"It's been scarcely 20 months since the appearance of the debut EP Wannado' (Lebensfreude Records) from the three affable Berliners-by-choice: Stereofysh. Those months saw brilliant concerts in Berlin, Munich, Leipzig, Bochum, and elsewhere. Last summer included memorable performances at the 3000 Grad Festival and the Tag am Meer Open Air Festival. Remixes from the likes of Lake People, SiS, and Robag Wruhme further established credibility, and with two successful subsequent EPs, Stereofysh firmly secured their position as a band to be remembered. And now it's here: the band's debut full-length album.
The Race will hit stores in May on vinyl and CD. Once again, Stereofysh have netted high profile remixers, including Ruede Hagelstein, Mathias Kaden, and Daniel Stefanik. And once they play the ISLE 9 Festival in Hawaii this summer, they'll be looking back on half of a year of lasting impressions.
Bubbling and brimming with joie de vivre, the Fysh have long been happily swimming together in life's currents—since infancy, in fact, for singer Lysann Zander and producer Gunnar Zander. Their efforts with their first band Goodbye Wavers eventually developed into the band Send More Cats, whose 2011 album Please contributed music heard by German cinemagoers in the film Miss Sixty.
Along with their acoustic songwriting, the siblings have also been intimately involved with electronic club music since 2004, performing both together and individually as DJs. The two also enjoy collaborations both national and far abroad: Lysann has released tracks with New York artist Nicholas Sauser, Istanbul artist Tufan Demir, and Indian producer Pawas. Gunnar has worked with Robag Wruhme on a remix for Paul Kalkbrenner's smash hit Sky and Sand.'
Stereofysh began to take shape in 2011 when jazz musician Lars Dieterich joined the band. Since his saxophone studies at the UdK Berlin, the multi-instrumentalist Dieterich has appeared in projects such as The Ruffcats, Soap, and Trondheym at festivals around the world, including Jazzbaltica, Music Biennale Zagreb, Sydney Mardi Grass, Jazzfest Berlin, and the ElbJazz Festival. As a live-performance and studio musician, he has been active with internationally known artists like Jazzanova, The Boss Hoss, Bobby McFerrin, and Mousee-T. Dieterich's intense interest in the electronic modification of various woodwind instruments has proven to be the pivotal third ingredient in pushing Stereofysh toward a new dimension of sound.
Since the start of 2013 has been on the artist roster of the Lebensfreude label. The Wannado EP was released in tandem with the new partnership and promptly scored heavy-rotation on the radio station Flux.FM. A remix EP followed, along with the next EP of original songs named Zanderdome. On Record Store Day 2014, the Robag Wruhme remix of the title There Yet' was released on Pampa Records as a split EP with Tocotronic, which sold out in short order. 2014 continued with the release of the especially popular track Cellphone' which came in the form of a remix EP, entitled Cellphysh. Breaking convention, the remixes here were not produced by artists from the electronic music scene, but rather in acoustic form by Gunnar, Lysann, and Lars themselves. Among the supporting players on the EP were Lars' band The Ruffcats who, though officially touring as the backing band for Flo Mega, managed a clandestine cloak and dagger session to conjure up a sparkling little soul number for the Fysh.
Navigating constant changes of direction yet pressing forward, all the while keeping an assured, measured pace—this is Stereofysh's specialty and the guiding principle throughout their debut album. The Race is, at its core, a multi-facetted wealth of elements, all combining and reconfiguring to provide moments of magic and happiness, as well as a few goosebumps.
The title track and album opener The Race' invites the listener into its relaxed flow, soon pouring into to the steadily pulsing beat construct of The Ease,' in which the clubgoer becomes as helplessly entangled as a fish in a net. And there is simply no turning back after the Grace Jones' fantastically re-imagined Slave to the Rhythm,' during which the listener becomes just that, and is delivered—heart and soul—over to the Fysh. The album's most 'Berlinish' track may be Igor,' whose relaxed, swaying, golden swing elegantly expresses a nocturnal, transfigurative Zeitgeist. Things get deep on Johanna,' with sighing, sawing sax tones, sad keyboards, and Lysann's smoky voice, plaintively weaving ever downward.
The tides are ever changing, with the vibe of the Stereofysh now more concentrated on performing live. They're working with an expanded band outfit that they enjoy taking on tour. Stereofysh could change their name and their colors, but whatever emerges will result in a journey forward. Only one thing is certain: it'll sound good. Wherever things lead, there won't likely be another band that has so impressively mastered the art of bridging electronic and club together with live music."
