Jazzrausch Bigband: Anniversary album & concert dates "Bangers Only!"
Since its foundation exactly ten years ago, the Jazzrausch Bigband has been uniting seemingly opposites: techno, jazz, classical music, U and E, concert hall and club, young and old. Contrast as a concept, it doesn't work, it doesn't exist. Instead, the band often spans wide arcs, works programmatically like a classical orchestra and deals with themes from literature, philosophy, science and classical music. You could call it "pushing the boundaries" - for band leader and trombonist Roman Sladek, it's more like "a gigantic nerd excess".
On the new Jazzrausch album "Bangers Only!", however, everything revolves around the small form: Thirteen "bangers", hits that no concert or playlist should be without, all in song format around three to four minutes, always to the point, often full on the twelve, completely re-recorded and produced. Almost half of the songs are fan favorites - like the chart-topping "Moebius Strip", the funky "I Want To Be A Banana" or the brass thunderstorm "Punkt und Linie zur Fläche". The other half is new, the list of ingredients is typically long for Jazzrausch: techno, disco and funk beats, thick walls of brass alongside wide, airy surfaces, plus vocals, spoken word and improvisation. Euro-dance borrowings are new, garish and juicy like Hubba Bubba chewing gum the first time you bite into it.
Fancy a listen? Then please click here!
But it never gets too sweet, because the band and their chief composer and arranger Leonhard Kuhn manage a balancing act: you can always hear a genuine, completely un-ironic love for all these contrasting styles. But also the joy of deconstructing and tearing down, the constant alternation of fun and seriousness. And "Bangers Only!" shows that the band has found its own unmistakable sound, which is now very familiar to its large and colorful fan base and which combines everything into a great, well-rounded whole.
The Jazzrausch collective, which currently consists of 35 young musicians, has played almost 1,000 shows in 15 countries since it was founded. Including "Bangers Only!", they have released 12 albums, nine of them on ACT. Since the beginning of 2024, the band has had a permanent home: the Bergson Kunstkraftwerk in the west of Munich. The fact that the band is our house ensemble here takes us all the way back to their beginnings in 2014 as artists in residence at Munich techno club "Harry Klein". Why does what once started small also work on a large scale? Because there is something familiar and at the same time something new to discover in this music, no matter where you come from. And because the intensity of this music makes it so easy to get involved with it. (Michael Gottfried, ACT Music)
"Bangers Only!" at the Elektra Tonquartier
Some people get a cake for their tenth birthday, some get a bicycle... The Jazzrausch Bigband simply gets a concert hall, and what a concert hall it is! And what's the best way to say thank you? With the best you have to offer musically. With a program that represents the tip of the technoid iceberg, firing out hits - reworked highlights and hot new tracks! The Bergson Kunstkraftwerk will be the venue for a premiere on 12 October: the anniversary album "Bangers Only!" will be performed live for the first time at the Elektra Tonquartier - the perfect location for the ensemble's complex, handmade compositions that pulverize musical boundaries.
Further "Bangers Only!" dates at the Elektra Tonquartier:
October 26
November 9
November 21
November 29th
Get your tickets now.
You can also experience our Orchestra in Residence on tour. All information can be found here.
