Groupshow is a trio made up of Jan Jelinek, Hanno Leichtmann (aka Vulva String Quartet) and Andrew Pekler. From its beginnings as the live performance set-up of Jelinek’s Kosmischer Pitch album, Groupshow has evolved into a fully-fledged project with tours and an album, The Matyrdoom of Groupshow, (~scape, 2009), one track of which turned up in Magda’s late-2009 Fabric mix.
 
The album Kosmischer Pitch was Jan Jelinek’s subtle eulogy to 70s cosmic music, and though he constructed the album from loops and layers, the outcome holds plenty of allusions to this era of sound blurring, flow, and musical haziness. Without any specific references to place or time, the album taps into the cosmic search for transcendental moments, and the spirit of electronic music pioneers on a quest for liberation. Jelinek took these principles to the stage: not as a laptop solo artist, but together with guitarist Andrew Pekler and Hanno Leichtmann on drums.
 
Groupshow is a loose arrangement of people and sounds that defy fixed arrangements. Jelinek tends to use a computer, effects boxes and a mixer to produce his unmistakeable looping electronics, Hanno Leichtmann is mostly on drums, cymbals and synthetic drum pads, and Pekler plays guitar with heavy emphasis on the effects.
 
Jan Jelinek has recorded under the monikers Farben, Gramm and The Exposures. After moving to Berlin in 1995 to get a philosophy/sociology degree, Jelinek releasing records under the moniker Farben on Klang Elektronik starting in 1998. Using his sampler as a tool to dissect and suture together sounds, Jelinek created the well-known Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records for ~scape.
 
Hanno Leichtmann (aka Static) creates subtle melodic tracks with glitchy noise elements, releasing his debut Eject Your Mind, in 2002. He’s worked as a percussionist with John Zorn and is a member of Stefan Betke’s Pole Band live project.
 
Andrew Pekler has produced several solo albums under his own name on ~scape, Staubgold and most recently the Chicago based post-rock label, Kranky. Pekler has also worked under the pseudonyms Sad Rockets and Mucus, and is a member of the band Bergheim.
 
> www.myspace.com/thegroupshow
> Website Andrew Pekler
> Website Jan Jelinek
> Website Scape Records
> Hanno Leichtmann on Myspace
 
Appearances:
> CTM.10 > WARHOL'S EMPIRE
> CTM.08 > MAGIC POND