Also known as Tomato, Thomasius was born in East Berlin in 1955 and was inspired by the progressive sounds of the early 1970s, including the burgeoning electronic sounds emanating from the yet distant and unreachable West Berlin. The material gathered on this collection, "Acht Gesänge der schwarzen Hunde" (Eight Songs of the Black Dogs), comes from three sources: the cassette "Schwarze Hände" (Black Hands) that documents productions from 1980-1985, Thomasius' own Kröten Kassetten label's "Gesänge der Komparsen" release (Songs of the Extras) from 1989 and "After Eight" from 1990, which was released on his Tomato label after Thomasius left the band Das Freie Orchester. It encapsulates the whole range of Thomasius, who saw himself more as an experimental DIY sound producer and less as a musician, in a selection that spans ten years: from spherical, elegiac floating sounds to whimsical gems of high playfulness that interweave obscure snippets of language with weird minimal constructs.