“It’s not nice to have to advertise concerts these days, but we’re playing on…”
When bands are currently communicating their (three times postponed) 2GPlus live dates or even long-delayed releases on social media, it doesn’t sound like sparkling artists are taking their fans with them on the slopes. No, it rather gives the impression that the colorful shared flat has to apologize to the household that it could get a little noisy later. But not for long, I promise! And sure, you can come over, we would be happy. But you don’t have to, you’re definitely not in the mood for the world situation and all that shit anyway!
Sounds vaguely funny, but in truth, of course, no band has felt like laughing for a long time now. Too often you have postponed your gigs, put off your people and meanwhile ask yourself anyway: Are they still “your own people”? Or have they all long since moved on to TikTok, Twitch, Netflix or gone into inner emigration?
Maybe it would be better to shift your interest in wanting to make music. The Bundeswehr should now get 100 billion, maybe there are also a few euros in it for an indie music corps. Or why not chants instead of marching music to keep the band happy? Phew, that doesn’t really sound satirical when you read it here.
But dear artists* with a music background, don’t worry, we haven’t and won’t forget you. In fact, we appreciate what you’re still throwing out despite this anti-pop climate. And this column should simply highlight eleven very young pieces. Especially because these days you can hardly admire (read: lick) music and acts in the club around the corner or in the hall on the arterial road.
A hopelessly subjective list, of course, it’s about current songs that I’ve noticed and rated as great. You definitely don’t know everything from this compilation. Have fun!
Mitski
“The Only Heartbreaker”
If you want to label it positively, Mitski is a globetrotter. Or maybe you should rootless say: The father, an American, works for the US State Department, so the family moved to different countries. Never for longer. Mitski, whose mother is Japanese, may therefore also sound like world pop. Luxuriant, pointed, a touch of eighties. This song right here is so bittersweet and got me because it’s reminiscent of one of my all time favorite bands: Future Islands. Just with a female voice and a different twist.
Future Islands
“King Of Sweden”
Speaking of Future Islands. They just released something new too. With the band I can no longer really say whether this is all great art in a small space (beer mat) or whether there is now just one huge patchwork of self-quotes. But guess what… even if it were the latter, I love repetition in pop music (or as Diedrich Diederichsen once said: “hearing music means listening again”).
Well then… good news! Future Islands’ new song sounds as touchingly familiar as all the ones before it.
Sister Ebra
“Everyone Wants Beef X Wrong”
“These days women can’t do anything but take selfie videos like a victim with a sisha hose and a filter in their face…”
It’s hard to bear when Schwesta Ebra starts her double single on YouTube with comments from the internet. But her thing is making inequality visible – and smuts beyond that. Ebra, whose real name is Ebru Sokolova, comes from Vienna and, together with her friend, is one of the shooting stars of a new queer scene that spreads itself and its art primarily via social media (in Ebra’s case TikTok). In addition to rap songs, the 24-year-old puts up small clips there that make the joke out of dudes like 187 street gangs or the complete patriarchy that they are anyway. Last words at this point? Follow Schwesta Ebra Instagram!
Steintor men’s choir
“postcards”
Good news and bad news… the good news is that with this tip I can put you on a (probably) big thing maddeningly early on. Finally a hype that you don’t first hear about via t-online or the postman. And the bad news? Because it’s all so fresh and untouched, I can only provide very sparse information at this point, I have no idea myself. But what more do you need than a song to have a crush? Anyway, the band comes from Hanover, music is darker New Wave with NDW coloring. For me it was a discovery that was just as thrilling as it was when I first heard Isolation Berlin’s “Alles Grau”…
Incidentally, the Steintor in Hanover represents a specific place, one where there is a lot of cornering in the nice season. Well, how do you think about my research skills now!
Sam Vance-Law
“Get Out X Been Drinking”
In January 2020 I sat on a podium that also had Sam Vance-Law on it. It felt like the smart Canadian spoke better German than I did, although he hadn’t lived in Berlin that long. I enthusiastically sang him his song “Gayby”. He nodded friendly and mitigating. Apparently he already knew him and wanted to protect me from excessive self-exposure. How little he seemed to know me! Anyway, we talked about his second record, which is due out in the summer.
A few weeks later Corona was there and pop releases let out all the air from one day to the next. Sam Vance-Law extended the waiting time with his NDW EP, but in 2022 he could no longer sit on the “new” songs like a mad chicken. Like Schwesta Ebra, he opens with a double single – oh yes, and tribulation plays a part in the video. If this isn’t perfect pop with a knife behind your back, then I don’t know what is…
Bipolar Feminine
“Smiling Sweetly”
The women’s fight day also fell in this week. It reminds me of an old college friend (think of me as a black-and-white character from Die Feuerzangenbowle). He recently wrote to me about my podcast about radio plays. He couldn’t hear that anymore. Reason: We would change it – and if you “spit in his mouth, he would certainly not swallow”. That statement could be kinky, but it’s just sad. This great piece is dedicated to all those Al Bundys that Christian Ihle brought me to. This isn’t about feel-good feminism, it doesn’t take into account the boomer lamentation of “picking up the men too”… No, there’s just trouble here. As magical on the mouth as with Bipolar Feminin’s otherwise only at Deutsche Laichen.
Christian Nichols
“I’m fine”
This artist and her first solo album have also been a topic for a long time, now the latter has finally been released. May it be duly loved and celebrated. Just check out this awesome clip of the title track. Christin Nichols is our Lisa Simpson– just drunk and less balanced. What’s not to like!
Paul’s jets
“So Really In Love”
I love Austria, I eat Manner-Schnitten in my free time and tagged “Amore” across my car at the time. But I’ll be honest, I don’t really know what to do with Bilderbuch’s new record. There’s one this spring, but it’s all decidedly cool and styled around the corner … so much staging, so little heart. But therefore live without Austropop? No thank you! The best way to pass the time until Armageddon is with the mixed-gender trio Pauls Jets. A lot of whimsy from the old Yes, panic! is in here and even more of a new generation of Viennese big stylers. Album is called JAZZFEST, be there.
The Rhenish cheerful natures
“I’m blue first”
Okay, who’s the only band that came out of the pandemic bigger than they went into it? Well, sure, the antelope gang. The unbeatable piano album by the group’s “beautiful” (Danger Dan) made it possible. At the turn of the year, the rap collective released another mix-tape album together. With many guests and surprises. Whereby this song is definitely the biggest of them: The antelopes with a (even slightly queer) Mallorca full of drunken stomper, in which Panik Panzer especially shines as a sinister entertainer. Anyone who has ever drunk more than two glasses of alcohol to music should urgently recommend this disreputable piece of meta-or mega-humor.
Gwen Dolyn & Toyboys
“Dr. Murkes”
The music of EA80 was a great musical happiness of my teenage years. It was played under dark punk, but I and the other emopunks didn’t really riot, preferring to scratch and cry when EA80 was playing. However, the abrupt, shortened songs of the band from magic Mönchengladbach are so good that someone should cover them and give them a New Wave feeling. The fact that this has actually been done breaks me completely. What an incredibly powerful version of the already great “Dr. Murkes”. The implementation of Gwen Dolyn has been in my head for the last few weeks, as we trained journalists like to say in our jargon. Gwen Dolyn and her people are from Frankfurt and of course they have more than just EA80 classics, of course.
creator
“Hate About Everything”
Not exactly an insider tip to recommend a band that has been “rocking hard” since the invention of the printing press. Nevertheless, especially with such an immense oeuvre as that of the Essen thrash band Kreator, the most recent album often gets lost – and then everything can only be found again with the hits of Neunteinenhundredschießmichtot. Which would be a real shame in that case. Because this song brings the whole world to the point in addition to the band…
What happened until now? Here is an overview of all pop column texts.
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