Brandt Brauer Frick
Formed by Daniel Brandt, Jan Brauer and Paul Frick almost ten years ago, Brandt Brauer Frick have reconceptualised electronic dance music by converging acoustic instruments and computer technology. The band’s debut, You Make Me Real, arrived in 2010 and immediately set the template, reconstructing their classical roots by cutting up acoustic instruments, such as drums, glockenspiel, trombone and harp, and terraforming their sound through a variety of techniques.
Grasping for a definition, Brandt Brauer Frick were initially labelled ‘techno without the technology’. However, the band has come a long way since 2009. While their fifth album, Echo, further cultivates their distinctive approach to production, the band’s ‘morphic’ principles allow them to adapt to almost any live situation, whether playing a concert hall, club or rave as an electronic trio or ten-piece ensemble.
How did the three of you meet?
“It’s a rather boring story, but Daniel and I are both from Wiesbaden near Frankfurt. We played together in the school band – then did a project about house music with jazzy influences, and after school we made electronic music together. After playing several club shows in Europe we met Paul because his MySpace profile said he was a classical composer making house music. We exchanged a few records and talked about collaborating, but only had a small studio in Daniel’s mother’s garage. Paul came down from Berlin, and after a few days we had the band.”
How rudimentary was the gear you were using?
“At that point, we worked with Reason software, had a Fender Rhodes and an old Yamaha DJX keyboard, which was like a toy. We also had a small mobile PA in this really tiny room so we could produce at a high dynamic range with a lot of bass. Early on, we started to make recordings with percussion and drums using an AKG 414, which was the first professional microphone we had. Then we switched from Reason to Ableton Live and that really got us hooked. We recorded the whole album with that in the garage, although we didn’t know it would be an album, we just recorded track after track.”
