Sonarpilot is Basel based musician and producer Michael Moppert. Growing up in the cultural hotbed of the 1970s, Moppert was fascinated by the more innovative artists on the music scene - Bowie, Pink Floyd, Roxy Music and electronic pioneers like Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk and Jean-Michel Jarre.

With the explosion of Punk and New Wave towards the end of the seventies, he began to make music himself. He acquired an electric guitar, a 4-track tape recorder, a slightly battered Roland TR 606 drum machine and a Korg MS-20 analog synth, and got to work. The British synth-pop bands such as Yazoo, Bronski Beat, New Order, Heaven 17 and the Eurythmics as well as more experimental artists such as Brian Eno and Laurie Anderson were influencing the music he created at the time.

In the 1980’s Michael opened a recording studio and produced local bands in Basel while working at night on his own material after dark. It was during this time that he began to extensively use digital equipment; experimenting with early sampler technology along with all the synths he could get hold of. Towards the end of the 1980’s his productions were losing the typical song-structure and the tracks became longer, increasingly technoid, ambient and experimental.

The 1990’s Michaels life would shift and the focus would move away from music, but in 2008, with time freed up, he grabbed his old guitar from the attic, plugged into the medium of computer based music production and, as if welcoming an old friend back into his life, began again making music again.

2010 saw the Sonarpilot name and label come to be and Moppert release his debut album Mothership to wide ranging critical acclaim…

"Sonarpilot’s Mothership is easily one of the most ambitious albums I’ve ever heard." (Independent Clauses)

"A slice of electronica heaven. (...) Mothership is probably the most moody, rhythmic and atmospheric collection that I can think of since The Eurythmic’s For The Love Of Big Brother back in 1984 (Rockwired)

"Very few albums are able to keep listeners compelled and actively interacting with a band or individual throughout every single cut. (...) Sonarpilot's Mothership is one of the few double albums cut in the last five or ten years that is able to keep listeners' attentions throughout." (Neufutur)

"The use of sound on this double disc is nothing short of amazing." (Skope)

"The attention to detail is just superb – the whole album arches around you like an arm around your shoulders and shows you wonders." (Music with an exclamation point) Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.