The Berlin music group Moderat was formed 20 years ago, in 2002, from the merger of the musician Apparat (Sascha Ring) and the DJ duo Modeselektor (Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary). The trio has released several albums that have charted internationally, including More D4ta, which was released in May. Not least because of their elaborate light shows, the concerts of the group, which is one of the most successful German music exports, are very popular.
Christian Riethmuller
Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.
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Gernot Bronsert, Sebastian Szary, six years have passed between the release of the Moderat album "III" and the new album "More D4ta". This is a relatively long break, during which you and your partner Sascha Ring pursued individual projects. Was there a special impulse to work together again?
Gernot Bronsert:
It was never intended that we would stop.
The idea of doing something together again was always in the air.
But there was no fixed date, just a feeling.
We still had a few things to do, and Sascha also became a father.
At the beginning of 2020 we met to exchange ideas and we had already started playing when the global situation suddenly changed completely with Corona.
But it also saved us time.
How do you exchange music? Do you meet in a studio and produce together? Or do you send your drafts to each other digitally to then work on them?
Gernot Bronsert:
When we start making music for Moderat, we'll work separately at first.
Everyone makes their own designs that are put together after a certain amount of time.
Since we had planned this time and this work process anyway, we were able to push the project forward even in lockdown and after this phase of individual work was completed, the measures under which we could meet were no longer so strict, although we, if we work in the studio, actually only have contact with our families anyway.
So the pandemic didn't have so much practical damage for us, but it is a mental construction site.
Then, when we started Moderat again, the Capitol in Washington was stormed, and now the war in Ukraine.
That's crazy.
We wanted to play in Ukraine this summer and had already sold 5000 tickets.
Some of the family of our partner there has now found accommodation with us.
This whole global crisis and now the war has totally shaken me personally.
And it certainly had an influence on the music we made.
Some of the new tracks have a thoroughly melancholic note. But doesn't the audience also want to celebrate at a Moderat concert? Is it just turned up a bit?