New album by Brandt Brauer Frick: world peace on the dance floor

The courtyard entrance on the bustling Sonnenallee actually looks like all the others. But when you enter the building, the noise of Neukölln seems very far away: a large room lined with foam for soundproofing, in the middle a black grand piano on which books and magazines are stacked – the English edition of David Graeber’s “Beginnings”. next to a current “Titanic” – next to it synthesizers of all sizes and shapes, computer screens, instruments, sofas, bedding, shelves full of records and equipment. “Almost all of our recordings were made here,” says Jan Brauer. Here lies the nucleus of Brandt Brauer Frick, here is their home.

Brandt Brauer Frick, a band name as German as can be imagined and for the international market, as business-minded consultants would probably recommend, completely useless. Who can pronounce that outside of the German-speaking area? But since the band was founded around 2008, Brandt Brauer Frick have shown that such outward appearances hardly count if the sound is convincing.

And he has, since the first video for “Bop”, in which the trio play techno in strict suits on acoustic instruments. The group was thus style-defining – and incidentally co-founded the genre of electronic music with acoustic instrumentation.

15 years, an acclaimed ensemble project and performances around the world later, Brandt Brauer Frick release their sixth album, “Multi Faith Prayer Room” on Friday (virgin). “We felt like playing club music again,” says Brauer, “and wanted to feel that energy again.” And indeed, the album manages to combine minimalism and hedonism in a way that only a dance floor can.

The 13 songs seem as if Brandt Brauer Frick were tracing the course of a night in the club: from a quiet start full of anticipation (“Ready to Connect”), to nervousness in the queue (“Mad Rush”), to encounters at the bar ( “This Feeling” with Sophie Hunger) and euphoric moments of excess up to peak time with full bass (“Perpetuate”) and ends with a melancholy walk home at sunrise (“Faith”).

Despite all the hedonism, “Multi Faith Prayer Room” is also a kind of concept album: over the course of months, the band has collected voices from more than 500 people who talk about their visions, their trust in the future or their everyday rituals. Some of these voices found their way onto the album in the form of inserts such as “Rituals” or “Future”, where they are combined with the ethereal vocals of the Catalan musician Marina Herlop. But most of them can only be heard as part of an immersive art installation that the band developed with author and curator Max Dax and presented at the Miami Art Fair.

Why this addition of an art project? “The album didn’t have to be finished that quickly,” remembers Brauer and laughs, “it was lockdown – so it just kept going and it got bigger and bigger.” The project grew, they invited more guests, some of whom had known them for a long time , with others they had long wanted to collaborate. So they brought together such different artists as Mykki Blanco or Sophie Hunger on the album, asked house legend Duane Harden, Japanese Kom_I or Nigerian Azekel to join. The result is a polyphonic dancefloor expedition, but at the same time a polyphonic meditation on hopes and desires.

In real “Multi Faith Prayer Rooms”, i.e. interreligious prayer rooms in airports or exhibition halls, a wide variety of people meet peacefully, says Jan Brauer. Similar to the dance floor of a club – or on Sonnenallee, outside the studio doors. And maybe somewhere in there lies the key to world peace. Brandt Brauer Frick already created the sound for the rave there with “Multi Faith Prayer Room”.