Tanga Elektra | Drums and an Violin

Can you be successful in Berlin, the city of electronic music, if you're a soul musician? It's hard, admittedly, but if you're as creative and original as these two brothers from Mecklenburg, you might very well be able to get a whole Berlin late-night crowd raving to a set of drums, a violin and a loop station.

Tanga Elektra , aka David and Elias Engler, have created a unique sound that has soul and techno fans equally excited. The duo calls their music New-Soul. “Their uniqueness makes them unbeatable” says their producer, Stefan Machlitzky.

Most bands like to think that they've come up with something completely unheard of, but rarely manage to cash in on that promise. Tanga Elektra is an example of how it's done right by tearing down barriers between genres and overcoming musical conventions. “We use a violin – traditionally an instrument for classical music – and play it like an e-guitar,”  says Machalitzky. “But you can also play the songs on a piano and they'll still work.” Add to this a mix of “emotional, almost kitschy, hippiesque” lyrics and you have an explanation for Tanga Elektra's international success that has long left the borders of Berlin behind and reached Brazil, Italy and Switzerland.

But the band likes to keep Berlin their homebase, it's also the location where their newest EP was recorded. It's called “At first sight” and was released on February 24. “As a liveband, it was especially important to capture the moment and the performance and not to castrate it through too much influence” says Machalitzky. The EP is just a small extract from all of the things the band has planned for the future – they're already working on an album with their producer. (ihe)