The Brothers Kalkbrenner

The Kalkbrenner brothers (Paul and Fritz) hail from the Lichtenberg district of what was East Berlin. Paul Kalkbrenner is known primarily for techno. While Fritz Kalkbrenner also produces dance music, he is self-described as a “soul boy,” and his productions often lean towards deep house. Fritz sings in many of his tracks as well as this track that was featured on the soundtrack Paul composed for the 2008 film “Berlin Calling:”

 

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Paul is considered a live act because he separates his tracks into individual parts and then reassembles them as he performs. The listener can distinctly hear this process in the following track (listen for the different instruments and percussion that enter as the track progresses):

 

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As the listener will hear in the following track, Fritz’s solo-produced music has a very warm quality to it:

 

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Fritz recently (March 24, 2015) released an album titled Ways Over Water. Paul released x (an album containing remixes of many of his classic tracks) in 2014, but his last full-length album, Guten Tag, was released in 2012 — if the techno gods smile upon us, he will release another album in the near future.

The Kalkbrenner brothers have contributed an great amount to dance music. This post gave the reader only a small taste of what these two talented musicians have offered the world. I will end the post with the last track off of Paul’s Berlin Calling soundtrack. In the music video for the track, Paul demonstrates how he sampled the subway system (in Berlin I presume) and then made that sample into the synthesizer that plays the main melody:

 

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