Since their appearance at C3 2009, Brandt Brauer Frick have risen from relative unknowns to must-haves, releasing a full-length album on !K7 and assembling a concert appearance archive which reads like a 'most impressive' list of major festivals and arts venues - Glastonbury, Mutek, Sonar, The Big Chill, Bestival, MIDEM, ICA, Museum Ludwig (c/o Pop), The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design Oslo...

For Brandt Brauer Frick, the drums, strings and pianos that have long been the bedrock of Western music serve as the common thread between the classical past and their techno present. But while devoted to the rich tones and timbres of orchestral instrumentation, the German trio's rousing tracks are rhythmically focused and rendered with the mechanical precision of four-to-the-floor club tracks. The computers they used last year to arrange their first CD "You make me real" were traded in for a 10-piece band, being able to play handmade dance-groves live.

At C3 Festival 2011 they present their new CD "Mr Machine" (Label: !K7/Alive). The instrumentation is opulent and unconventional: violins, cello, harp, piano, trombone, tuba, kettledrums, marimba, vibraphones, drums, percussions and Moog-synthesizer. Daniel, Jan and Paul found the other ensemble-members in Berlin's contemporary piano-music scene. Most of them play in highly renowned ensmebles such as Adapter, Kaleidoskop or Ensemble Modern, others in jazzbands such as Formelwesen.

Daniel Brandt and Jan Brauer first joined forces in school jazz ensembles, a musical relationship that was rekindled when the pair formed the jazz-influenced dance group Scott. Paul Frick was steeped in classical music from a young age, studying composition with Friedrich Goldmann at the Berlin University of the Arts. Having mutually admired each other's music, the three met in 2008 and soon realized their shared passion for classical forms was an opportunity to work together. EPs for Tartelet Records and their self-founded imprints Doppelschall and The Gym soon followed, with „You Make Me Real“ for !K7 serving as the culmination of the trio's musical chemistry and theoretical approach.

Techno has long been the provenance of synthesizers and drum machines and Brandt Brauer Frick perform their classically influenced productions with the exactitude of automation. Their unique interpretation of the classical palette is invigorating and transcends listeners' usual ideas. Their musical point of view speaks fluently in an increasingly beat-driven culture with the perspective afforded by a deep knowledge of music's foundations.

At C3 in Essen they will perform as the Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble.

www.brandtbrauerfrick.de