Lars Bartkuhn

As a young child Lars Bartkuhn started out writing his first piece of music with a syn- thesizer and sequencer, which his parents bought him upon realising their son’s ob- session with music. Playing guitar as a teenager Lars fell deeply in love with the music of Pat Metheny, Keith Jarrett and John Coltrane but also with countless other styles beyond Jazz such as Soul, Funk, Rock, Alternative, Brazilian Sounds, Classical, Con- temporary, Minimal and Dance music. In the mid 90s Lars became fascinated with the deep and soulful side of House music and formed Lamaya Productions and now legendary record label NEEDS (not wants) together with his older brother Marek Bartkuhn and DJ Yannick. NEEDS rapidly became a synonym for soulful high quality music and while labeled a ‘ House’ music imprint it was Lars’ input that lead the trio to explore into alternative, and at the time unorthodox, musical influences that allowed for original textures and arrangements to be included into their productions. Countless remix commissions fol- lowed and their sound travelled worldwide with works for Francois K, Jazztronik, En- nio Morricone, Atjazz to name a few. Many of Lars Bartkuhn’s productions have been played, charted and loved to death by DJs around the globe. Some tracks even heralded as true dance floor classics creating a solid, international fan base, one example being "Worlds" by Lars' project "Passion Dance Orchestra". To date Lars has produced five solo albums on labels like Sonar Kollektiv, Needs, Ropeadope and Inpartmaint, all of which demonstrate a never ending creative flow of ideas and artistic diversity, complexity and passion. After some years away from the Dance scene, residing in Brasil and Germany, Lars has decided to continue the journey with a bunch of fresh sounding 12" records on Neroli and Utopia/Phonica. In 2017 Lars re-established his NEEDS imprint with a Gold Series reissue of "Walkin' Thru Circles" which is considered a real classic nowadays and comes in a wonderful live version with lots of live percussion, guitars, vocals, keys and so on, all played by Lars himself. With this return to dance floor oriented music Lars also started touring with a new live act that shows him brewing those special vi- bes and rhythms in real time using sequencers, synth’s, guitars and his voice plus oc- casional guest musicians. Lars also played countless regular sessions and concerts of freely improvised music in Frankfurt together with some of Germany’s most innovative musicians, combining electronic music and Jazz in a very fresh and organic way. One of the outcomes of these creative encounters resulted in a New Age/Ambient album called „The First Mi- nute Of A New Day“ (Seance Centre/Canada) which is a duo project bewteen Lars and his good friend and legendary producer Kabuki. In 2021 Lars started to work intensely with Rush Hour. After a couple of singles Rush Hour released a vinyl-retrospective of the NEEDS era which sold out at light speed. Many more releases are already in the pipeline ranging from abstract electronic, new age jazz, Fusion to epic deep house anthems associated with his work during the Needs days.