The anthem against heteronormativity begins almost sacral, a dizzy canon: “For reasons of convenience / We have settled into this / Symmetrical pattern / It’s not the only / False symmetry”, sing Painting, whose members have been fixtures in Berlin’s experimental pop for years -Scene are. Multi-instrumentalist Theresa Stroetges merges the worlds of pop and art as Golden Diskó Ship, with Christian Hohenbild, drums and electronics, she most recently played in the herbaceous psych project Soft Grid. Only saxophonist Sophia Trollmann has kept a low profile so far, which is surprising in view of her formative insertions on this album.
PAINTING IS DEAD gives everyone equal space to spread out, to a sound that bravely avoids any songwriting routine, is jazz and groove, punk and pop at the same time. Beat here, auto-tune there, choir, surreal vocal warp, anger, nursery rhyme. Three voices are heard, and one can’t help but imagine the making of this album as an explosion of great musical energy that transcends the thesis of the album’s title: action painting on canvas may be the most boring male shit of the 20th century – conceived as music, it has potential, as spontaneously applied yet evidently cleverly constructed sound, as accessible, ecstatically building periods of time in which the physicalities and identities are protected, which the social structures sacrifice to stability. Resistant, colorful, irresistible: a great under-the-radar album!
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