Lukas Simonis has his roots as an instrumentalist and musical ‘activist’ in the industrial music and noise rock of the Eighties ( Throbbing Gristle, the Residents, Pere Ubu, Sonic Youth and beyond). Being a part of the Rotterdam jazzbunker scene (a collective that consisted of heavy drug induced punk rockers, freejazzers, early electronic musicians and pre-postrock combo’s) he discovered the delimited world of improvisation. In the meantime & after he played in bands like Dull Schicksal, Trespassers W, Morzelpronk, AA Kismet, Liana Flu Winks, VRIL, Stepmother, Perfect Vacuum and Coolhaven. At the same time he was/is organising concerts, events and films, first at the Jazzbunker in Rotterdam later on the Dissonanten festival, the Dissidenten festival, Popifilm, Dodorama , WORM, a multimedia centre for experimental art and finally stichting KLANGENDUM since 2013.
Nowadays he collaborates with lots of people from different backgrounds. For instance; Kruk (with Nina Hitz and Sato Endo), STEPMOTHER (with Jeroen Visser, Bill Gilonis and David Kerman), Jim Whelton / Perfect vacuum (London), Ergo Phizmiz (UK), Dave Brown (Melbourne), The X Static Tics (with Henk Bakker and various others). Other people he worked with; Eugene Chadbourne (USA), Goh Lee Kwang (Kuala Lumpur), Bohman Brothers (UK), Anne La Berge (USA/NL), Faces (with Huib Emmer, NL), Peter Stampfel (USA), Eddie Prevost (UK), Los Siquicos Literalenos (Arg.)
Current projects are; Coolhaven (still), Deus Cantos, Perfect Vacuum, Zoikle (with Jos Ex), Ivan Palacky/Lukas Simonis, Perfect Vacuum, Nina Hitz, The Static Tics… (among others)
Walcheturm, Zurich, CH, december 21th, 2019, The Longest Night. We played at 6 in the morning… Nina Hitz & Lukas Simonis… most audience was stretched out on the floor or on some chairs… but still alive and listening…
Foto © Lorenzo Pusterla