Grandbrothers, Messing With Pianos and Trying Out New Ideas

The German-Swiss duo with the unlikely name of Grandbrothers draws on electronic dance music, ambient music, and minimalism. Their tag line is “messing around with grand pianos since 2012,” which captures the essence of their play: they use ALL parts of the piano to generate raw sounds –the notes of the keyboard but also striking the wooden case; or flossing, well, bowing the strings; and E-Bow-like contraptions that oscillate the strings – which are sampled, processed, and assembled in real time. The results are striking creations that are not out of place in either a cathedral or a dance club. Their latest record is Late Reflections, and it brings Grandbrothers, who are the Swiss engineer/mechanic/software designer Lukas Vogel and German-Turkish pianist Erol Sarp, to play in the studio on the occasion of their first U.S. tour. Set list: “Bloodflow”, “What We See”, “Bloom”