Halbtot lieg ich auf dem Sofa
scroll mich von Bali nach Hannover
Atem flach, Kiefer blockiert, jeder Muskel kontrahiert
und werde immer doofer
I'm lying on the sofa, half-dead scrolling my way from Bali to Hanover My breathing is shallow, my jaw is clenched, every muscle is tense and I'm getting dumber and dumber Paula Paula, "4fck40"
The trademark of Berlin-based Lebanese-Australian producer Jarred Beeler, aka DJ Plead, is his blend of Arab musical traditions and contemporary electronic music. Particularly striking is his use of so-called maqam modes, in which the intervals of the Western scale are supplemented by smaller, intervening notes. Please, his second album, marks a shift away from the hard club sound of his debut toward introspective reflections, in which expansive percussion, synthesizers reminiscent of woodwind instruments, and dub-influenced grooves revolve around gentle, spiraling melodies to create a warm, melancholic, and deeply contemplative mood. Compiled from over 100 demos, this delicate, intimate album is all the more unsettling in its form, stripped down to the bare essentials.
The Munich-based rapper and actor Fatoni has been one of the most prominent and thoughtful figures in German-language rap for years. Recently known to Netflix audiences as the bumbling protagonist in the comedy series Crap Happens (Kacken an der Havel), he strikes a more critical—but also more personal—note on Drama endet nie. From broad critiques of capitalism to coming to terms with the pain of a breakup, he covers a wide spectrum of relevant topics, while taking relatively few musical risks. His hip-hop, influenced by melancholic indie pop, appeals to a broad audience, which he seeks to reach not so much with revolutionary rap as with a clever and multifaceted portrayal of a present marked by political disillusionment and personal crises.
On the album Heilige Scheiße (Holy Shit) by her project Paula Paula, Marlène Colle offers sharp, often sassy and humorous critiques of social ills, whether they be neoliberal pressures to self-optimize or patriarchy. In the tradition of German female singer-songwriters such as Dota Kehr, she blends traditional chanson with pop, and in quieter moments, ballad-style folk as well. Despite all the irony and sharpness, however, she never drifts into bitterness or cynicism; the humanistic core of her lyrics remains the dominant element. Thanks to this unique and extremely successful blend of clever phrasing and moving expression, she has become a favorite of the established German arts and culture press, from the bourgois weekly Der Spiegel to Deutschlandfunk, where she is described as a politically engaged yet also literarily influenced project.
Anyone who was thrilled a few months ago here on the Popcast by the latest album from the Swiss band Ja, Panik has something to look forward to. Mastermind Andreas Spechtl has created a new, quite descriptively named project called Weird & Eerie, a name borrowed from the 2016 work The Weird and the Eerie by the legendary “k-punk” author Mark Fisher. And just as the book explores the extent to which the “unheimlich” (eerie) can shake our perception of reality, the tracks on Folksongs from the www also revolve around the theme of alienation in a connected yet empty present. Originally created as a musical accompaniment to an installation in which the band was replaced by avatars, it raises questions about doubles and the relationship between them and their originals. The album’s peculiar melancholy, despite its volume, comes across as uncanny, distant, and strangely cool. In contrast to the comparatively conventional Ja Panik, experimental tendencies, hazy electronics, and sacred textures take center stage. Drawing on Mark Fisher’s work, the album uses fleeting sketches to paint a picture of a late-capitalist era in which ghosts emerge less from the afterlife than from repressed possibilities of the past and lost visions of the future. A production as if from a deep level of the backrooms.
Too good to be true? There’s certainly no room for experimentation with Brockhoff, the band project by Hamburg-based Lina Brockhoff. The spot-on indie-pop anthems, sung in English, shine with sheer perfection alongside their ’90s role models. The debut album Easy Peeler, a metaphor for personal vulnerability—the album’s central theme—is a sincere, earnest work that elegantly draws from genres such as grunge, folk, shoegaze, and indie rock.
