Grandbrothers: Late Reflections (LP)

The combination of old and new has always been at the heart of Grandbrothers' music. On their fourth album "Late Reflections", they now link their work to an institution that predates their own music by seven centuries: Cologne Cathedral. This iconic monument of Gothic architecture served as the recording studio for the German-Swiss duo's new album. The result is an album with a precise sense of history and architecture, an album that allows the spatial characteristics of this magnificent building to become part of its hypnotic composition and translates them into sound. For a concept album, "Late Reflections" is haunting and immersive, and it asks as many questions as it answers: What does it mean for music to interact with architecture and space? What does a church that has been revered for its opulence for centuries actually sound like? What can contemporary art draw from 700 years of history? And how can musicians keep their own compositional approach fresh and unspent after more than a decade? From the very beginning, Grandbrothers have challenged musical traditions. Founded more than a decade ago in Düsseldorf, the piano duo has repeatedly succeeded in pushing the boundaries between ambient, minimal and electronica with its multi-layered music. The result always sounds different, but always characterized by the extraordinary collaboration between the German-Turkish pianist Erol Sarp and the Swiss electronics engineer and software developer Lukas Vogel. On three albums to date - "Dilation" (2015), "Open" (2017) and "All The Unknown" (2021) - the duo drew their particular inspiration from a conceptual limitation: every sound, every note comes from just one instrument - the concert grand piano.