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Tomcraft, born
Thomas Brückner in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, is known for his powerful brand of electro-tinged trance.
Brückner began DJ'ing as a teenager before being signed to Munich's Kosmo Records at the age of 17. His first singles, "Rollercoaster" and "This Is No House," were released in 1995 and, since then, his career as a DJ and producer has gone from strength to strength. He remained with Kosmo Records and released a string of successful singles including 1999's "Ezekiel 25:17," which featured extensive uses of
Samuel L. Jackson's famous speech from the movie Pulp Fiction. Further single releases such as "The Mind," "The Circle," and "Powerplant" made waves in the clubs and the charts in the late '90s, and he also contributed "The Circle" and "Powerplant" as music to accompany the successful U.S. television series The X Files. Additionally,
Brückner achieved success in the U.K.'s clubs with tracks including "Prozak," "Silence," and "Overdose."
In 2003,
Brückner enjoyed huge success on the European pop charts with "Loneliness." The single was produced with
Eniac,
Brückner's studio partner and a successful dance producer in his own right, and used lyrics that
Brückner had found on an old soul record he had purchased in a charity shop. He re-recorded them, using his own female vocalist. Described by one critic as sounding "as if
Daft Punk made trance," its melancholic vocals, buzzing synthetic bassline, and techno-tinged arrangement made a powerful club record. "Loneliness" had already achieved huge success in clubs across Europe before its commercial crossover. It had also been championed by numerous high-profile DJs such as
Judge Jules and
Pete Tong, with the former playing the track for 13 consecutive weeks on his national Radio 1 show and at midnight on New Year's Eve 2002. It was licensed to
Ministry of Sound's trance imprint Data from Kosmo after a fierce bidding war and crossed over into the U.K. charts, while its success (and credibility) on a range of dancefloors remained unaffected.
Brückner's debut,
All I Got, which was released in 2001, featured a number of his successful singles. MUC (the title coming from the abbreviation for Munich that appears on airlines' baggage tags) followed in October 2003 on Data. Its electro-trance content drew comparisons with
the Human League and even
ELO, and once again it demonstrated
Brückner's ear for effective dancefloor dynamics and his skill reproducing them in the studio. It featured two versions of "Loneliness." ~ TiVo Staff