Band History

I Days in the daze

Civic Soma was founded 2011 in Hamburg when Martin Schulz and Arne  Horstmann met the first time. Both of them were starting their instrumental studies in Hamburg. Martin was willing to found a psychedelic Rock band from the first day. He had a stroke of luck living outside of the city in a large house with some other musicians for low money. By coincidence a few days after he moved there Arne came along looking for a room. The only one which was left was the storeroom, but as he mentioned being a bassist he was quartered there without hesitation. They became friends quickly and jammed with different drummers and keyboarders. One year had passed when they met "Jonas vom Orde". He was a student in the new grade on the drums. The first gig under the name "Flying Carpet" was given on new years evening 2011 on a friends home party with Martin on the vocals. They played early versions of "Riddled"( released much later on Hybris, because it was restructured many times), "Raging Buddha", "Vimanika Shastra" and "Manic Soul Peace" with extended improvisation parts.

Another important temporally member joning the group on the backing vocals and keyboards was Sheyda Toufan . She was studying keys in Hamburg. The Songs "Cosmic Office of Coincidence" and "Crown of Creation" followed. Although Martin wrote the entire melodies and lyrics in that period it was sure that they wanted to include a lead singer. It was Sheyda who asked  Marc Borchert to join the band and so he did. He had a musical study background. It was the first formation existing for a longer period.

Marc was renaming the group into Civic Soma. Promtly they went into to studio with Ryan Leverenz Mompellio, who is a good friend of Marc and a good friend of the entire band today. They recorded the demo "The Cosmic Office Of Coincidence" including the same named track as well as "Sensation Civilization" and "Vimanika Shastra" on November 2012. Ryan did not only record but mix and master the songs.

The first song being composed by Marc and Martin as well as partially by Arne was "Deserted". In 2013 and 2014 Civic Soma played some shows in northern Germany. They had a nice spot at the "Berlin Psych Fest", a festival which was organized chaoticly but had a great line up with psychedelic and stoner bands from all over Europe. Their first festival headlining spot and surely the most important gig up to that day was on the "Fehmarn Rock Festival", where Civic Soma performed for almost 2 hours in front of a great audience. It was the first performance including the Song "Coma Berenice's". The song was the result of Martin being inspired by various topics of astronomy and buddhism. He wrote the lyrics together with Marc. For both of them this song was something very special and is now the last song on "Hybris".

Unfortunately Sheyda left the Band shortly after the "Fehmarn Rockt Festival", which caused CS to perform without keys for a longer time in 2014/15. In the keyless time "Mating Season", "The Answers", "Pawn Takes Pawn" and ironicly even "Ataraxium", a song with a dominant key line, were composed, leaving enough space to rearrange them when finding a keyboarder. Arne strongly influenced "Atharaxium", making it sound very electronic with his straight synth bass line through almost the entire song. They began to plan the recording of "Hybris" while playing more and more gigs.

II Like a phoenix from the ashes

Civic Soma was in need of a keyboarder to record "Hybris" as they wanted it to sound. They decided not to record the keys by themselfes but to find a new keyboarder before starting the work in the studio. To make matters worse for Civic Soma in 2015 "Jonas" also left the band for personal reasons. Now being unable to perform live and having no keyboarder the band was on the brink of breaking apart before actually starting, but instead they pulled the remaining team together and continued the organization and plannings for "Hybris", while looking for new band members.

A friend of Martin advised him to invite her flatmate for some rehearsals, who was once more a student of musics. That's how Simon Vincenz Schmitz became part of the band. Althogh he was actually mainly guitarist he joined Civic Soma as their keyboarder. 

Alike the time coming together with Marc Civic Soma started the recordings with a brand-new musician, or more precisely with two. The drums on the album were recorded by Wanja C. Hasselmann, who has worked together with Arne for years. He had no more capacities for joining another group, but was more than willing to support his friend and the band for the records. On his first recording session for Hybris he said: "It's nice to record with a rock band, trying not to sound like a rock drummer." The album was produced by Ryan again, who supported the process with his patience and devotion. "Hybris" became a long term project. It took many months to complete the recordings. Even some lyrics were rewritten just before being recorded.