Biography Clemens Neufeld (Giant Wheel)

"Too many musicians are in love with the form instead of the content: the passion, the emotions, the energy..."

Clemens Neufelds label „GIANT WHEEL“, established in Berlin in 2000, is acknowledged to be one of the worlds leading quality electronica outlets of our time.

The vinyls from Clemens himself and his companions Stephan Bodzin, Oliver Huntemann, John Dahlbäck, Christopher Just, DJ Remo, Paul Nazca, Extrawelt, Marc Romboy et al are the cutting edge of the global club music underground and guarantee peak-time jamboree on the floors of the hottest clubs from Berlin to London, New York, Tokyo, South America and anywhere else where people pay homage to hypnotic four-to-the-floor grooves in the field of innovative techno-minimal-electro-house.

The musical career of the 1970 born austrian musician, DJ and producer always featured a absolutely uncompromising attitude towards quality and aspiration. He was never the type who chose to walk on beaten paths. More likely, he sees his music as a vehicle, driven by the desire to peer over the edges of conventions into undiscovered areas. As an artist with an unusual and versatile musical background, he never attempted to copy well-established genres, but let all his passions freely melt into his very own style, which was - and still is - groundbreaking on many levels.

Be it in the form of true, raw techno, atmospheric and deep club tracks or anarchistic party music - the common factor is Neufeld‘s lust for the new, the busting of genre limitations, always with a feel for hypnotic tension and musical magic, both in his tracks and in his DJ performances.

Skilled as a classical piano and guitar player, he set up his first teen band at age 12, later becoming a band leader of various progressive rock/electric jazz/fusion-groups later. 1987, at age 17, he started to spin records regularly, initially all over the place from hip-hop to Led Zeppelin, Depeche Mode to early acid house.

Clemens was initiator, organizer and resident DJ of Austria‘s first weekly techno/house club, the Space Jungle at Vienna‘s legendary disco U4 in 1991, which soon became the epicenter of the early Viennese electronic music scene. As far back as in the early nineties he shared the decks with masters as Kevin Saunderson, Jeff Mills, Robert Hood, Mike Dunn, Green Velvet, DJ Pierre, Roy Davis Jr., Frank De Wulf and many more. His sound at that time was already very distinguished, an undogmatic mix of Chicago house, New York garage, Detroit techno and european mutations.

In the meantime, Clemens studied contemporary composition at Vienna Music University‘s Institute for Computer Music and Experimental Acoustic. Besides his nocturnal activities as a DJ, promoter, he wrote music for theatre, contemporary dance, worked with performance artists and built sound sculptures. Until today he he writes production music for television and works as a film music composer and sound designer.

His first relevant house music productions were released in 1993, collaborating with Peter Rauhofer, the man who brought Kruder and Dorfmeister together and is a star DJ in New York and multiple remix-Grammy winner today. The success of this tunes on both the floors and international dance charts led to his first international signing with the Canadian cult label Hi-Bias.

Subsequently he met with the Canadian tech-house pioneer John Acquaviva, who signed him for his Definitive Records (associated with Richie Hawtin‘s Plus 8), a groundbreaking underground house label of the early nineties, where Neufeld was anticipating minimal house music with his project „Future Legends“.

His releases under the pseudonym Giant Wheel on Strictly Rhythm, the New Yorker mother of all house labels, which signed Clemens as the first coninental european artist for several releases in the mid nineties, were particularly prolific. He entered the stage of the hippest party temples in Europe from Berlin (WMF, E-Werk, Tresor) to Hamburg, Frankfurt (Omen), Belgium, Italy, Prague, Warsaw etc. together with the absolute cream of the international scene, touring with Strictly Rhythm DJs as Erick Morillo and Frankie Feliciano. The lack of progress in the house music scene since the mid nineties steered him to become more and more radical and raw with his productions and sets. His sound grew harder, more atonal and even more distinctive. As a consequence, he took the decision to start his own outlet and moved from Vienna to Berlin at the same time.

The FON-series (1996-2000) became a much acclaimed blueprint of highly energetic, puristic techno with influences from Detroit techno and acid, always with a notion of subtlety and deepness.

Besides his own FON records he released numerous EPs on like minded labels as Missile, Planet Of Drums, Thomas Schumacher‘s Spielzeug, Oliver Huntemanns Confused and others. With London‘s techno pioneer Tim Taylor he was producing as DJ One Finger in studios in Berlin, New York and San Francisco. Their most successful release “Housefucker” (Missile/Universal) became a number one hit in the German (and other European) dance charts, the anarchic video clip was running on high rotation on MTV and other music channels. Ever since, he is touring around the globe and ignites clubs and big events from Sydney to Los Angeles.

While moving back to Vienna in 2000, he launched his current label GIANT WHEEL. Already the first release „Bye Bye Berlin“ under the pseudonym Hotzenplotz, a cheerful mix-up of two of the greatest eighties pop hits evolved to a first consensus club hit in the new millennium, even before the term Bastard Pop had been created. The rest is history...

Since 2006 Clemens lives as a proud family father in Austria‘s second largest city Graz, which outdoes Vienna as the party capital not only because of the notorious festivals Spring and Elevate.

His DJ performances express the experiences of almost two decades of lived club culture and are statements of a restless heart, a soul who never stood still, constantly concentrating on the essence of party culture: ecstasy!

Clemens Neufeld keeps on setting the pace for the thrills to come, always one step ahead - as he did with minimal house and acid techno in the nineties, and electro house, neo-trance and the still unnamed in the current millennium.