Bit´s the Beginning

The Story  about Bit´s

After our band S.Y.P.H. had split up again and everyone was pursuing different projects (Uwe Jahnke with the Fehlfarben, Peter Braatz at the Berlin Film Academy), only me and Jojo remained in the former S.Y.P.H. rehearsal room at Schaberg in Solingen. So Jojo and I founded the Bit's project. Waldemar Kutschma (guitar and vocals) and Gintaras Gaubis (keyboards, piano, percussion) joined us. A really wild, sensual music found its great outlet. At this time, I built the drinking water studio into the rehearsal room. 180 square metres became the centre of extended sessions where many of the pieces on the Home Run were created. Then Waldemar and Gintaras contacted Michael Karoli and visited him in his studio in France (Les Roussinolles near Nice.) This led to the desire to do a recording session there and produce a record. After I had rewired the studio and included the rooms in his house (drums in the living room of the house of a former olive mill) vocals and percussion were done in his empty pool, Jojo and Waldemar were in the studio room. We mainly worked at night because it was unbearably hot that summer. The result was 4 tapes with 2 hours of music. With this result we drove back and only I went back to Michael's studio Outerspace several times for mixing and editing. Waldemar Kutschma then died in a tragic event. Nevertheless, I cut and mastered the recordings. It was then released on the label of Carmen Knoebel and Peter Braatz - Pure Freude. It became the Maxisingle, in which I applied all the techniques I had learnt from Holger Czukay (CAN) and recreated the music myself, so to speak. Basically a very early form of sampling (only with snippets of tape) that fascinated me a lot. Uwe Jahnke then joined in again and we recorded a series of great recordings in my studio. However, a new recording session with Michael Karoli turned into a mega disaster because Uwe had a very serious crisis in France and the planned recordings didn't materialise. Everyone went home, only I stayed and helped Michael finish his demo tape for his solo LP "Deluge", I mixed and mastered this record. Other mixes were done later, but it was my start in producing. Since I was already there and all my stuff was there, I started my first solo recordings without Taktel or any other tools. Michael came along and recorded a few guitar tracks for me. It was a monumental experience to feel him wriggling into the tracks like a snake. I've never experienced such a strong presence playing a guitar since. The three tracks were then released by me decades later on "Outerspace". As a tribute to Michael Karoli and in fond memory. The stuff was always weird. 

Back to Bit's. Due to the reunion (once again) of S.Y.P.H. the project paused for a while and was only revived decades later during a studio session at Rockcity Studio Solingen (owner Carsten Steffens - projects with Bröselmaschine, Hendrix Expirianze, Doro Pesch, and more). The line-up then consisted of Ich Uwe Jahnke, who also brought Anna Donarski on guitar (later guitardoc of the "Rolling Stones") and Boris Polanski (Club off Chaos with Jaki Liebezeit CAN/Nanini;Eno, Eurythmis and more). A whole series of energetic tracks were created, one of which was only released (Rondo) because, as is so often the case, they didn't really like each other anymore. At the moment Bit's is a floating band that can be revived again and again, because it was and still is my very personal project, for which I bore all the costs (except for the last studio session).