component of the name, Theodor, refers to the Norwegian painter Theodor Kittelsen . The third component of the name, Schwadorf, is associated with a romantic poet in a purely associative way . The name does not refer to a real person. Stock decided to use a pseudonym to express the separation of the artist from the private person behind it:
“I just noticed that a lot of people who didn't know me personally judged me on the basis of interviews and drew conclusions about my personality from the image that was drawn there. At one point I was totally pissed off that people believed that I was the same person in my private life as in my artistic expression. [...] Schwadorf is one facet of me, but I definitely don't want to be reduced to it. "
For a better understanding of both personalities, Stock refers in a later interview to character differences and that the separation primarily has pragmatic benefits for his work as an artist:
“The difference between Markus Stock and Ulf Theodor Schwadorf lies primarily in the fact that Schwadorf is much more selfish than Stock, in that he uncompromisingly goes through what he wants to do, while Stock is a much, much more considerate person who does other things too are important. It is really pleasant to work mentally with such a pseudonym. "
Web links
- Markus Stock at Discogs (English)
- Homepage of the Klangschmiede Studio E
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Stefan Belda: Many moons ago ... The story of Empyrium in his own words . In: Mörkeskye , No. 11, 2006, o. P.
- ^ Wanzek, Thor: Sun Of The Sleepless . In: Legacy , No. 1 (1/99), p. 106.
- ↑ Biography ( Memento of the original from October 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the official Rivendell homepage; Retrieved October 13, 2010.
- ↑ Ewigheim: Murder not without a reason (CD), supplement, Prophecy Productions , 2002.
- ^ Ewigheim: Heimwege (CD), supplement, Prophecy Productions, 2004.
- ↑ Jens: The Vision Bleak Metalglory ABC with Ulf Theodor Schwadorf !!! metalglory.de; Retrieved November 6, 2010
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Floor, Markus |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Schwadorf, Ulf Theodor |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German musician and music producer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 20th century |