As the former singer and guitarist of a Stuttgart-based indie folk band, I have been traveling solo and making music since 2002. Music that can perhaps best be labeled “contemporary indie folk”, as the songs contain contemporary stylistic elements on the one hand, but also traditional melodies and instrumentation on the other. In this respect, the result is both a timeless and a contemporary mixture of different styles. The lyrics, which have a not inconsiderable significance for my songs, are written in both German and English.
What began as a relaxed project without any great ambitions and for the fun of music has now, eight albums later, developed into a small story. While the first album “Disconnect” focused on the desire to experiment with samples, loops and different guitar sounds, giving the record a rather unusual, experimental sound for a singer/songwriter, in which each song seems to stand on its own, the second album “Schön ist es” surprised with a more homogeneous song selection and production. Clear guitar lines and arrangements, concise vocals and reduced drum work characterize this record, which stylistically moves somewhere between folk and indie. My most complete album to date was released in 2010 with “Sag mir wohin”. “Stadt ohne Himmel” and ‘Sag mir wohin’ are songs with recognition value that make you want to listen twice to the lyrics.
“Out of Season”, my fourth album, was released at the end of 2012 and once again presents handmade indie folk rock with very poetic German and English lyrics. They are about being alone, longing and the search for happiness and meaning in life. This album is designed as a concept album built around beautiful string arrangements. In each of the ten songs there are not just string passages, which sometimes more, sometimes less take on the all-encompassing function of keyboards. Rather, the strings on “Out of Season” form the core of the individual pieces, around which the other instruments are grouped. The songs therefore sound varied and the wonderful melodies come across with an astonishing lightness and warmth. As a result, “Out of Season” exudes a remarkable serenity and calm that offers the listener space and room for their own interpretations.
Then in 2015 came the fifth album: “Auf Sicht”. A step closer to the roots again: handmade singer/songwriter music with a vintage vibe, i.e. with lots of beautiful retro instruments and matching songs. Sometimes driving, rhythmic (“Melancholy”), sometimes crisp and biting (“Die leeren Tage”) or simply reduced to the essentials (“Time to go”). A beautiful, mature record that incorporates many experiences and things from the last few years and which, despite the high-end production, comes across as remarkably unagitated and relaxed.
“Random Karma” is the sixth album to be released in 2018. A record that follows on seamlessly from its predecessor “Auf Sicht” (2015) and offers domesticated indie/alternative rock with a strong Britpop influence. What is immediately noticeable when listening to “Random Karma” compared to the other releases is the significantly reduced use of acoustic guitars. These have had to make way for distorted vintage crunch guitars of various kinds and can only be found – on the reduced vinyl edition with eight songs – in the track “Rainmaker”. Otherwise, electric guitars dominate and, accordingly, things are much more direct and raw than on the previous albums. Also worth mentioning is the fact that all the lyrics on “Random Karma” are in English. While the previous albums offered a more or less varied mix of German and English lyrics (there are even two songs in French on the first two albums), “Random Karma” focuses on a deliberate, intentional reduction and restriction in terms of language. In combination with the equally reduced instrumentation (essentially guitars, drums, bass and vocals), this creates a highly compact and dense listening experience that is wonderful to listen to both quietly and turned up and loud.
For 2021, I had not only planned to release a new album, but also one or two singles to accompany it, which would virtually precede the album. The “one or two singles” ended up being four (!): “L’Ange Sans Dieu”, “Another Truth”, “Trapped In The Dark” and “Where I Lived, And What I Lived For” were all released one after the other in the same year. A lot of work to prepare, organize and place all these releases on the appropriate channels and sites. As for the album, I didn’t really want a physical release this time. To be honest, I didn’t really feel like making another record like I did with “Random Karma” (after all the work with the singles). In the end, I had a small CD edition pressed for promotional purposes and for the traditional merch stand at the concerts every evening. But the focus was clearly on the streaming channels.
“Nowhere Near”, my eighth album, was released in May 2024 in purely digital form and follows on seamlessly from its predecessor „Where I Lived, And What I Lived For“: very guitar-heavy indie music with exclusively English lyrics. Ten songs, reduced to the essentials, without much around it. The release was accompanied by two singles, namely “The Ocean” and “Nowhere Near”, both of which – in my opinion – represent the reference points and respective end points of the album and thus somewhat span the sonic cosmos in which this album moves. Incidentally, the picture on the cover comes from the waiting room of a doctor’s surgery here in my town, where I once spend some time waiting. As luck would have it, I had my little Leica Minilux 35mm camera with me that day and – probably out of boredom – I took the picture of the chairs, which themselves seemed to be waiting for something.