Tube & Berger: Genres are boring but deep is cool

Image: Tube & Berger

Deep house is a genre often carelessly thrown around and attached to records that have no connection with the real, original sound. For two artists from Germany, they've wholly captured the true spirit of deep house and have released dance music with undeniable substance and character. 

Tube & Berger aka Arndt Roerig and Marko Vidovic found their feet in a punk band back in the nineties when house and techno was first making an impression, they eventually crossed over to the genre they still represent today.

Their Kittball Records imprint ranks with the top deep and tech labels, the duo's ear for new music proving to be just as relevant as their own production skills.  

They recently launched their Deeper Sessions concept, allowing them to bring the music they love to cities around the globe. We caught up with them ahead of their biggest ever London show. 

Hi guys, cheers for taking the time to chat to us. You're bringing your Deeper Sessions showcase to Electric Brixton on 21st February. What can we expect?

It will be our biggest show in London ever and we are already really excited. We're happy to work with the guys from Lock n' Load who are super pro and we share a dream. The dream to make this a crazy, wild and unforgettable night.

The light and sound is going to be sick and we have a lot of surprises and special gimmicks prepared. But there's still loads of stuff to do. We realised that Deeper Sessions London has become something like a small festival. 

The line up includes Coyu, Weiss and now Claptone, pretty huge. Why did you select these guys to play alongside you? 

These three gentlemen have a few things in common. They are great artists and cool people to hang out with, we are absolutely sure that all three of them will play fantastic music but each one with a different vibe. And they represent what we believe to be the Deeper Sessions sound. And yes, we are fans!

You've just finished off the Deeper Sessions tour in America, how was that? What were the highlights?

The whole tour was pretty amazing. We met great people and had a lot of fun even if it was tough to play ten gigs in ten different cities in 12 days. It was great to meet people that know our tunes all over the US. Even at Focus in Orange County where we played in a Taco restaurant. Beside that Cielo New York, Audio in San Francisco and Sound in LA were great too.

You guys started off experimenting with punk music, how did you develop to house?

In the late nineties we felt that there was some kind of fusion between punk and house music going on. Daft Punk, The Chemical Brothers or Westbam were our heroes, they still are, and we started going to night clubs, started DJing and decided we wanted to produce house music records.

Deep house has become a bit of a cliche, with so many artists labelling music with the genre when it's far from it. What defines true deep house for you?

The answer is simple. We don't know. We have a vision of what sounds deep. That's why we had the idea for our Deeper Sessions radio show. But we never saw ourselves as a true deep house act. Genres are boring but deep is cool. 

We loved the Entourage EP on your own label Kittball Records (listen below), when can we expect to hear new material from you two?

We started working on our second album and we hope we'll be able to have it released in early 2016 or maybe even this year.

At the moment we are about to finish a remix for Booka Shade feat. Karin Drejier Andersson. We wanted to stop doing remixes for a while but we had to give this one a go. Both, Karin and the Booka Shade guys influenced our music a lot.  Furthermore there will be a collab with our buddies Robosonic.

Congratulations on your 10th anniversary of Kittball Records by the way. What are you doing to celebrate the labels first decade? 

There's a big Ten Years of Kittball Records World Tour going on. And we'll be on the road with our homies, Juliet Sikora, Paji, In.Deed, Wild Culture, Paco and loads more illustrious guests. 

Last up, a hypothetical question. If you could throw your ultimate Deeper Sessions party with a line up featuring any artists from past or present, who would you pick and where would it take place? 

Zack De La Rocha (from Rage Against The Machine) on the mic, Joey Ramone and Sid Vicious on guitars and BVs, D.A.F on the keys. And The Chemical Brothers on drum machines, decks and effects.

DJ line up would be a B2B2B between Sven Vath, Jon Hopkins and us. With maybe Maceo Plex, DJ Muggs and Rusty Egan dropping little cameo sets.

Gig would be in Solingen Rock City of course, centre of the hippie house and esoteric techno Universe. 

If you want to see the duo in action, head here for Brixton Electric tickets. 

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