CF Interview | AMAS & FRITHJOF-MARTIN GRABNER – SRDGN × LPZG: The strictness of Bach, dissolved
Photo by Kristina Popov
Editorial Introduction
What happens when the mathematical rigor of Johann Sebastian Bach is stripped of its classical facade? AMAS and Frithjof-Martin Grabner spent three years finding out.
SRDGN × LPZG is not a reinterpretation. It is a dissection. The duo AMAS — two old friends from southern Germany, one handling production and sound design, the other artistic vision and concept — began the project in the raw isolation of Pula, at the southernmost tip of Sardinia. There, they extracted the rhythmic and tonal skeleton of 14 Bach works and fused them with field recordings of the surrounding landscape, building a hypnotic framework of electronic structures rooted in Minimal, Dub-Techno, and Ambient.
That foundation then traveled to Leipzig, where it met Frithjof-Martin Grabner: solo double bassist, professor at the HMT Leipzig, and one of the most rigorous interpreters of the Baroque tradition in Germany. In an intense session at the historic HMT hall, Grabner improvised freely over the material — not from a score, but from instinct, in the spirit of Miles Davis scoring “Ascenseur pour l’échafaud”: atmosphere over technical perfection. The result blurs the line between analog depth and synthetic texture, between the 18th century and the club.
We spoke with AMAS and with Frithjof-Martin Grabner about the making of a record that is both an act of radical respect and radical transformation.
Photo by Kristina Popov
I. The origin — Sardinia and the idea
01 AMAS & GRABNER
SRDGN × LPZG took three years and two very different geographies to come together. What was the original impulse — what made you decide that Bach was the right starting point for this project?
— A: We didn’t actually think about these specific genres [Ambient and Dub Techno] at the beginning. After our first five releases, which were still very closely oriented toward the rigid structure of classic techno productions, we wanted to break away from this rigid scheme in our next work. The goal was to create tracks that could breathe more freely. We have also always had a great love for Ambient and soundtrack music. Ultimately, we combined both in the 14 tracks: the free approach all the way to tracks in a classic guise. The idea was to produce exactly 14 tracks. 14 is the “Bach number”; he was fascinated by numerology, prime numbers, and cryptograms (B=2+A=1+C=3+H=8=14). This number defined the framework. Afterward, it moved forward intuitively: we listened through Bach’s MIDI directories and looked for interesting sequences we wanted to work with. Before we left for Sardinia, 14 respectable sketches had already been laid out, providing a framework for our musical journey.
— G: By the time I joined the project, the first tracks had already been recorded in Sardinia. The Bach pieces had therefore already been incorporated. It seemed natural for me to draw inspiration from my surroundings, from the incredible complexity and profound depth of Bach’s music, and to improvise during these recordings in Leipzig. The result was a blend of jazzy, contemporary classical and completely free sounds. On top of that, I have been studying Bach in depth for over 40 years. However, it was important to us that Bach’s influence should remain an inspiration rather than being overtly audible.
https://soundcloud.com/clubfuriess/cfs-amas-fm-grabner-vernunft-amas006
02 AMAS
You began in Pula, Sardinia — extracting and digitally dissecting the rhythmic and tonal essence of 14 Bach works while recording the surrounding landscape. What did isolation do to the music? Would the album sound different if it had started in a city studio?
— A: We wanted to go on a musical journey and incorporate the location directly into the music. That changed the fundamental mindset in the production process; it felt less like “production.” Our house was right by the sea with its own garden and access to the water. This contemplative mood, the vastness, and the silence put us into a completely different state of mind compared to our usual studio environment; we weren’t entirely ourselves and could forget almost everything. For us, the isolation was ultimately a blessing. It was late March with incredibly erratic weather—just right for absorbing all the diverse moods, sounds, and living things of the island around us and letting them flow directly into the project. If we listen to the different tracks today, it teleports us right back to that little house by the sea.
https://open.spotify.com/intl-es/track/2ZO9TuUHfPSS3kYt7VHcGi
II. The encounter — Leipzig and the double bass
03 AMAS & GRABNER
The session at HMT Leipzig was described as spontaneous improvisation over rudimentary sketches — closer to Miles Davis scoring a silent film than to classical rehearsal. How did you both experience that session in the moment?
— A: After the time on Sardinia, we went to Leipzig to record the tracks with F.M. Grabner. The session took place in one go over an entire day. He played completely freely over our sketches. Working with such a renowned and classically trained musician was surprisingly easy, though that was also due to F.M. Grabner and his easygoing nature, as well as our shared love for jazz, improvisation, and red wine.
-G: At the beginning of our recordings, there was a slight “fear of contact” on my part. This made me question whether I could meet the “expectations” for these improvisations, for this kind of music. That quickly faded with intensive engagement. We moved on to the recordings just a few minutes after listening to the tracks from Sardinia. Particularly interesting was when I played loops onto the first tracks and could then improvise on top of them again. That was a completely new dimension in my forms of expression, which usually tend to have a more “reproducing” character.
Photo by Kristina Popov
04 Grabner
Your career has been built inside the Baroque tradition — Bach Collegium Stuttgart, the Berlin Bach Academy, decades interpreting this repertoire. What does it feel like to approach Bach not as a score to be performed, but as raw material to be dissolved into techno?
— G: The Bachian music, which I obviously know, played more of an inspiring role here. For example, we rearranged, mirrored, inverted, and heavily distorted the notes “b a c h” so that they wouldn’t just “jump out” at the listener. For me, the final result of our production contains so many different facets of musical expression: highly percussive elements, the sonic spectrum of free jazz, all the way to aleatoric music.
05 AMAS
When Grabner’s double bass arrived into the electronic framework you had built in Sardinia, what changed? Was there something in the material that you hadn’t anticipated — something his instrument revealed that the machines couldn’t?
— A: It was as if we were entering a completely new tonal universe. Previously, we had only recorded short cello sections in Stuttgart and then integrated them into our earlier albums; here, we suddenly had entire improvised pieces, which were also played in a much more complex way than simply reproducing “normal” notes. There are bow strokes, and in some cases Frithjof even played the wood with the strings—we had to figure all of that out for ourselves first and then integrate it accordingly. Fortunately, through various technical maneuvers and experiments, the two universes merged quite beautifully, and we were able to combine the perfection and precision of the machines with the analog, organic play of Frithjof.
https://open.spotify.com/intl-es/track/2ZO9TuUHfPSS3kYt7VHcGi
III. Bach as material
06 AMAS & GRABNER
The press kit describes this as a “radical reimagining” rather than a translation of Bach. Where is the line between respect for the source and freedom to transform it — and did that line shift over the three years of the project?
— A: Just as we wanted to break away from the logic of common techno productions, the idea was to “free” Bach—who built his music according to almost rigid architectural principles. This often happened intuitively, frequently through unpredictable moments in sound design by sending note sequences through complex effect chains. It was supposed to be an AMAS record first and foremost. Some note sequences were processed so heavily that a layperson might not associate this soundscape directly with Bach—though surprisingly, F.M. Grabner always heard it. In other tracks, however, it was important to us to work explicitly with the original tone sequences. In up to 15 iterations, we kept reducing the material and carving out the “distillate.”
— G: Respect and admiration for the “Fifth Evangelist” are always present. It is precisely this freedom to engage with these roots that has made the current result possible. We have not imposed any limits on ourselves, but have consistently created work with an open-ended outcome.
07 Grabner
You have spent your career teaching and performing Bach with extreme precision. In post-production, your double bass often blurs the line between analog depth and synthetic texture — almost losing its identity as an acoustic instrument. Did that feel like a loss, or a liberation?
— G: I find that totally exciting. The “sonic layers” shift, but all the “played notes and effects” were left intact. Of course, they were distorted, overtone vibrations were made audible in a different way, and so on. In the final result, we experience a fusion of completely different stylistic elements into a new whole.
Photo by Kristina Popov
IV. The sound — Minimal, Dub-Techno, Ambient
08 AMAS & GRABNER
The album moves across Minimal, Dub-Techno and Ambient — and the tracklist reads like a single conceptual arc: Ankunft, Weite, Verirrung… through to Vernunft and Abschied. Was that arc composed intentionally, or did it emerge from the material itself?
— A: From the very beginning, the intention was to make an album with 14 tracks; it wasn’t meant to be a string of individual songs, but rather a single piece with 14 chapters. We wanted to capture our journey at that time musically, and the structure actually came together quite naturally. We always work with a strong concept, an idea that helps us stay on track and focus on the concept. With 14 tracks/chapters, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture or the central theme, but thanks to our clear concept from the start, that fortunately didn’t happen to us. Frithjof was also part of the concept from the very beginning; he just didn’t know it yet.
— G: The structure, the sequence and the 14 tracks were all part of Philip and David’s plan from the very beginning. The fact that the ‘dramaturgy’ has turned out so cohesive is down to the interplay within the music, the arrangement of the tracks and the constant re-examination of them. This is the result of Philip and David’s immense hard work.
https://open.spotify.com/intl-es/track/20f8plybp9ThT4pOlR4SnN
09 AMAS
Your sound has been described as multilayer, melodic and warm — personal and always conceptual. How do you balance those qualities when the source material is as structured and mathematical as Bach? Where does the warmth come from in a record built on Baroque rigor?
— A: Debussy once said: “Music is what happens between the notes.” Perhaps that is exactly what reflects the counter-design to the mathematical rigor of Bach. Between these two poles, we transport a large spectrum of personal states—melancholy, vulnerability, but also vitality. That is what art should fundamentally always do. The warmth also comes from our sound design. Field recordings are an essential part of the sound. From the voices of the neighbors to the sound of the sea, bird chirping, or the sound of a metallic lamp bowl, everything was co-processed. Especially that plastic chandelier in WEITE almost managed to sound like a synthesizer. Furthermore, it was important to us to send the central instrument—the double bass—into the exact same acoustic “space” across all tracks. For this, we developed our own preset based on an Eventide reverb.
https://clubfuries.com.mx/2026/05/26/cfs-amas-fm-grabner-amas006/
V. The release — vinyl, limited edition, AMAS Studio
10 AMAS & GRABNER
SRDGN × LPZG comes out as a limited double LP — 200 copies worldwide, 180g vinyl, a 3D effect cover. For a record that began in isolation in Sardinia and was shaped by improvisation in Leipzig, what does the physical object mean? Why does this music need to exist on vinyl?
— A: “Audiophile” means to us that we rely on 180g vinyl. We put a lot of love for detail into our physical releases and have been working since day one with the team from Matter of Fact in Güstrow, who do fantastic work. Ultimately, it is most likely an album for the HiFi system and especially for the turntable; the vinyl mastering [by Brian Sanhaji / Calyx Mastering] is simply outstanding here and brings the entire depth and complexity of all 14 tracks into the ear with appropriate warmth and intensity.
— G: The tactile experience of holding such a ‘heavy’ record in your hand is something quite special. I’ve heard from students and colleagues that they’d love to own this ‘physical LP’ from AMAS Studio and add it to their collection. Of course, platforms like Apple Music or Spotify are widely used, but putting a record on the turntable at home and listening to it (with a glass of red wine in hand) is a real treat.
Photo by Kristina Popov
11 AMAS
This is AMAS006 — the sixth release on your own label. What does it mean to release something this ambitious on AMAS Studio rather than an established electronic label? What does keeping it in-house protect?
— A: We just want to go at our own pace, produce when we feel like it, and approach our art the way we see fit. We don’t rule out releasing on another label at all; it just happened this way. You gain certain freedoms, but you also take on responsibilities, like paying the bills on time, haha… In the end, it’s just a blessing to be able to manage the number of people involved yourself—from mastering to the photo shoot.
VI. What this means
12 Grabner
You have performed in symphony halls across Europe, Asia and America, and taught at conservatories for decades. How do you think your students — or your peers in the classical world — will receive a record that places your double bass inside Dub-Techno and Ambient structures?
— G: Whenever I told colleagues with my classical background about our project, there were questioning looks and rather a lack of understanding. As soon as the music was played (in a quiet setting and over a good sound system), there was enthusiasm.
https://soundcloud.com/clubfuriess/cfs-amas-fm-grabner-amas006
13 AMAS & GRABNER
SRDGN × LPZG sits between two worlds — the Baroque canon and the electronic underground — without fully belonging to either. Who do you imagine listening to this record, and what do you want them to take away from it?
— A: There are pieces for the club or festivals, but also for the car or an evening at home with a glass of red wine, one track or another is suitable. We are proud that we were able to implement the concept so stringently. AMAS is allowed to challenge the listener and occasionally leave familiar listening paths.
— G: Ever since our music became available to listen to, I have received nothing but positive feedback. This has come from listeners of my own generation as well as from classical music enthusiasts, jazz fans, techno and pop listeners of all ages, right through to young people whose musical tastes have not yet been fully formed. Realy incredible!
https://clubfuries.com.mx/2026/06/03/cfr-2026-06-amas-fm-grabner/
Editorial Closing
SRDGN × LPZG is a record that shouldn’t exist — and that is precisely why it does. The distance between Johann Sebastian Bach and Dub-Techno is not a contradiction to be resolved; in the hands of AMAS and Frithjof-Martin Grabner, it becomes a creative space that neither tradition could have opened alone. Three years, two geographies, one radical act of listening. Out June 5th on AMAS Studio.
https://open.spotify.com/intl-es/album/08iZXlHzr3fy5O9yIOrSKW
Label: AMAS Studio
Artist: AMAS & Frithjof-Martin Grabner
Title: SRDGN X LPZG
Format: Album
Catalogue: AMAS006
Release Format: Vinyl LP, Digital
Distribution: DIG DIS!, AMAS/ Decks
Domain: amas-studio.bandcamp.com
Release Date: June 5, 2026
Support & Buy: Bandcamp
Pre Order Links Vinyl: Deejay | Juno | Decks
Tracklisting
1. ANKUNFT
2. WEITE
3. VERIRRUNG
4. NACHT
5. RAUSCH
6. ABSTRAKTION
7. STIMMEN
8. CHAOS
9. WEGE
10. LICHT
11. KLARHEIT
12. DUESTERNIS
13. VERNUNFT
14. ABSCHIED
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