Imagine circuit boards, a jumble of transformers, tangled wires and electronic gadgets lying open, baring their innermost secrets. To this, add the pungent but fascinating smell of ozone. Such was TG’s first contact with electronics. His father is an electronic technician, and thus naturally, he had a workroom in which electronic devices of all sorts were stacked up into high towers. These machines captivated young TG’s attention, a fascination that would later manifest itself on a different level.
Fast forward to the mid-eighties: TG, born 1974 in Warsaw (Poland), obtains his first computer. Soon after, he discovers “Soundtracker”, a crude program to make music with the computer and he is enthralled. The program is very limited: You can only use synthetical instruments in compositions, the number of sounds played simultaneously is limited to four and adding vocals to a song is completely out of the question. TG never experienced this as a drawback, however:
"Isn't the crucial point in electronic instrumental music, the point that sets it apart from other music genres, that you can give the right timbre to a melody, a chord or a rhythmical sequence? To create a unique, possibly never-heard-of sound that fits the melody like an evening dress and that makes it sparkle? And since one has this possibility, it becomes almost a duty. The ever-present challenge is to convey a mood by creating the right sounds and not to resort to words and lyrics.”
Fast forward again, and skip a few years. Meanwhile, TG has bought the first couple of his impressive array of synthesizers. The year is now 1994, and he publishes the album „Cinemascope“ under his own label. It is conceived as the soundtrack to an imaginary movie. People listening to it are asked to shut their eyes and take an active role. They can watch their own movie develop in their mind’s eye. And the movies they saw must have been good: the album finishes as number four in the annual listeners charts of PR3, a polish national radio station, in the electronic music category.
1995 sees the publication of „Omnipresence“, TG’s second album. It comes in at the top in the charts of PR3 the following year. Omnipresence is less pensive than its predecessor, instead it explores many different rhythmical structures. As in Cinemascope, TG again set a central theme for this album: The ubiquity of modern technology and how people relate to it. His views are that technology should never dominate humanity, but indeed should be controlled by mankind. This holds true particularly for electronic music of course: “Even though by definition, the music I compose is brought into existence by electronic means, technology should be a tool and not a dominating force. Music has to have a human factor. It must never become mechanical, or sound as if conceived by machines or strictly derived from equations.” The audience shall judge if this is indeed the case with “Omnipresence”.
In 1999, Gruberski receives an invitation to a convention organized by “TransJarre”, a Belgian Jean-Michel Jarre fan club. Gladly, he accepts and plans a very ambitious project for this occasion. Collaborations with a complete symphonic orchestra and a choir are planned for this event. With guest musicians coming from different cities of Europe, there was no choice than to do intense rehearsals at the venue, in the days before the performance. The show, illuminated by a sophisticated light show, was performed in front of 600 Jarre-fans from all over Europe. It was Gruberski’s most involved and ambitious, but also highly successful project to date. The compositions and arrangements played that night were later released on a limited-edition album entitled “Protuberance”.
In early 2000, the label “Groove Unlimited” publishes “World Wide Kind”, a compilation album of contemporary electronic On it, among others, the piece “Photonic Rainbow” by Thomas Gruberski, which he later issued on his album “Spacetime Adventures”.
This album, his third, entitled “Spacetime Adventures” is published in June 2000. Another concept album, it revolves around concepts of modern physics and astrophysics:
The relativity of time, particles that move faster than light, parallel universes – When these theories meet reality as we experience it daily, they seem like absurd fairy tales; but yet they describe the laws governing our universe. Scientific facts meet the realm of science fiction, and authors of the latter genre are hard pressed to imagine things stranger than reality. In this context, TG points out another aspect: “The junction called space-time limits and determines the laws for everything going on around us, including our own actions. Each event in our world is a sort of “spacetime adventure”. Mankind is irreversibly subjected by the three spatial dimensions and the fourth, time.” As John Gribbins has succinctly put it: “The three-dimensional world surrounding us is essentially a shadow of four-dimensional space-time.”
In February 2001, a competition is announced on the official Jean-Michel Jarre website www.jarre.net. For the new Jarre song “Hey Gagarin”, which had just come out on the album “Metamorphoses”, they want a remixed version. Contestants from all over the world take part, among them Thomas Gruberski. His entry ended up in third place.
Later in 2001, the fourth volume of the “Hidden Treasures” series of electronic music compilations appears. These compilations are produced as a cooperation between the music label “BSC-Music” and the German association for electronic music “MEMI.com”. For this CD, “Hidden Treasures Volume IV”, TG's composition “Cathedral of Light”, previously unreleased, was selected. The CD is in sale all over Europe.
Discography:
1994 - Cinemascope (sold out)
1995 - Omnipresence
1999 - Protuberance (limited edition)
2000 - Spacetime Adventures
(Thanks to Michael Podvinec for the translation)
