Headphone Highlights

Lars Bartkuhn

Needs, Sonar Kollektiv, Frankfurt

A passionate music lover from earliest childhood Lars started out writing his first pieces of music with a synthesizer and sequencer, which his parents bought him when realising how music obsessed their son was. Playing guitar as a teenager Lars deeply fell in love with the music of Pat Metheny, Keith Jarrett and John Coltrane, but also with countless other styles beyond jazz music such as soul, funk, rock, Brazilian, classical or experimental music. In the following years Lars travelled around as a session musician, playing in jazz quartets, funk crews, Brazil bands and fusion combos. In the late mid 90s Lars became fascinated with the deep and soulful side of house music. Alongside his brother Marek Bartkuhn and Frankfurt’s DJ Yannick, he founded the production team and label Needs. Since then Needs has become a synonym for soulful high quality music with an open minded approach. Lars Bartkuhn and his crew gained worldwide recognition with remixes for the likes of Francois K, Ennio Morricone, Ian Pooley, Atjazz, Russ Gabriel, Taxi, Franck Roger and many others. On the DJ side, Lars and the Needs boys were hosting legendary nights at the infamous Robert Johnson club. Many of Lars’ productions have been played, charted and loved to death by DJ heavyweights around the globe - including Passion Dance Orchestra’s classic dancefloor anthem "Worlds". Lars Bartkuhn already produced three full length albums. While “Dreamland“ and “Choreographies“ both were ambitous projects based on the concepts he presented on numerous Needs 12“s, “Images & Anthems Book I“ on the Japanese Inpartmaint label travels between indie, electronica and jazz-funk. Most recently Lars released “The New Continent“ on Sonar Kollektiv. The album represents many different sides of the composer while maintaining a fluent and coherent storytelling concept – including his different influences. He set up his five piece live ensemble consisting of some of Germany’s finest jazz and funk musicians and to perform this labor of love on stages across Europe. Lars Bartkuhn has also completed a bunch of new dancefloor tunes that will mark the return for Needs. Watch out!