Constantin Gillies played the violin in his adolescence but soon left his music stand deserted when he became the bass player of a punk band. Later, he introduced himself to the piano and the acoustic guitar and started song writing for his own band. He became familiar with digital music production after buying his first sampler in 1991, which was initially intended to be an intermediate replacement for the drummer’s vacant position, but later turned out to be a key instrument for creating funky music arrangements and electronic sounds.
Martin Suttrop’s musical roots where planted smoothly already in his infancy, as his family home was flavoured with easy listening music by Jackie Gleason, Percy Faith, or Michel Legrand. To complement these ethereal sounds with rhythm, he decided early to become a drummer. After a few years at music school he started playing drums with a local jazz band. During this time he also played tympani and percussion with a youth symphonic orchestra and attended classical piano lessons. After switching to jazz piano and improvisation he discovered his profound interest in song writing and music arrangements. He played keyboards with a jazz rock band and established a small recording studio.
Gillies and Suttrop met at a recording session in Bonn, Germany. When they both realized that playing in their respective bands didn’t allow them to completely satisfy their musical ambitions, they came up with the idea to form SLOWDOWN as their own music production platform.
Their first recordings were raw acid jazz songs and remixes, among them works for EMI and music scores for short movies and advertisements. The idea to cross over to “smoother” territory was triggered by Walter Salles Jr.’s inspiring documentary “Bossa Nova: Music & Reminiscences”, which was aired on ARTE-TV in 1994. Gillies and Suttrop recorded their first set of Bossa Nova songs from 1994 through 1997, together with German-Portuguese vocalist Maria Theresa “Gigi” Ullrich.
After Ullrich left SLOWDOWN to pursue a career in opera, Gillies and Suttrop gradually changed music genre again, introducing Sabine Galuschka on vocals, and venturing more towards electronica sounds while keeping the pace slower than ever.
Today, SLOWDOWN lives on as it came into being: A creative platform for Constantin Gillies, Martin Suttrop and friends. Thanks to their continuing exposure on the internet and the help of Scott Adams, Lenny Balistreri, Allen MacGregor, Michael van Droffelaar, Eugene Loh and other radio DJs from around the world, SLOWDOWN has received sustained international recognition and finds an increasingly large electronic audience.
SLOWDOWN’s new album “Retrospectives” is available on iTunes and on Amazon MP3.
