In the history of German electronic music there are certain places the dance floor invading masses will cite as the “cities where it all happened.” These are the temples of prayer for the raver inside you, the cityscapes for stories of lost hotel room keys, coat room tickets, inhibitions and minds. As in America, where Chicago, New York or Detroit are held aloft as the three towers of dance music history. Or London and Manchester as central party pilgrimages in England.
 
In Germany it has always been about Cologne, Munich, Frankfurt and, of course, the dance behemoth that is Berlin.
 
Karlsruhe and Mannheim in southwestern Germany are hardly the places you imagine dreams are made of in the dance music industry. They do not leap out as cities of artistic exuberance. But the Story of Âme is the story of how in Karlsruhe the Jazz Trumpet and Piano reined, in Mannheim Boston grunge pioneers The Pixies and later underground raves held sway. Of course it is nothing new to read stories of small town boys dreaming of the bright lights but Âme have some damn big lights, play in the biggest clubs in the biggest cities and have the biggest tunes to boot.
 
Frank Wiedermann and Kristian Beyer are in many ways the archetypal production duo. The jazz boffin and the raver, the mad scientist that presses the buttons in the studio and the man that presses the buttons on the dance floor – his family were actually scientists. They split their performance duties with Frank performing all their live shows and Kristian manning the turntables. They are stalwarts at Innervisions, a label so cool it is practically Patagonia while they have also released on the seminal Sonar Kollektiv label.
 
They formed the first ever techno boy band and redefined the way – if there ever actually was a way – improvised, group-based techno should work with their performances alongside Henrik Schwarz and Dixon as A Critical Mass. As ‘Rej’ they wrote one of the biggest tracks of the last decade, a perfect morphing of techno and house. Gaining them the most mileage of DJ play and a seat at the top table of dance music’s modern messiahs.
 
Their latest project is a live album, put together over the last couple of years and performed live by Frank with Kristian’s input. We met up with two of Germany’s house and techno glitterati to talk deep house in Frankfurt, Carnival in Brazil, raves in Mannheim, “commercial music in a commercial club” and freakish meetings with a German kraut rock pioneer.
 
Did you have a musical upbringing in any way?
 
Frank: So my father played trumpet, he didn’t play professionally but as I would say he was a very good amateur. So there was always some sort of music on in our house, I also learned to play the piano when I was eight, or I at least started learning piano when I was eight, so I guess since that moment I have made a lot of music, I was in bands you know, so yeah I started young.
 
Kristian: Not for me at all! I think everybody in my family had been scientist until me.
 
What was the first music you can remember really loving?
 
K: For me it was definitely The Pixies. They were the first and the biggest band in my youth.
 
F: I shouldn’t really tell this to you.. and to be honest it has appeared in quite a few articles already so I’m not so sure that we should print this again as Kristian will hate me. Ok, so it was Jazz (laughs) of course it was because my father played jazz trumpet. (laughs)
 
Where did you grow up?
F: I grew up Karlsruhe; it’s a very nice, humble city in southwest Germany.
 
K: And I grew up in Mannheim, which is a small city near Frankfurt.
 
F: We both live in Berlin now but we are both originally from the southwest of Germany and we met each other there as well.
 
What sort of scenes did Karlsruhe and Mannheim have?
F: I cannot say that Karlsruhe had a scene to be honest. It was at that time there was a big Drum and Bass scene going on in Manheim, which is where Kristian came from originally. So that is where all the big parties were going on. In my town it was pretty mixed up really, a little bit of drum and bass and jungle stuff too but also some big beat crews and not so much house and techno. There wasn’t really any scenes, it was all just really mixed.
 
How were you involved in dance music before you began working together?
F: I only had one release with a friend of mine that came out on Compost records; it was on one of those Future Sound of Jazz compilations. Before that I only played in bands, I made like easy listening (laughs) and jazz-rock music.
 
But I was DJing already too but I was much more into this sort of broken beat and downbeat stuff, I wasn’t so much into house music or techno. I was playing what I thought was hip at that time.
 
Read the full interview here.

Unlike rock bands, dance acts tend to go for the remix collection over the live album when they want to wring out their back catalogue. And, despite the name, Ame’s Live is much more in the former mould. Although comprised of live recordings from the past two years, Live is very much a studio creation, with reworked versions of their own “greatest hits” and remixes for the likes of UNKLE and Underworld compressed into one continuous set. It’s also ostensibly a celebration of Frank Wiedemann and Kristian Beyer’s first decade together, but while the form might be fresh, you suspect the motives behind putting it out might be more stale. After all, while their touring schedule is hardly slothful, it has been eight years since their eponymous debut on Sonar Kollektiv and their own productions and remixes have been more a trickle than a stream recently.
 
If Live serves the purpose of bridging a gap in the release schedule, it also follows the traditional structure of a rock set: building right up to the big tune for its climax. The darting bleeps of “Rej” are the equivalent of Deep Purple’s “Smoke On The Water” riff, the trademark moment that everyone’s there to hear. The opening remix of Roy Ayers’ “Tarzan” introduces many of Ame’s signature sounds; the stabbing orchestral strings, the supple tech house beats, the melodic fragments at once warm, poignant and minatory. It’s a style distinctive but never restrictive, allowing them to descend from the peaktime heights of tribal techno chant “Ku Kanjani” to the lower dub pace of “Nia” and the deep vocal house of their remix of Osunlade’s “Envision” with real grace. Ame transform the portentous dirge of UNKLE’s “Hold My Hand” or the stadium techno of Underworld’s “Crocodile” into something much more subtle, while a new remix of Gui Boratto’s “This Is Not The End” blends Luciana Villanova’s vocal into sensual ambience. It’s all skilfully woven together, yet experienced outside the clubs where it was recorded isn’t quite enough to breathe new life into this collection of well-worn favourites.
 
Review via RA.

Ho inziato una dozzina di volte questa frase e, nonostante i ripetuti tentativi, non so ancora se sono partito col piede giusto. Eh sì, Frank Wiedemann e Kristian Beyer hanno detto tanto e tanto ancora hanno da dire, troppe cose ben fatte hanno caratterizzato la carriera ormai decennale del progetto Ame, per permettermi di seguire un filo logico lineare. Sì perché quando pensiamo a questo duo abbiamo il dovere di guardare oltre l’intramontabile “Rej” o il remix di “Envision”, dobbiamo essere in grado di cogliere tutte quelle sfumature che rendono la sua musica unica. Jazz, funk e soul, il tutto amalgamato da una sana dose di Detroit-techno, fanno di questo progetto musicale una delle cose più belle partorite dalla musica da ballo (e non solo) di questo inizio di secolo: decine e decine di dischi, innumerevoli esibizioni in tutto il mondo e, forse più importante, la creazione di un suono che firma e che aiuta a definire un’era della musica elettronica.
 
“Ame: Live” è il continuous mix che celebra tutto questo, i dieci anni più belli ed importanti di Frank e Kristian. “Ah, siamo qui a parlare dell’ennesima compilation!” direte voi, ma no, mi spiace deludervi, non è una semplice compilation. Basta scorrere la tracklist, basta tenere a mente che tutte le tracce presenti nel cd sono state ritoccate e riviste per l’occasione, per renderci conto che “Ame: Live” è un’esperienza. Settantasette minuti di techno agile ed erudita, un percorso che mostra la grande varità dei a disposizione del duo tedesco. Si tratta di un tuffo in un oceano di colori: “Ku Kanjani”, frutto della collaborazione con i sudafricani Amampondo, ci ricorda come Innervsions sia una label dalle grandi, grandissime, vedute; “Where We At” e “D.P.O.M.B.” (firmate dal tridente Henrik Schwarz/Ame/Dixon) suonano in modo sorprendentemente dirompente, neanche fosse la nostra prima volta insieme; mentre i remix per Unkle, Underworld, Roy Ayers e Rodamaal (chi si fosse perso “Insomnia” deve, categoricamente, andarsela ad ascoltare), oltre al già citato capolavoro per Osunlade, sono il chiaro esempio delle qualità di Frank e Kristian nelle vesti di remixer.
 
Chiudono il cerchio “Nia”, “Enoi”, “Setsa” e “Junggesellenmaschine”, quest’ultima perla mozzafiato che nei suoi ultimi due minuti nel mix ci catapulta in un’altra dimensione. Il consiglio è quello di chiudere gli occhi e spegnete i pensieri.
 
E dire che c’è stato pure chi, in quel maggio di tre anni fa, si è divertito a lanciare bottigliette sul palco durante la loro esibizione a Dissonanze. A quei geni consiglio l’ascolto di “Ame: Live”: non è mai troppo tardi per ricredersi e chiedere scusa.
 
Via Soundwall.it

Almost exactly ten years ago, Âme, the duo of Frank Wiedemann and Kristian Beyer, was officially born. The two artists had met a year earlier and began working on music not long after, homing in on a style of house that was
classically informed yet totally modern, as inspired by jazz, funk and soul as it was by Detroit techno. It was the beginning of a musical project that would define the next decade of their lives, with dozens of records, countless
performances around the world, and perhaps most importantly, the creation of a signature sound that would help define an era of electronic music.
 
Âme Live takes stock of everything that’s happened since then, connecting the dots between early records on Sonar Kollektiv, later works on Innervisions and still unreleased material. It also serves a much simpler purpose: documenting their exceptional live act. Âme started playing live in 2010, and in doing so devised one of the most idiosyncratic performances in club music today. Despite being limited to their own compositions, their live routine is
at least as dynamic as their DJ sets: each performance is a vivid sequence of moods and styles, unhinged by genre and tempo and delivered with a kind of mad scientist intensity. The new album is made up of the best recordings from the road, reedited in the studio and woven into a continuous mix. Taken as a whole, it has a way
of transcending space and time, with the duo’s lithe productions forming a stage for South African folk lyrics (“Ku Kanjani”), Portugese spoken word (“Insomnia”) and the music of 70’s funk icon Roy Ayers (“Tarzan”), not to
mention Âme classics like “Where We At” and the all-mighty “Rej.” Though it’s heavy on familiar tracks, each one takes on a distinct new character in live form (there’s also one entirely new production: the “Beatless Mix” of Gui
Boratto’s “This Is Not the End”). For fans, it’s a fresh take on Âme’s celebrated oeuvre. For everyone else, it’s a perfect introduction to one of house music’s most imaginative duos.
 
Henrik Schwarz / Âme / Dixon – DPOMB (Âme Live Version)

We are very happy to announce the Innervisons Sonar-Off 2012 Party! A class-a line up consisting by Innervisons’ usual suspects: Dixon, Âme & Henrik Schwarz, along Todd Terje and Visionquest’s Tale Of Us, will be gather in an outdoor never seen before venue in Barcelona, El Monasterio.
 
Ticket pre-sale is now on via Resident Advisor. Limited capacity, so be quick!