Max Graef and Julius Conrad, a fellow Berliner known for his work in Acoustic Funk, have teamed up as Ratgrave for Rock, their second album. The album is available now via Black Focus, drawing inspiration from ’80s funk, soul, rock, and electronic, and comprising 13 tracks recorded over the past year. It’s the fourth official album on Kamaal Williams’ London label.

Behind the release is a certain “energy and vibration” that the pair, friends since childhood, recognized across different styles of music, “like a parallel component connecting all things we like,” Graef explains. “In the process of recording the new album, we kept coming back to this essence no matter what style the original idea was.”

Through the recording process, Graef and Conrad found themselves digging into their old records, revisiting the work of Blue Cheer, Black Sabbath, and Jimi Hendrix, and with this came a realization of how much their early musical preferences have impacted their music of today, shaping the recording techniques and energies they were working towards.

To learn more about the music behind Rock, XLR8R asked the pair to record an Influences mix, and the result is as wild as you’d expect, rich in memories and personal moments—Embryo, for example, is a band that has accompanied Graef “through all sorts of situations.” And Jimi Hendrix reminds him of his childhood.

“I first encountered his music through my dad in my early teens and since then he is the greatest of all time for me. I feel like there is no other musician that can put so much passion, so much hearable emotions in the creation of sound and music without sounding even a tiny bit cheesy, predictable, or over the top in any way,” Graef explains. “The first time I was able to let the full potential of a Hendrix solo stimulate my mind and body was the best experience of my life, and he continues to blow my mind.”

Included also are the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a big influence on the Ratgrave project, and the Live Version of “Vulcan Worlds” performed by Return to Forever with Stanley Clarke, Chick Corea, Al Di Meola, and Lenny White.

“I remember when Julius showed me this clip back when we went to school together and we both freaked out about the way they would shorten each solo passage with each round; first everyone had a couple of bars, at some point one bar each, half a bar, and so on,” Graef says. “Truly magical nerdiness that influenced us both in a continuing way.”

“All tracks featured in the mix have influenced our work as Ratgrave in some way or another. I feel like productions and recording techniques of songs in this mix have been a major influence for us working on the new record. And the urge to produce music with one hundred percent raw energy and power, the expression that rock music contains, and the free spirit of that music was a goal. For ‘Rock,’ we combined studio techniques, painstaking arrangements, and the science of harmony with a more “feeling”-driven and spontaneous, live-energy element, I think that’s what gives it life and that’s something we learned from the music we listened to.” — Ratgrave

Tracklisting

01. Embryo Excerpt from “Vagabunden Karawane”
02. Red Hot Chili Peppers “Blackeyed Blonde”
03. Jimi Hendrix “Pali Gap”
04. Captain Beefheart “Abba Zaba”
05. Alice Coltrane “Excerpt from ‘Divine Songs'”
06. Jeff Beck “Blue Wind”
07. Blue Cheer “Gipsy Ball”
08. Frank Zappa “Inca Roads”
09. Stanley Clarke / George Duke “Dont Judge a Cover by its Book”
10. Return To Forever “Vulcan Worlds” (Live)
11. Patricia Escudero ‎”Excerpt from ‘Satie Sonneries'”
12. Jaco Pastorius “Okonkole y Trompa”
12. Galaxy Force II (OST) “Thunder Blade”
13. Stanley Clarke “Hot Fun”
14. Sade “Mr. Wrong”
15. Mix.Man “Dub to Zion”
16. Mark Egan “Ocean Child”
17. Jimi Hendrix “Voodoo Chile” (Slight Return) (Live)
18. John Frusciante “Untitled #11”
18. Fugazi “Shut the Door”
19. Günter Schickert & Peter Unsicker Excerpt from“Die Mauerharfe”
20. Pat Metheny “Unquity Road” (Live)
21. Marconi Notaro “Antropologica”