Feelings are always good for a surprise: you fall in love with a reggae fan. The long-awaited holiday feeling doesn’t arrive on the beach. Or the hormone level causes internal imbalance. Sounds like Ladykracher humor. But Rosa Hoelger formulates emotional states and turmoil in such a poetic and apt way. She is an emotional person and very knowledgeable. A hippie punk aunt who – in a duet with Dota Kehr – would rather “see stars” than stare at a display. Who likes to wear rubber boots, but at the same time is annoyed by guys who always take everything “easy”. She sings herself into a rage about the latter, while her band(s) perform orchestral capers.
The category of songwriter falls short here. With imaginatively balanced instruments, Hoelger and Co. play chansonesque indie rock with elements of crime, atmospheric art song ballads and lively folk (punk), from reduced to voluptuous, amusing to moving, flippant to operatic.
In “23 wow”, the story of an oppressive parking lot encounter, Hoelger vocalizes a range of moods: the lustful greed of the other person, one’s own vulnerability, later anger – at the other, at oneself. Often it is less the feelings than the circumstances that are really wrong.
This review appears in Musikexpress 2/2026.
