Mark Reeder is a musician and record producer from Manchester living in Berlin since 1978

From an early age, it was evident he had a passion for music and art. He bought his first 7” single Telstar by the Tornados at the age of 4 and his first album Jimi Hendrix Electric Ladyland at the age of 11. 

During the 70s, Britain was gripped in a recession and mass unemployment ensued. The prospects for a school-leaver looked very bleak. For a brief moment, he considered a life in the Royal Air Force, but after acquiring a part-time job in his favourite record shop, he realised this was not to be his vocation. 

He initially envisaged a career in advertising-design and after studying graphic art he briefly worked in an Ad-agency, before quitting this profession to work full-time in the small Virgin Records store in Manchester, where he had jobbed since being a student. It was here that Reeder developed his passion for music from different countries and cultures, and in particular Krautrock.

Before moving to Germany in the late 70s, he briefly played in a progressive rock formation called Joe Stalin’s Red Star Radio Band, but at the dawn of the punk era he left, to co-found a new wave punk band The Frantic Elevators together with Neil Moss and Mick Hucknall (Simply Red)

Through his unique position at Virgin Records, he was integral for the fledgling punk scene in Manchester and was involved in presenting new bands such as The Buzzcocks, V2, Joy Division, The Drones, Slaughter and the Dogs to a new and young clientele, because Virgin was the only place in the city where such degenerate music could be bought. 

In his quest to obtain obscure Krautrock records, he travelled to Berlin in 1978 to buy some records and never left. Almost immediately upon his arrival in Berlin, he was designated the German representative for his friend’s band Joy Division and a while later, he became the man in Berlin, for their legendary Manchester record label Factory Records

Die Unbekannten photo by Peter Gruchot

  In 1981, he formed what would later become recognised as one of the first darkwave synth bands Die Unbekannten (The Unknown) and they released two EPs on Berlin’s first independent avant-garde label, Monogam (who initially released singles by Einstuerzende Neubauten, Mania D or P1/E). They performed all over Europe and Reeder became a part of what is known today as the Geniale Dilitantten scene. Die Unbekannten would eventually be considered as one of the Godfathers of Goth, but they have also become known for being the first band ever to make a record featuring a prototype Roland 606 drum computer.

In between, he also managed the newly formed all-girl avant-garde group Malaria! fronted by Gudrun Gut and Bettina Koester he became their live sound engineer too, as well as the soundman for a new punk band from Dusseldorf called Die Toten Hosen (and on a couple of occasions for Einstuerzende Neubauten).

Due to his curiosity for what was on the East side of the Berlin wall, he visited the East part of the city regularly. Having experienced life in Communist East Berlin since the first few days of arriving in the city, he realised the extreme difficulties most young people had of obtaining new or contemporary records from the West. Of course, they could hear music coming from West Berlin radio, but they didn’t always play the records they wanted to hear. He would smuggle cassettes into East Berlin and take visiting musicians over the wall to meet real East Berliners.

Together with his Eastie-Punk friends, he eventually co-organised the first ever secret underground punk concert in an East Berlin Church with Die Toten Hosen in 1983, it was disguised as a Blues Mass

Reeder had discovered the Church was a silent protest to the communist regime and that they occasionally held such special blues evenings. So, he hi-jacked the idea. Little did the 30 specially invited punks know that evening, what a massive impact this impromptu concert would have on the entire East German punk scene. Once the word got out what had happened, it appeared throughout the German Democratic Republic, that churches were suddenly being requisitioned by young punk bands, all asking to use the Church for gigs.

Shark Vegas Live 1985
Always looking for new inspiration through music technology, Reeder eventually decided to change his band’s name to the easier to pronounce, Shark Vegas and reinvented their image to a more pop-driven electronic-Hi-NRG-disco sound, before embarking on a European tour together with New Order in 1984. Like New Order, their sound was becoming more sequencer and electronic driven. During this tour, Shark Vegas recorded their one and only single You Hurt Me at Conny Plank’s studio, with Bernard Sumner producing. It was released on both Factory (FAC111) and Totenkopf (TOT11).
 

In 1987, Reeder formed a new project Alien Nation, a purely electronic project, created to explore the newly emerging acid house sound. The underground music scene of Berlin was starting to change. While New Wave Rock had become the established norm, acid house was undoubtedly the new underground.

His contacts to the East Berlin underground punk scene didn’t go unnoticed by the East German authorities either. Unknown to him, he was constantly under the surveillance of the Ministry for State Security (the East German Secret Police) also known as the STASI, who considered his supposed anti-state activities as dangerous and classed him as subversive-dekadent. This lead to him being invited by the East German authorities to produce what would become the last album of communist East Germany – “Torture” by Die Vision in latter months of 1989 for the then communist state-owned record label AMIGA. 

After the fall of the Berlin wall and the restructuring of the AMIGA into ZONG, he founded the first East German electronic music label MFS (Masterminded For Success) which he started in December 1990, using the infrastructure and offices of the AMIGA. MFS helped to launch the careers of many, now famous artists and DJs, such as Ellen Allien, Cosmic Baby (Harald Bluechel), Dr Motte, Effective Force (Johnny Klimek), or Mijk van Dijk

In February 1992, MFS released the world’s first Trance compilation “Tranceformed from Beyond”

In 1991, Reeder discovered the teenage Paul van Dyk and spent 8 years guiding and paving his way, building up this now, internationally recognised DJ, to superstardom. Reeder initiated, designed and successfully outlined Paul van Dyk’s early career from 1991 until 1999. 

In the late 90s, Reeder released remixes by MFS artists Paul van Dyk and Mijk van Dijk of Japanese band Denki Groove. This was the first time SONY music had ever licensed a track to an indie label. He invited Takkyu Ishino to Berlin to perform at the E-Werk during the Loveparade, effectively launching his international career.

In 1999, Reeder created Flesh. A new label for a new, yet provocative idea: Wet&Hard which he had conceived together with Hungarian DJ Corvin Dalek. Their aim was to bring back the sexuality to the sexual ritual of dancing. Reeder produced Corvin’s I am a Dalek album and numerous Flesh singles. 

Reeder’s own clandestine musical career has spanned over more than four decades. He has been a participant and behind the scenes influence for many now-famous artists, spread over a wide cross-section of contemporary musical genres. In 2008, he decided to put MFS on ice and returned to making, producing and remixing music. 

Meanwhile, he’s composed music for a selection of films and advertisements (in the UK) including the music score for Joerg Buttgereits controversial film “Nekromantik 2” as well as his theatre play “Captain Berlin vs Hitler” (2008) and for his own 2015 documentary film about 80’s West-Berlin music scene “B-Movie (Lust & Sound in West-Berlin) and recently, he wrote and produced a song for the Lithuanian singer Alanas Chosnau for the French cold-war thriller Wolf’s Call (2019).

Reeder is also an established remixer himself and has meanwhile produced numerous remixes for such established artists as New Order, Depeche Mode, The Pet Shop Boys, Yello, John Foxx, Anne Clark, or Die Toten Hosen as well as for a ton of new and lesser-known artists.

Reordered 2008

In 2008, he made an album of retro-remixes for Blank & Jones (for the album ReOrdered) which also featured his reworking of A Forest with new vocals by Robert Smith of The Cure.

Five Point One 2011

In 2011, he released FivePointOne – an album of 5.1 remixes produced in wrap-around DOLBY surround sound. This album features his remix of John Foxx’s legendary hit Underpass, as well as remixes for Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, Anne Clark and Die Toten Hosen.

In 2015, he starred as the main protagonist in the documentary film about his life in cold war Berlin B-Movie: Lust & Sound in West Berlin. Made up from original film footage from the era, it’s a film about West-Berlin as seen through Reeder’s eyes and shows his life in the music scene during the 1980s.

The film has been very successful throughout the world and achieved high critical acclaim. It is meanwhile considered to be a culturally valuable piece of German Visual History. New Order loved B-Movie so much, they used scenes from it for their Singularity music video for which Reeder also made a highly acclaimed remix.

Today, he is not only a highly sought-after producer, DJ and remixer, but also as a lecturer or speaker, due to his valuable first-hand experience as a record producer and label manager and his understanding of the Berlin music scene in both East and West Berlin during the 1980s and 90s, continuing up to the present day. 

Mauerstadt 2017

The album Mauerstadt released in July 2017, features his songwriting, production and collaborations with Manchester legends New Order and The Inspiral Carpets, as well as with The KVB, Maja Pierro, Queen of Hearts, and Ekkoes. For this release, he also invited Taiwanese graphic design team 2 by Wu&Chen 雙好 (Sebastian Wu and Jesse Chen) to create the album cover.

During an extensive two-month B-Movie/ DJ tour of China in 2017, Reeder recorded the album Oracles for the all-girl band from Beijing Hang On The Box, the production mixdown was completed with his studio partner Micha Adam upon his return to Berlin.

While in China, he also discovered an exciting and radical young Chinese band from Chengdu, called STOLEN. Reeder saw STOLEN perform live at a music festival in Chengdu, and he was really impressed, they went into the studio and made a demo together. The reactions to this demo were very positive, that STOLEN decided to release it as an EP in China. In February 2018, STOLEN came to Berlin to record their second album FRAGMENT with Reeder. 

After a 10-year hiatus, Reeder decided to reactivate MFS especially to present the new STOLEN album vinyl release. Reeder also serves as the international manager for STOLEN.

After working together with acclaimed Lithuanian pop-singer Alanas Chosnau on the soundtrack for French cold war thriller Le Chant du Loup (The Wolf’s Call). Reeder and Chosnau decided to record an album. In May 2020, MFS released their new album Children of Nature (MFS 7179-1).
 
 
 
 
Discography
 
1978 Jon the Postman’s Purile (Cover design/photos)
1979 John the Postman’s Psychedelic Rock n Roll 5 Skinners – steppin’ out (of holts brewery) (Cover photos)
1981 Licht und Schatten (Compilation) – Die Unbekannten – Radio War
1981 Die Unbekannten – Die Unbekannten
1982 Die Unbekannten – Dangerous Moonlight
1982 Malaria! – Emotion (as producer/remixer of Eifersucht, & Gewissen)
1984 Shark Vegas – You hurt me (TOT11)
1985/86 Shark Vegas – You hurt me “But now your flesh lies rotting in hell”  (FAC111)
1987 shark vegas – Pretenders of love (Factory US Young, Popular & Sexy comp)
1987 Alien Nation – House in the desert
1988 Alien Nation – Travis
1989 Acid Generation 1 (LP), Generation 2 (CD) Alien Nation – House in the desert
1990 Die Vision – Torture
1991 Alien Nation – Lovers of the world (MFS)
1992 Tekkno boy compilation –
• Effective force – Complete mental breakdown (Special edit by Mark Reeder)
• Alien Nation –  Lovers of the world (Revolutionized remix)
1993 Mark Reeder – Nekromantik 2 (Film Soundtrack)
1993 Effective Force – Illuminate the planet (Mad Mark’s Mad mad world remix)
1994 Microglobe – Think and dance EP (Vocals)
1994 Mystic Force vs Effective Force – Everglade (Effective force remix)
1995 Positive Thinking – The temple & the lodge (Three masons remix)
1996 Ten Forward (with Chris Zippel & Patrick Ense) – Patterns of force (MFS)
1996 Denki Groove – Niji(The MFS twilight remixes – Go=Ten Forward remix)
1997 Paul van Dyk – Words (Mark Reeder Radiowave mix edit)
1999 Dillinger & Capone – Trysting fields
2000 Corvin Dalek – Gimme two fingers/Pornoground
2000 Da Hool – Eichelrueck (Corvin Dalek Wet & Hard rewix)
2001 Corvin Dalek feat. Bernard Sumner – Crystal (Hustler & Stossdaempfer remix)
2002 Corvin Dalek – A real man
2002 Blank & Jones with Anne Clark – The hardest heart (Corvin Dalek’s Sexinfarct remix)
2003 Massive Lust – Never (Corvin Dalek’s Lustgarten remix)
2003 Corvin Dalek – I am a Dalek
2005 Mark Reeder/Herrman Kopp – Nekromantik soundtrack
2005 Klang & Dalek – Quetzalcoatl 
2005 Die Unbekannten – Don’t tell me stories
2008 Blank & Jones – Miracle Cure (Mark Reeder’s Wundermittel remix)
2008 Sam Taylor Wood with Pet Shop Boys – I’m in love with a German film star (Mark Reeder’s stuck in the 80s remix)
2009 Blank & Jones and Mark Reeder – ReOrdered (Soundcolours)
2009 Parralox –  Sharper than a knife (Cutting Edge remix)
2009 Noblesse Oblige – Duel (Mark Reeder’s shot at dawn remix)
2010 John Foxx – Metatonic – Underpass (Sinister Subway remix)
2011 Mark Reeder –  Five Point One (Studio Album) – Kennen
2011 Bad Lieutenant – Twist of Fate (Mark Reeder’s No Fate remix)
2012 Queen of Hearts  – Neon (Mark Reeder’s Electrically Charged remix)
2013 Koishii & Hush with John Taylor – C‘est tout es noir (Mark Reeder’s Black Night remix)
2014 Mark Reeder – Colllaborator (Factory Benelux)
2014 Marnie – The Hunter EP – Sugarland (Mark Reeder’s Sweet & Sticky remix)
2014 Queen of Hearts – Cocoon (1) Suicide (2) Wicked game (3) United
2015 B Movie: Lust & Sound in West-Berlin 79-89 – Film Soundtrack
2016 New Order – Singularity (Mark Reeder’s Individual remix)
2016 Stella Polaris compilation – A symbol of cosmic order 
         New Order – The Game (Mark Reeder Spielt mit Stella Polaris edit)
2017 Mark Reeder – Mauerstadt (Studio Album) – Kennen
2017 Rusty Egan – Welcome To The Dancefloor (Mark Reeder’s Willkommen remix)
2017 New Order – Music Complete Remixed EP feat. The Game (Mark Reeder Spielt mix) 
2017 New Order – Academic (Mark Reeder’s Akademixxx) free giveaway 7″ with Electronic Sound Magazine
2017 The KVB –  White Walls (Mark Reeder’s Stoned Wall remix)
2018 Liars – VFCF – Staring at zero (Mark Reeder’s Thousand Yards Stare remix)
2018 STOLEN – Fragment 
2019 STOLEN – Chaos (Mark Reeder’s Downtown in Chinatown remix)
2019 Alanas Chosnau & Mark Reeder – Losing My Mind (Call Of The Wolf mix),
         Mark Reeder – Tragic (Push The Button mix)  
both titles feature on the French cold war thriller film Chant du Loup soundtrack – Milan Records
2020 Alanas Chosnau & Mark Reeder – Children of Nature (Studio Album) – MFS