Robotic pop, copyright Schneider TM

Imagine Kraftwerk making pop songs. Imagine Richard James making pop music. Imagine a six foot two Berliner in a white coat with a blonde fanny-parting doing robotics… that'll be Schneider TM.

With his cover of the Smiths classic 'There is a Light That Never Goes Out' released as 'The Light 3000' Schneider TM aka Dirk Dresselhaus broke through from obscurity into the consciousness of the emerging underground electronica scene with this cheeky cover. Time Out described him as sounding like 'the Velvet Underground covering Blue Monday' and there are plenty of other interesting angles his vocoder heavy music includes.

It may be said that the current new interest in live electronic music can be blamed on New York's fashion magazine movement of Electroclash, not to mention the rise and rise of Fischerspooner and Ladytron. Dirk has been making this kind of music for five years now, "it's nothing new actually" he says, "there's a beautiful record by Neil Young called 'Trans' that they play everything through the vocoder on."

"I first heard about [Electroclash] from Peaches, she's a good friend of mine. People say she's Electroclash and we don't sound the same, so I really don't care. I'm not interested in words like that, I just make music y'know?"

His recent single featuring vocodered vocals, 'Reality Check' is a chilled out pop song with an evil grin. The b-sides are remixed by Australia's The Calculators and Mogwai which complement the wide-ranging influences Dirk has managed to absorb into his music.

"When I listen to electronic music, it's really minimal basic stuff like Pan Sonic, I also like soul and reggae and stuff like the Velvet Underground. My music comes from playing around with tools. I don't want to be in a certain scene. I like so much different music."

Much of Schneider TM's work is psychedelic almost dreamy music. One song 'Frogtoise' features trippy lyrics about cutting frogs and tortoises in half and welding them together. "This record is very much about the situation between sleeping/dreaming and being awake. The things that happen in your dreams are the other side of reality. They are as real as we are sitting here. They're the reflection of the daytime."

As soon as he wakes up from a surreal dream he often records his ideas straight away, attributing the sleepy vocals that can be heard on his album to his method of recording them.

Dirk started out in music as the lead singer of an indie-rock band involved in Berlin's live music scene, then one day he started "fucking around with a drum machine, and made songs out of strange noises" and his approach to music changed for good.

"Berlin has many different sounding bands, like Peaches, many modern sounding bands. There's no tight scene where everyone knows what everyone else is up to. I don't like stress and I don't like hype, I just like music. I like to sit back and smoke a joint."

Dirk has kept a low profile amongst his fellow city dwellers while other acts like Chicks On Speed have tried every which way they can to get themselves noticed, Dirk meanwhile prefers not to compromise his music for fame. Insisting on a calm environment so he can reach his creative peak.

Does he see himself as being an ambassador for the sudden upsurge of Berlin based music that has recently been heading this way? "There's no typical Berlin sound, it's very diverse. I'm an ambassador of Freestyle and Good Vibes. It's about good vibes and positive energy."

With a support tour for Radio 4 and The Faint already under his belt Schneider TM's future is looking particularly good, at least while the current musical climate holds. So what can we expect from him in the near future? "I want to go with my two mates and play in a club for two weeks every night and have the attention of the audience." He's got mine.

Check out www.schneidertm.com for more details and song downloads.