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LaBrassBanda

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"LaBrassBanda Live"

“Bavarians in Berlin have traditionally not the best position. But no animosity can be felt this evening, while the party crowd is standing in front of Lido club in Berlin – Kreuzberg. LaBrassBanda are performing. The five musicians stand for Bavarian Folk music of a different kind. They march into the venue like a brass band and people are dancing as soon as they arrive barefoot on stage. In the end of the evening all cliche´s about Bavaria are confirmed as well as disarranged. But it is perfectly clear that Tuba is the new e-guitar and Lederhosen are the hottest shit.
One extraordinary thing about LaBrassBanda is how they use their dialect, called “kheamgauerisch“. “It makes more sense for us to use a language where you know each single nuance, rather then using English phrases“ states Dettl. Especially as their language is very musical. When Dettl starts his sprechgesang, it rather sounds like some distant brother of Jamaican Patois or of Brooklyn’s Rap slang.. That makes LaBrassBanda for Bavaria the same as Peter Fox or Seeed became for Berlin: Confessing Local patriots.“ - TAZ - Germany


"LaBrassBanda England"

“They almost blow away their audience. But none of the 200 people at Kazimier Club in the centre of Liverpool even thinks of leaving the dance floor. Far from it!! Along with every breath, every tone more fun and excitement are filling up the room. Everybody is moving since they started their show with a march through the audience. LaBrassBanda arrived in Liverpool, city of the Beatles, cradle of Pop music. Wearing Lederhosen and t-shirts they stand on stage, barefoot and no one has time to take a breath. Neither the band nor the audience. Liverpool proves that songs performed live like “Ringelbleame” or “Bauersbua” are much appreciated even if nobody understands their meaning. “It’s really great” says Stan Ambros. He has his own radio show and has seen and heard a lot but rarely something so wicked like this mixture from Gypsy, Techno, Brass and Traditional.
“It matches the city, with so many people from all over the world living here” says Stan. Sam, the owner of the club, feels pretty much the same. Back then Marvin Gaye and David Bowie used to play here. “These boys from Bavaria are the best band ever played here since we took over the club. We do have enough of our own input here, but nothing comparable to LaBrassBanda” Sam states surprised. Their first gig in London turns out to be smaller – less audience, smaller club. The audience matches the posh neighbourhood, just some hundred meters from Oxford Street.
But it turns out to be the same picture as in Liverpool, just a few seconds after the musicians grabbed their instruments. Everybody is dancing, even the stiff ones. It seems as LaBrassBanda could become an enormous Bavarian export”. - Süddeutsch Zeitung - Germany


"LaBrassBanda Live 2"

„.. Even the Berlin people let themselves be carried away from this broad Brass sound, rolling from Dub and Ragga to Big-Band-Sound and Balkan-Beat. Sometimes funky, then jazzy .. They play their hundred year old instruments in a rarely heard scope and are able to push the forward button, play dirty and heavy. “Bauer- Bauer“ sounds almost like “Power-Power“. It does not matter if you understand Dettl’s lyrics in staccato. This sound is a very good importable one.“ - Tagesspiegel - Berlin


"LaBrassBanda Live 3"

“Mankind obviously wants to dance. Even people in Hamburg. At a pinch they even dance at the Elbe to music of a band, that sold out Munich’s Circus Krone three times in a row. Now at U¨bel&Gefa¨hrlich they are wondering why they get such a great feedback. Not only feedback. LaBrassBanda are celebrated almost like some sort of Messiah’s! Very soon the same could happen to them as it did to Seeed: They could earn almost courtly homage and unknown sympathies outside of their original sphere. They were not far away from it in Hamburg – no wonder.“ - Die Welt - Germany


"TOP OF THE WORLD ALBUM: LaBrassBanda “Habediehre”"

From the moment this one dropped onto the CD player, it was a huge relief: LaBrassBanda are not one of the umpteen soundalike Gypsy bands, but something much fresher - a deeply original Gypsy-funk brass band who play their stylish compositions with intent, great chops and bags of humorous character. Somewhere off the shores of Lake Chiemsee in Upper Bavaria, this five-piece of three horns, drums, bass and vocals have come up with a killer combination of big riffs, Lalo Schifrin-style arrangements and all-out floor fillers. The influences in the horns flit from Tex-Mex mariachi in the sassy opening track, 'Brassbanda' to tuba-driven ska on the excellent 'Autobahn' and, elsewhere, elements of New Orleans, 80s pop, the Balkans and local Bavarian polka are all thrown into the mix with equally good judgement. The production is tight and unobtrusive, letting the phenomenal playing shine through while never overdoing the effects, bells and whistles. Forget the Gypsy compilations, the blow-hards and the soundalike orkestars and treat yourself to a pure slice of fuel-injected Sueddeutsche funk.
Lemez Lovas - SONGLINES # 57 - January/February 2009


"TOP OF THE WORLD ALBUM: LaBrassBanda “Übersee”"

Bavarian R&B off the big-beat block

The Süddeutsche funkateers are back with a bang. For those listeners who were lucky enough to stumble across last year’s Habediehre, it was the shock of the season: a Bavarian five-piece, just three horns, vocals, electric bass and drums, performing their own songs in the local dialect. But what singer Stefan Dettl does with this combination is beyond any expectation: there’s a straight-up pop sensibility as sharp as that of MGMT or any of the latest alt-electro-pop hyphenated genres. And with Übersee, LaBrassBanda might just have delivered the surprise underground hit of the year. Three things leap out: killer US R&B-style grooves and licks; top musicianship; and a totally cliché-free approach. It kicks so hard that it really doesn’t matter if you understand the words or not. Opening track ‘Bierzelt’ sounds like Beyoncé opening Oktoberfest; ‘Des Konnst Glam’ is a swinging blow-out with all the funk of 70s legends Brass Construction; ‘Ringlbleame’ does the same with the added bonus of a hook-laden pop chorus; while on ‘Nanana’, they show they can also play it as sweet and spiritual as a New Orleans shout band. It’s fresh, confident and totally unlike anything else out there. Get onto this before everyone else does.
Lemez Lovas - SONGLINES # 66 - March 2010


Discography

CD/LP "Habediehre" 2008
CD/LP "Übersee" 2009
CD/DVD "Live Olympiahalle München" 2012
CD/LP "Europa" 2013

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Bio

When did you last see a concert that made you smile for days and weeks?

Ask anybody who went to see LaBrassBanda, they won’t be able to stop grinning even months later. Only the thought of it makes the happiness bug break out again. Presumably, he or she won’t be completely sure what made the show leave such an impression – maybe it’s something like this:

There are five guys on stage. All in “Lederhosen” and T-shirts. All barefoot. The singer’s announcements are still fairly intelligible. When he sings, there’s no way. The only remedy would be a yearlong stay at a Chiemgau Alps heritage society, including an intensive language course. However, the way he sings it just blows you away. You feel that there’s someone who gives his all, who enjoys what he’s doing. The voice is just another instrument. And with it, there are six: trumpet, trombone, tuba, drums, bass – what a mix!

Before the year 2007, the band’s official founding, probably no one would have thought that it’s possible to stand the test of the biggest European festivals with a line-up like this - and Bavarian lyrics on top. LaBrassBanda can, and have proven it at Roskilde, Hurricane and Southside, at the Sziget, as headliners at the Chiemsee Reggae, and many others. Sure, their biggest solo show at the Olympiahalle in Munich was sheer madness as well. There, in front of 10,000 people, they demonstrated arena and stadium quality. Then again, it was a pilgrimage of their fans, who know the songs and the albums, and many of them have seen plenty of their concerts before. It was a home match.

LaBrassBanda are people magnets. They’re able to captivate us. Leaving people, who have never heard of them before, stand in the crowd without being able to comprehend what they’re witnessing: the power coming from the stage, the force of the brass, the speed – and just like that, they move – although they never usually dance at concerts. That’s when this ‘wow sensation’ kicks in.

The viewers of the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 preliminaries can attest to this experience as well. There, LaBrassBanda only had three minutes and thirty seconds to show all their qualities. That was the given timeframe and LaBrassBanda made use of it. In compressed form, they cast everything that characterizes them into a single song: musical skill, change of tempo and rhythm, Bavarian lyrics, extraordinary arrangement, charisma, and an energy that sweeps the audience off their seats. In the end, they came out runners-up and champions of hearts. You can talk and write about LaBrassBanda, however to understand them, you have to see them live. Have fun!