We once spoke at length with the Berliner-by-choice about the differences between kitsch and romance, modern chanson and hits and loud and quiet love.
Tristan Brusch has made a musical U-turn since his pop EP FISCH (2015). On AM WAHN, the fourth studio album by the musician from Tübingen, the classic chanson à la Serge Gainsbourg, Jacques Dutronc and Gilbert Bécaud reigns supreme, paired with grandezza ballads, which at times are reminiscent of Element Of Crime and Udo Jürgens. While his previous record AM REST (2021) was about a failing relationship, AM WAHN is about exactly what the title suggests: about a love so big, so dramatic, so toxic that it drives you to the brink of madness bring.
We met the 35-year-old for a video interview to talk to him about the differences between kitsch and romance, chanson and hits, and loud and quiet love.
Watch the full video interview here:
Interview: Emma Wiepking
Production: Felix Ferraris
What a start: Brusch received him in his Berlin apartment at 10 a.m. in the morning. He overslept, he said, slightly embarrassed, that never happened to him before. The sun shone through the living room window while we set up the camera equipment on a Persian rug. Tristan Brusch made coffee with oat milk and sat on his mustard yellow couch, which could have been in the recording studio of Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra. He doesn’t remember exactly where he got it from, Brusch said, “probably from Zara Home.” When asked how he felt about the release of the new record, he explained: “When you put out a new album, that comes all praise yes at once. In any case, this favors certain personality disorders.”
During the production of AM WAHN, he consciously tried to relinquish control, he also said, so as not to “lose himself in the arranging processes”. To do this, he recorded the song demos on his cell phone and sent them to producer Tim Tautorat, who had already worked with artists such as AnnenMayKantereit, Faber and Province. The experiment didn’t quite work out: Brusch was ultimately more involved in the production than originally thought. “I’m a total control fetishist when it comes to my music,” he said in an interview. “I always think I know best and it takes trust to give that.”
Tristan Brusch’s lyrics are primarily defined by their proximity to poetry. But poetry also tends to drift off into kitschy realms. When asked if he thought kitsch was bad, Brusch replied: “There is nothing objectively kitsch. In any case, I don’t think the boundary is very clear.” He added: “For example, when I made the song ‘Kein Problem’, the music was ready first and then my friend Max Richard Leßmann came and I said to him: ” Why don’t you write some lyrics to it.” In my head it was a song that could also work on a Nick Cave album, there was also something dark about it. And then all of a sudden this German text came along and suddenly there was a hint of kitsch.” He concluded for us: “I actually don’t think kitsch is a bad stylistic device at all, but what I need is a thorn somewhere. It must hurt a bit.”