Peter Kuhlmann (25 November 1960 – 8 November 2012), known professionally as Pete Namlook ("Namlook" is "Koolman", a phonetic rendering of his real name spelled backwards) was a German ambient and electronic music producer and composer. One music commentator noted that Namlook was "... comfortably the most prolific and arguably the best of the new wave of ambient/house artists of the early 1990s". Namlook himself noted, "I think it's very important to enhance the notion of a global ambient movement, and to realize that a lot of music - which we didn't expect to be ambient is in fact very, very ambient. When you examine other cultures you discover that what we recognize as a very new movement is in fact incredibly ancient".
Life and career He was born in Frankfurt, West Germany. In 1992, he founded the German record label FAX +49-69/450464, which he oversaw. He was inspired by the music of Eberhard Weber, Miles Davis, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Chopin, Wendy Carlos, Tangerine Dream and Pink Floyd, and most importantly Klaus Schulze.
Namlook released many solo albums, as well as collaboration albums with notable artists such as Klaus Schulze, Bill Laswell, Geir Jenssen (Biosphere), Gaudi, Richie Hawtin, Tetsu Inoue, Uwe Schmidt (Atom), Amir Abadi (Dr. Atmo), and David Moufang (Move D). By August 2005, Namlook and collaborators had released 135 albums (excluding re-releases, vinyl singles, compilations of existing material, and FAX releases beginning with PS, in which he personally was not involved in the music making).
Kuhlmann died on 8 November 2012, at the age of 51, after suffering a heart attack.
Projects These are all of Namlook's project series on the FAX label, with the number of albums in each series. For one-shot albums, the title is given without a number after it.
(Note: These are only the CD releases. Vinyl singles and EPs are not included. There are no full-length LPs on FAX.)
Solo 4Voice (Three releases; 4Voice with Maik Maurice as "arrangement assistant" on two tracks; 4Voice III with Marc Romboy on one track) Air (Five releases) Atom Electronic Music Center Music for Ballet Namlook (25 releases) Season's Greetings (Four releases; one compilation titled The Four Seasons) Silence (Three releases of five in total; first two were with Dr. Atmo) Syn (Two releases) Music for Babies
with Dr. Atmo Escape Silence (Two releases of five in total; the latter three were Namlook solo)
with Atom Heart Jet Chamber (Five releases)
with Karl Berger Polytime
with Dandy Jack Amp (Two releases) Silent Music
with Gaudi Re:sonate
with DJ Brainwave Limelight
with DJ Criss Deltraxx Sequential (one track is Namlook with Tetsu Inoue, not DJ Criss)
with DJ Dag Adlernebel
with Pascal F.E.O.S. Hearts of Space Minimalistic Source
with Rob Gordon Ozoona
with Robert Görl Elektro (Two releases)
with Richie Hawtin From Within (Three releases)
with Hubertus Held Pete Namlook/Hubertus Held
with Higher Intelligence Agency S.H.A.D.O (Two releases)
with Tetsu Inoue 62 Eulengasse 2350 Broadway (Four releases) Sequential (Only one track) Shades of Orion (Three releases) Time²
with Geir Jenssen The Fires of Ork (Two releases)
with Bill Laswell The Dark Side of the Moog (appears on four releases of 11 in total, also with Klaus Schulze—the other seven are only Namlook and Schulze) Outland Series: 1, 2, 3, IV, 5 Psychonavigation Series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
with Mixmaster Morris Dreamfish (Two releases)
with David Moufang Koolfang (Three releases) Move D / Namlook (23 releases)
with New Composers Planetarium (Two releases) Russian Spring
with Burhan Öçal Sultan (Three releases)
with Jochem Paap pp-nmlk
with Peter Prochir Miles Apart Possible Gardens
with Ludwig Rehberg The Putney (Two releases)
with Robert Sattler Kooler
with Klaus Schulze The Dark Side of the Moog (11 releases)
with Jonah Sharp Alien Community (Two releases) Wechselspannung (Two releases)
with Wolfram Spyra Virtual Vices (Six releases)
with Steve Stoll Hemisphere
with Charles Uzzell-Edwards A New Consciousness (Two releases) Create (Two releases)
with Lorenzo Montanà Labyrinth (Five releases)
Yesterday & Tomorrow This was a short-lived sub-label of FAX that was created to showcase a more classical side of ambient music. On these releases he goes by Peter Kuhlmann, his real name, rather than Pete Namlook.
Passion, with Jürgen Rehberg Wandering Soul, with Alban Gerhardt The Sunken Road, with Jürgen Rehberg and Lucia Mense
See also List of ambient music artists
References
External links
Discography of his FAX recordings