ROBYN SCHULKOWSKY & GEBRÜDER TEICHMANN

Robyn Schulkowsky: Percussion
Andi & Hannes Teichmann: Live Electronic, Sampling, Processing

„Robyn has always been an explorer. Read the list of the people she has worked with, playing, composing, improvising, her range reaches from e-music Avantgarde to Freejazz. Always curious, always open, always looking forward to make the next impossible project happen. And here we are, now she is playing with Andi und Hannes Teichmann, world percussion meets Techno and Berlin club culture, one might be tempted to say. One would be wrong to do so. This is not just crossover, this is just not an encounter between different generations, different experiences, different cultures, traditions and attitudes and forms of expressions, or, to put it in a more simple way, an encounter between drums and gongs and bells and stones and – on the other side – hardware-electronic and sequencing, delay and reverb. This is far more complex. No need to put a label on it.
Zwingli-Kirche, Berlin. The Gebrüder Teichmann and Robyn play live. Deep, deep drums. High singing metal. Reverberation.
They create Klangräume, soundrooms, Hallräume, echorooms, too. The performance has an irresistible strength, it just pulls you in. The sounds and beats and noises seem to seek independency, they seperate themselves from their origin and dance with their own shadows.“
Time Bends, Liner-notes by Roland Schimmelpfennig 2022 (excerpt)

After studying percussion and spending several years teaching and performing with orchestras in New Mexico, Robyn Schulkowsky moved to Cologne to study with the percussion legend Christoph Caskel.

While still a student, she broke through as a soloist with world premieres of compositions from John Cage, Olga Neuwirth, Morton Feldman, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Iannis Xenakis. As an instrumentalist and interpreter of new music, she has made a name for herself as an improviser in the Free Jazz scene as well as in collaborations with musicians on 6 continents. In many collaborations with visual artists, she researches and explores new sounds, new instrument creations and new sonic possibilities.

The parents of Andi and Hannes Teichmann were running a Jazz club near their German hometown Regensburg where local bands as well as touring bands played, ranging from Free Jazz ensembles, Krautrock bands to traditional musicians from African and Asian countries.

At the age of 10 and 13 the two brothers started their punk band called “Totalschaden”, performing all over the region. “Did father’s jazz drive the Teichmann sons into punk?” was the headline of their first concert review in the local press.

As many others, Techno culture was the next thing which caught their attention in the 1990’s, and so they arrived in Berlin as a DJ team, playing in the underground club scene and releasing records on their soon established label Festplatten.

Starting in 2009, the two brothers were appointed “ambassadors” of electronic music by the Goethe Institute. They co-initiated musical projects in countries such as Kenya, Pakistan, or Mexico, and brought out – once again – their interest in collaborating. Nowadays, Andi & Hannes play improvised electronic sets with musicians from all kinds of musical backgrounds, also with their dad Uli Teichmann.

In 2017 the three protagonists finally ran into each other. Introduced by a common friend they started to chat.
A few months later, Robyn, Andi and Hannes decided to improvise together, and set up for their first performance in September.
They jumped into the dark sea and soon recognized their ability to find each other in the unknown depths, swimming towards delicate lights and finally to hit enormous waves as a team.

Robyn Schulkowsky & Gebrüder Teichmann have found their stream, sometimes starting with a big bang, sometimes with tender drops, always connected through a physical rhythm.
Their idea to record an album finally took shape during the long pandemic pause.
The Teichmann brothers set-up their machines at Robyn’s studio in Berlin Kreuzberg, and the trio went into a research, focusing on their interactive playing techniques between percussion, live sampling and electronics.
The album “Time Bends” was recorded live during 3 days in March in 2021. It has been produced by Joey Baron who assisted with his critical ears, his notes, and comments.
In autumn 2022 it has been released on NOLAND, the label founded by Andi and Hannes.