The Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble

At the Red Bull Music Academy tent at Sonar, The Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble took to the stage with their Ensemble, arranged their papers, and smiled to the audience. It was a quick smile, because for their music to function, they have to treat it with stone-faced irreverence. Gimmicks don’t come cuter than live-orchestra-techno, but for it to work beyond this, it needs to be treated as an immersive form, rather than the musical punning talk their album occasionally falls into. But in the hour they performed, their commitment to techno and classical music’s shared ground (texture, emotion, adventurousness, an embrace of the cerebral) and their sunny subversion of the pursed lips seriousness both traditions so easily fall into impressed.