ULI TREPTE, the originator, leader, texter and composer of this Modal Groove Concept, started his musical career 1966 as bass player and founder member of both the IRENE SCHWEIZER TRIO (free-jazz) and the free-rock trio GURU GURU. Around that time he also played with jazz musicians like YUSEF LATEEF, GATO BARBERIE, BARNEY WILEN, MAL WALDRON and JOHN MCLAUGHLIN.

After that he was with a.o. the Progressive Rock bands NEU!, FAUST, KICKBIT INFORMATION and led his own group SPACEBOX between 75-84. Since 85 heīs living as a multi media artist in Berlin.

Backbone of this new sensational project is his unique, solid bass guitar playing, bringing electric magic into the music with its hornlike sound, idiosyncretic but impressive rhythmic patterns, outspoken melodic lines and unconventional phrasing while his casual voice he uses at most titles colours the whole sound most characteristically.

Tight together with the bass guitar goes the djembe (an African voodoo hand drum) of TAPSI KIM, a talented newcomer, whose economic structural drumming ensures rhythmical solidness and formal clarity, strengthens the groove and contributes a lot to the intimate chamber touch, that – together with the loose, but strong intensity – is a mainly feature of this bass and drum based music.

It starts to sound round with the powerful, yet sensitive Chapman stick (a twelve stringed science-fiction instrument with bass and discant part) playing of HANS HARTMANN who formerly also was with GURU GURU, made himself a good name as accompanist of many blues (CHAMPION JACK DUPREE) and jazz greats (like CHET BAKER, LEO WRIGHT) and whose imaginative-virtuoso, but always highly musical way of playing gives this unusual music its refreshing rhythmic-melodic richness and complexity.

Itīs splendour gets the whole affair through the gifted multi instrumentalist EDGAR HOFMANN (a founder member of EMBRYO, who appeared with jazz musicians like CHARLIE MARIANO and MAL WALDRON, made world music with a.o. OKAY TEMIZ, TRILOK GURTU, RAMESH SHOTAM, and created the music for theater people like HELEN STEWART of the La Mama Theatre, New York City, JOSHI OIDA, Paris or the No player AKIRA MATSUI, Tokyo) whose restraint-reduced up to eruptive-exploding playing brings dreamlike lyricism or ferocious bite into this music and who eminently enlarges the group sound with his alto and soprano saxophones, selected clarinets and wood or bamboo flutes.

Due to the distinct mixture of the overtones – provided by the use of those apparently dissimilar but in this context extraordinairy well together fitting instruments (especially Chapman stick and bass guitar blend marvelous together) plus the concious renunciation the standard drum set played with sticks which would coarsen the dynamic gravely and particularly keyboard which would define or limit the harmonic space too much – originates a peculiar bizarre, but earthy, not loud, but forceful sound, thatīs generally suitable for the ears of rock or jazz music listeners, because it integrates and such continues this two kinds of music in a real grooving way.