ILLUMINATED THE BACKGROUND was the name of Herr DK’s debut, the cover was jet black, the album sank into the Corona hole. The successor bears the title WAS DO I WITH MY TIME, shines brightly in white and deserves all the attention it deserves. Because Henning von Hertel, who earns his bread and butter as an employee of the Hamburg label tapete, manages nothing less than saving the honor of the German-language song.
? WHAT DO I DO WITH MY TIME at Amazon.de
As if he wanted to illustrate how difficult it actually is, and how easy it is for him, he sings the lines in the opener “Scheuche die memories”: “If only it were as harmless as it usually begins / I would stand motionless naked in the Wind where fear blurs.” People who are old enough naturally think of “Nackt im Wind”, the German pop mainstream’s dreadful answer to the Band Aid project in 1985. But the way Mr. DK sings it, it’s no longer just a quote, not even a tongue-in-cheek, it’s even suddenly a coherent picture.
And so it’s just always about relationships and friendship, about life crises and moving on, about letting go and self-doubt, about love and, yes, life. The poetry is as unpretentious as it is precise, as elegant as the gently dabbed, very groovy, wonderfully warm, soft yacht pop that accompanies it, and at the same time as laconic as the voice, which can express great emotions without needing an ironic safety distance or pathos fall. Sure, one of them studied at his Hamburg school, but also emancipated himself from it and found his own voice.
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