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Toechter: The String Group with a Difference
These three girls (one Dane and two Germans) have, over the last few years, been playing with music in their respective countries. Last year, they came together at the Funkhaus studios in Berlin. The group had been given four days to share their discoveries and record their debut album, Zephyr, which gets its release today. The group members (known collectively as ‘Toechter’, German for ‘daughters’) are children of their instruments: violins, violas and cellos, which they layer in post-production to form a pioneering, if challenging, modern sound. Speaking to me over Zoom, founder Lisa Marie Vogel tells me she formed the group after meeting Marie-Claire Schlameus in Munich and Katrine Grarup Elbo in Copenhagen.
“We’ve been working rather dogmatically,” says Katrine. “I guess, as a Dane, I’m into dogmas! Quite early on, we had to create a frame (adding voices, for example, reimagined the frame) but, as this is our debut, we have had time to experiment.” Marie and Lisa say the group could have brought more of their jams into the album, but with a tight schedule, post-production relied on a perfect mix of determination and an open mind to new ideas, brought to the table by their producer, Johann Philipp Thimm, who gave them three days after the strings were recorded. “I remember one day in summer that was particularly creative,” says Katrine. “It becomes very office like sometimes, and this one day away from the schedule, when we were relaxing and the sun was shining… it was very important.”
Zephyr is out now.
