Richard Blohm is a pioneering electronic music producer and engineer who shaped the sci-fi electronica sound throughout the 1980s and beyond. Operating under the alias F451 during the mid-1980s, he founded AIRTIGHT recording studio (later recoilprodukt), where he produced landmark releases including Psyche's *Insomnia Theatre* LP and subsequent collaborations with the industrial act that spanned multiple albums and EPs. His production work combined hardware synthesis—notably FZ-1 samplers, Roland SH2, and Casio SK1 samplers—with innovative engineering techniques, establishing a distinctive aesthetic rooted in sci-fi electronica.
Beyond his work with Psyche, Blohm collaborated with Steve Brenner on the *New Found World* project and recorded the experimental one-off album *The Itch* with vocalist Darrin Huss under the moniker Vanishing Heat. He also released solo material as F451 and the ambient EP *Xmachine*. After operating recoilprodukt as both studio and label through the early 1990s, Blohm relaunched the imprint in Berlin in 2017, remastering and reissuing his catalog while continuing to produce new sci-fi electronica material and offering remixable elements to the electronic music community.
