TOMÁS DONCKER
Producer/Singer/Songwriter/Guitarist, and True Groove Records Founder & CEO Tomás Doncker has long been a prime mover and innovator on the New York music, arts & culture scenes. From the early 1980’s as a member of groundbreaking No Wave and Punk Funk bands The Contortions and Defunkt, to international touring, recording & songwriting collaborations with luminaries such as Bootsy Collins, Yoko Ono, Madonna, Ivan Neville, and Bonnie Raitt, to helming his own band, Tomás Doncker and The True Groove All-Stars, he's established himself as a cross-genre innovator without peer.
For over a decade, his expansive creative endeavors (all released on True Groove) have included work with; Meshell Ndegeocello, Ravid Kahalani’s Yemen Blues, Finnish hip hop star Paleface, P-Funk alumni Michael "Kidd Funkadelic" Hampton and Amp Fiddler, hip hop pioneer Keith Shocklee (Public Enemy/Bomb Squad), iconic bassist/producer Bill Laswell and, the legendary Ms.Patti Smith.
Most recently, Doncker and longtime collaborator Pulitzer Prize winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa joined forces with visual artist Floyd Tunson to create Endangered, an immersive multi-media experience addressing the historical conundrum that Black men in America are endangered. Endangered launched in 2022 with a series of Juneteenth weekend performances and companion album release. Inspired by Tunson's Afro-Futuristic, politically charged artwork and powered by lyrics from Komunyakaa, Doncker and The True Groove All-Stars have charted a sonic journey to freedom, a modern day revolution of the mind that has been referred to as '21st Century Psychedelic Soul,' and hailed as "a socio-politically charged audio-visual soundtrack of 21st Century dissent, discomfort and reclamation."
Doncker has received praise for his groundbreaking productions from such taste-making music, art & culture discovery destinations as CNN, Huff Post, Mojo, Spin, Brooklyn Vegan, NPR’s “All Songs Considered,” Guitar World, All About Jazz, The Source, Vents Magazine, Paste Magazine, and No Depression, American Blues Scene, Music Crowns, and Rolling Stone - to name a few.
“The Mess We Made blasts with a musical eruption of passion, sorrow, rage, possible hope, frustration, and the sheer inability to sit back and do nothing ”that feels like it had no choice but to come out. There is not doubt that this album is a manifestation of pure inspiration and intention...a masterpiece.”
— Discussion Magazine
“This racially charged and paradigm-shifting record is a testament to his unwavering political views and decades of work in the music industry.”
— The Huffington Post
VIDEOS
TOMÁS DONCKER DISCOGRAPHY
The Mess We Made (2015)
Big Apple Blues (with Yusef Komunyakaa) (2014)
Moanin’ At Midnight: The Howlin’ Wolf Project (2014)
Power of the Trinity... A Slight Return (2014)
Howlin’ Wolf EP (2014)
Power of the Trinity (2011)
The Mercy Suite with Yusef Komunyakaa (2009)
Small World Part 1 (2008)
Inside Out (2007)