Slapper is a pseudonym used by Romanian-based electronic musician, DJ and record producer Claudiu-Gabriel Tache. He was born on 11 August 1975, in Bucharest.Slapper began DJing at school parties and started his career as an amateur musician, making music using his PC's tracker software. As his interest in music production rapidly grew, he moved on to more serious production techniques and experimented with techno/ambient/trance music in the solo project Slapper, founded in 1998. His demo CD "Something Strange" (November 1998) gained popularity after was picked by some DJs from Bucharest - DJ Allen (Radio 21) and Mihai Pahontu (Radio Uniplus).In the next half year, he release two more demo-CDs to radio stations - "Technik" and "Confusion" - and started the talks with some recording labels. After becoming very enthusiastic about the music and its possibilities, Slapper invited Catalin Toma to join and perform live as a vocalist. Also, in 1999, the project was joined by Gabriela Mara and Viorel Bosnea as vocalists/backing vocals for several public performances. Their music's trademark sound is a combination of pure synthpop and current musical trends from the underground (electro, ambient, trance, jungle and techno).In May 2000, Slapper release another demo called "Street Performer", an experimental album who combined electronic music with jazz and traditional music. All the songs was arranged by Gabriel who also found interest in trance and club music. In fact, he always wanted to make music more than perform live music. That's one of the reasons why Slapper return in 2001 to a solo-project status. While the other members of the group abandoned music for personal reasons, he recorded at the end of that year another album called "Cosmos" who became his finest work since "Something Strange". "Cosmos" was more electro-oriented offering a combination of trance and ambient music. One year later, Slapper release "Club Trip" a dancefloor-friendly album, trying to capitalise the electro/club movement.For the next two years, Slapper decide to stop recording music, reconsidering his efforts and imagine, trying to find new challenges and perspectives. In 2004, he made a strong comeback with new records. In fact, his work is now oriented in two directions: own electro music and covers. Slapper is a huge fan of 80's New-wave and Synthpop movement and pay tribute to his great "inspirations" like: Depeche Mode, New Order, A-ha, INXS, U2, Simple Minds, Ultravox, Erasure, Tears for Fears and many more. (In 2005, he was one of the founding members of Romania's Depeche Mode Fan Club "For The Masses".) In the last two years he release his covers under the names "Devoted" (I, version 2.0) for Depeche Mode songs and "Fresh Oldies" (I, II & vol.III) for other cult bands.The last full-album including only original songs was "Emotional" (July 2005). At the end of August 2006 he release another electro-work: "Wild At Heart" which includes new original songs along with some covers like "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (Joy Division), "Sleepwalk" (Ultravox), "Children" (Robert Miles), "Cars" (Gary Numan) or "Trans-Europe Express" (Kraftwerk). In December 2006 Slapper release his third collection of covers - Fresh Oldies vol.III. Four months later, Slapper finished a new cover album ("Kraftworks"), this time dedicated to experimental/electro-pop band Kraftwerk. 2007 saw also the release of another album Cosmos (A Personal Voyage 2007), which featured a collection of previously released album tracks reinterpreted/remastered in an electro/club oriented style.Colaborations:
In parallel with his work, Slapper join several acts in Bucharest scenes.
In may 2005 he was a part of the first live Romanian Tribute to Depeche Mode, with vocalist Iulia Gherasim and guitarist Marius Draghici (a college-friend of Slapper, who plays guitar and bass in the band Perpetuum).
In november 2005 Slapper join at keyboards the pop-rock band Aria and started a new musical project called Take2 with the band's vocalist Daniel Tache ("Drimm"). In march 2006, joined by keyboardist/guitarist Alexandru Chiciu ("Lex") Take2 project became the new-wave/synth-pop band Alfa who plays three live tributes to Depeche Mode anticipating the first concert in Romania of their idols (23 juin 2006, Bucharest). One of this concerts was filmed by the team of Brown Owl Films, a music television production company currently producing a documentary about the history and music of Depeche Mode including the stories of fans and admirers of Depeche Mode. On March 2007, Slapper announced his departure from the band Alfa.Official Site: www.slapper-music.com
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