Uwe Schmidt

Uwe H. Schmidt (born 27 August 1968), also known as Atom™, Atom Heart, or Señor Coconut, is a German composer, musician and producer of electronic music.

More releases followed on labels like Cyclotron, Rising High, and Pod Communications, for which (as Atom Heart) he co-created with Ata and Heiko the 12" vinyl Mihon.

Uwe Schmidt played his first live show as Lassigue Bendthaus as the opening act for the British group Meat Beat Manifesto at the Frankfurt Batschkapp in 1989.

A sub-label of Parade Amoureuse released some of Schmidt's dance floor oriented productions under the alias Atom Heart which he adopted as his main artist name from then on.

[1] The early 1990s saw a series of 12-inch vinyl productions, mainly aimed at the dance floor, which were released under a variety of different project titles such as Atom Heart, Slot, etc.

During the production of "Digit Eyes" he was introduced to Tetsu Inoue, a New York-based Japanese electronic music producer, with whom he founded the Datacide project in 1993.

After the bankruptcy of Parade Amoureuse and its sub-labels in 1992, Schmidt moved his activities to POD Communication on which he released a series of 12-inches and albums under the guises of Atom Heart, Lisa Carbon and Atomu Shinzo.

Due to his releases on Parade Amoureuse and POD Communication and his successful production works, Schmidt had quickly obtained a reputation that let him play live concerts all around the world.

A vast amount of productions were released worldwide due to the licensing activities of POD Communication, Ongaku Music and a variety of other Frankfurt-based record companies.

Back home in Frankfurt, his interest in Latin Music started to grow and in fact the birth of the Señor Coconut moniker can be located somewhere around that time.

[2] Uwe Schmidt, apart from his monthly release on Rather Interesting, continued recording with Tetsu Inoue (Datacide), Pete Namlook (Jet Chamber) and Victor Sol (+N) during 1994.

With a lot of traveling, playing live shows worldwide, such as the Love Parade in 1994 and Sonar Barcelona in 1994, as well as the stagnation to be felt in his European surroundings, Schmidt prepared for his departure from the old continent.

Schmidt and the Chilean Dandy Jack, who lived all his life in Germany and Spain, on their way back from Chile, decided to try to relocate to Santiago in 1997.

In March 1997, Schmidt, together with his colleague Dandy Jack, moved to Santiago de Chile, where they shared a rented house and installed their studios.

Uwe Schmidt continued releasing one album per month on his Rather Interesting label, although due to the difficulties of adaptation in Chile, decided to reduce his output.

Meant to be rough sketches, Uwe Schmidt started to program a couple of Kraftwerk cover versions in traditional cha-cha-cha arrangement and decided to make this the second Señor Coconut album.

One of those companies, Tōwa Tei's Akashic Records, immediately licensed the album, entitled El Baile Alemán, releasing it upon completion of the production in 2000.

European and North American record companies remained uninterested until triggered by the hype El Baile Alemán had caused in Japan.

In parallel to Señor Coconut project, Schmidt continued working on rather obscure ideas, some for Rather Interesting, some that were released on other labels, such as the Geeez 'n' Gosh (2000 and 2002) albums which musically merge abstract electronic programmings and gospel vocals.

Apart from his own productions and various collaborations he was solicited to remix artists such as Depeche Mode, Martin L. Gore, Air, Cesária Évora, Juan García Esquivel, Sketch Show, Tōwa Tei, Moreno Veloso, Merzbow and many others.

Amongst the YMO members themselves (Haruomi Hosono, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi) a large number of musicians appeared on this album such as Mouse on Mars, Akufen, Jorge González and others.

Remixes for Les, Pérez Prado, Jamie Lidell, Plaid and Japanese superstar Kumi Koda have been continuing to garner attention for Uwe Schmidt.

From 2007 until 2010, collaborating with Japanese composer Masaki Sakamoto, he produces the album Alien Symphony and the modified (online) version of it, called Meteor Shower which was released in 2010.

Atom™, in collaboration with Japanese musician Toshiyuki Yasuda produces a cover version of the Brazilian Bossa Nova classic "Aguas de Março", pre-released on the compilation Red Hot 2 in June 2011.

The invitation was accepted and the then entitled Alpha txt ambient set created, which was then again performed, opening the Labyrinth festival in September the same year.