Gernot Bronsert from the Modeselektor spoke to I Kaur about their famous monkey logo and a documentary by Romi Agel and Holger Wick
The monkey face on their logo is synonymous to them and their songs define the crazy creativity they have with words. There is a reason their labels read Monkeytown Records and 50 Weapons and one thing you can understand by just knowing this much about Modeselektor is that they have a brilliant sense of humour. The Berlin-based electronic act duo, Sebastian Szary and Gernot Bronsert were recently in town to give a dose of themselves to Delhiites along with a small info-session about the kind of music they produce. They performed at lap: The Club in association with the Red Bull Music Academy.
The duo has known to each other ever since elementary school days and began making music in 2006. Gernot defines their music as “Advanced techno with a lot of hip hop grime bass and pressure mix. In fact it depends from person to person what they interpret of our music. This is only what we interpret out of it, you may have a completely contrasting opinion,” he shared.
Gernot and Szary do a lot more than music. Recently, a documentary was made on them. Gernot feels that time is the one thing they are always struggling with. He said, “It’s a challenge, day by day, to do everything we want and have to do. When filmmakers, Romi Agel and Holger Wick, asked us if they could follow us around for a certain time and also dig up archive material in order to make a movie about us, we immediately said yes. Mainly, because the documentation was for us to see too.”
The band’s famous monkey logo is something that has intrigued a lot of people. Gernot elaborated on how it came into existence. “The monkey is a creation by Pfadfinderei — an agency for graphic and visual art. We are close friends with these guys. They also do our live show visuals and all artwork for both our projects Modeselektor and Moderat. They felt that the logo suited our personality,” he said.
Apart from their own music, as Gernot puts it, there are a few other artists the duo loves. “Jon Hopkins is awesome. We’ve known him for a while now, but with his new album Immunity he took a huge step forward. Anstam, too, is a genius and, of course, Siriusmo — one of the best electronic musicians in the world,” he exclaimed.
At present the duo has a long list of to-dos lined up. “We’ll compile a new Modeselektion — Volume 3. We are hoping that it will be released by the end of June. We also want to record a new Moderat album and will pick up touring with Moderat again in January. And may be we’ll find time to do soundtracks or produce other bands,” he summed up.