Thomas
Gruberski was born 1974 in Warsaw, Poland. At the age
of five, he moved with his parents to Basel, Switzerland;
despite this, he speaks Polish language fluently, even
though with a slight accent, and keeps a close contact
with the Polish electronic music scene.
Thanks to his father's profession (he's an electronic
engineer) he already had some contact with electronic
devices at a very young age and was fascinated by them.
At the age of 14, he got his first computer, Amiga,
on which he started to work with a music program called
"Soundtracker". Using samples, he composed instrumental
pieces in 4 channel MOD files. Even though they meant
a lot in Thomas' musical development, they didn't resemble
his later works much.
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The
things have changed in 1990, when Thomas got his first
synthesizers. The very next year, at the age of 16,
he released a 15-minute long mini-album, named Back
to Metropolis. Even though the compositions
were somehow simpler than his later works, the opus
contained catchy melodies with already sophisticated
arrangements and an almost professional sound - quite
an amazing accomplishment for a teenager.
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Even though Back to Metropolis wasn't available commercially,
some of the melodies were reworked later on Omnipresence
and Spacetime Adventures.
In 1994, at the age of 20, Thomas released his first
official album Cinemascope,
a collection of eight compositions, which alternated
moody soundscapes with rhythmical sections and strong
melodies.
In 1995, Omnipresence
followed, an album more compact than Cinemascope, with
a greater stress on melody and rhythm. Omnipresence
was voted the best Polish electronic album of the year
1995.
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In
2000, a new album called Spacetime
Adventures was released, combining the more
rhythmic elements of Omnipresence with the "cinematic"
qualities of Cinemascope.
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A
very important element of Thomas' work is his live activity:
he has given several concert already, e.g. in August
1996 in Poland, due to the annual festival of electronic
music "ZEF '96" in Pisz. In 1997 and 1999, Thomas was
invited by the Belgian J.M.Jarre fanclub "TransJarre"
to rearrange some of Jarre's compositions in his personal
style and play at two tribute concerts (photos from
one of the performances can be seen in the gallery).
Thomas' cover versions are available on the album
Protuberance from 2001.
In
1999, Thomas graduated from Basel University, where
he had studied law. At the moment, he serves the compulsory
civil service (instead of serving in the army).
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