Frankey & Sandrino, based in Essen and Berlin respectively, have been making music together for just over a decade. In that time, their rich, detailed style has graced the upper-echelons of house and techno’s worthiest institutions, garnering a legacy of releases on labels such as Innervisions, Mule Musiq, Kompakt and Diynamic. The impact of tracks such as Acamar, Mercury or Chimes has paved the way for the unstoppable rise of Frankey & Sandrino, marking the pair as a standout act within the global electronic music scene.

WWD: Hello guys, great to have you with us today! How are you both doing and where are you both based right now?

S: Hello hello, thanks for having us. I´m very good, thanks. Currently based in Berlin, enjoying (or not) the winter here.

F: Hey, also doing great and based in Essen, more west of Germany, pretty close to the dutch border.

WWD: We’re excited to speak with you about your upcoming release, ‘Optical’, marking your debut on the longstanding Crosstown Rebels. Congrats on a great release here. What can you tell us about this release and what was the inspiration behind it?

S: With our music we always try to explore those fine lines & different facets we never did before in our music and of course we try to get deeper and deeper into it, followed by its manifestation and its expression in form of a song. This Ep closes a long quested circle and I’m happy we can move on. Every song or release marks a dot in a constant journey of sounds. And maybe at the end or if you’re looking back and connect those dots everything makes more sense in a bigger picture.

F: As Sandrino mentioned “Optical” shows a new facet of Frankey & Sandrino and new facets are always getting us a little excited. But honestly I had no idea, if this excitement will also transfer to the dancefloor and to the audience in general. But after playing it out the first couple of times, I knew ok, we maybe have something “good” here, which got further confirmed by some big DJs supporting the track from the very beginning.

WWD: How did Optical come to find its home on Crosstown Rebels?

S: The original Idea was to release it on SOH as a follow up to our Hope Ep. We sent the Songs very early to Damian to play them out. As we met personally at the Extrema Festival where we played he asked us to release them with him. I really liked how enthusiastic he was about the Songs and we felt the good vibes so we decided to do them with Crosstown.

WWD: As a duo, your releases stretch back around a decade, on the likes of Innervisions, Mule Musiq, Kompakt, Diynamic and more. We’d love to hear the backstory of how you guys initially came together as a duo?

S: In the early 2000s we met at a Club called Butan Club, here we both hold residencies but for different Promoters. Sometimes our paths crossed and we became friends and we took it from there.

F: Yeah, we were living kind of in the same environment, so before we went to the studio together for the first time, I knew already, that Sandrino was someone who takes music & Djing very serious. So, everything went very easy and organic in the beginning; on a personal and musical level.

WWD: Has the way that you work together on music changed much since you first started out together? What is your creative process usually like?

S: It definitely became more effective over the years. We both have our strengths, Frank is a multiinstrumentalist and a technical vizard while my part is dedicated to the esthetics and sound design. When we meet we just jam around and play with Ideas till the moment when it clicks and we both are logged into an Idea.

F: I think the basic principles that Sandrino mentioned, are still kind of the same, but we´re always looking for ways to keep things fresh. Sometimes it´s a new synthesizer or for example in our last session recording some drum elements by ourself. Things we haven´t heard or done before usually let the creative juices flow…

WWD: It has been a tough two years across the music scene as the pandemic, notably as the pandemic has caused the closures of venues at various times throughout the world. On a positive side, your musical output has remained at a great level through this time. How has the last year or so been for you both as artists during these times?

F: It has been kind of an emotional rollercoaster. There were positive things like more time for family, music, but also more time to improve and learn new things. But of course there were also struggles, because a long-term look into the future seems not really possible at the moment, which can be scary sometimes.

S: We tried to keep on writing music as i always used music also as an escape from everything. But as Franke mentioned above, not everything was easy and still isn’t. Very much unpredictable where this is all going which “yes” it’s scary.

WWD: Thanks for the chat guys. We wish you the best for 2022! 

Frankey & Sandrino ‘Optical’ is out now on Crosstown Rebels. Buy Here