Lemongrass is an enrichment for several human senses. Our tongue and nose get stimulated by the fresh citrus flavor of the plant and our ears receive well-being treatments by Roland Voss‘s “Lemongrass” project. Founded in 1996 at times when the world of Lounge & Chillout was an undiscovered open field of creativity, which turned out to be the perfect playground for the manifold musical interest of Roland Voss. Even today you never can be sure what you will get when a new Lemongrass release is out. Early days reflect his passion for cool rhythmic grooves. But later on also NuJazz, Ambient, HipHop, R’n’B, Deep House, Soul and Lounge made their impact, always subordinated to the concept of the particular release and its stylistic and thematic vision.
“This guy has the magic” – a claim you come across quite often when the name “Lemongrass” stands nearby. No surprise really, because Roland Voss always worked hard to make his talents blossom. During the ’70s he played drums with numerous Rock, Funk and Jazz bands. During the ’80s, Roland developed a penchant for electronic instruments. Having patiently honed his skills, it was time for a first record release. His highly acclaimed debut album called “Drumatic Universe” came out on a small German imprint called “Incoming!” in 1997. Soon after one of the hottest Electronic Music labels at that time “Mole Listening Pearls” was so impressed, that they signed him straight away. For many years this has been a fruit-bearing relationship, shooting Lemongrass to the international top league of the scene. At the latest when “Journey To A Star” got released in 2001, Roland Voss and his project were everybody’s darling. The song is a timeless beauty considered as one the most influential tracks for modern Lounge music. Over time a few more Lemongrass songs reached this height, such as “Feel Good”, “Got It On The Dancefloor”, “I Miss You (feat. Jane Maximova) and “Blue Skies In Your Eyes”.
After 5 extremely successful album releases plus a few EPs it was time for the next step. In 2005 Roland and his brother Daniel founded the label “Lemongrassmusic”, considered as a platform for their own projects and productions. Soon they extended their output with a bunch of talented artists from all over the world. The label kept growing and celebrated their 300th release in the summer of 2019. Needless to say that Lemongrass remained the very center of their work. Brilliant album releases such as “Papillon”, “Filmothèque”, “The 5th Dimension”, “Pour l’amour”, “Hypnosis”, “Beauty” and “Earth” deepened the project’s international prominence. All in all 21 album releases, 18 EPs, 3 “Best of” and numberless compilation appearances speak for themselves.
A helpful aspect to reach this stage is the constant output of domestic releases in various countries. Since the 4th album “Windows” got released by Water Music Records for the US territory, Lemongrass is a big seller overseas too. Most of the album releases also made it to Russia. After “Voyage Au Centre De La Terre” and “Windows” appeared incredibly on old-fashioned audio-cassettes, “Dreamusic” became a solid and steady label partner for some years. Lemongrass is also big in Japan. The label “Receptortune” released 4 albums and took the band 3x times on live touring throughout the country in the early 2000’s.
During the past few years Lemongrass have contributed music to some film productions, have collaborated with the label Mellotron for 2 single releases (2019) and have established a large fan base on Spotify, also running a playlist named “The Lemongrass Chillout Lounge”.
Many compilation releases were compiled for various labels.
In 2019 Lemongrass got invited by NYT journalist Ian Urbina to participate in the highly acclaimed “The Outlaw Ocean” project which resulted in the release of the EP “Stories From The Ocean” in January 2020.
