Listened to: The pop albums of the week with Another Sky, Crack Ignaz, Zugezogen Masculin, Biffy Clyro

Another Sky - "I Slept On The Floor"

(Fiction / Caroline / Universal, since August 7th)

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When Another Sky rehearsed the songs for their debut album, they did so in complete darkness. The basement practice room only had a small, high window facing the busy New Cross Road in south London, so that only the flickering blue lights of the police and ambulance illuminated the darkness, the music and the concentration of the band.

A beautiful legend and a beautiful picture, but if it was as the band said in interviews, the immersive immersion into your own sound was worth it: Only very rarely has a rock band's album recently generated a greater pull, rock songs opened further, more open spaces for oppressive topics such as depression, alienation, loneliness and lack of perspective. If last year's disturbing and beguiling teenage fear series "Euphoria" hadn't already had a very successful soundtrack, "I Slept On The Floor" would have been ideal - although there were hardly any elements of the popular pop genres hip-hop and Includes R&B (except in the title track) but cites the post-rock of Mogwai as well as Radiohead and Talk Talk.

Andreas Borcholte's playlist

Photo: 

Christian O. Bruch / laif

That alone wouldn't be anything special, just another gang of epigones who met at college (Goldsmith in this case, not far from the rehearsal room on New Cross Road) and want to play clever, complexly arranged rock music. Another Sky, two women and two men, not only have the technical talent to actually construct good songs with compelling, energetic hooks ("I Fell In Love With The City", "Brave Face") from this claim, but also also about the songwriting and singing of Catrin Vincent, a voice that only appears in pop music every few decades. Playing with the gender identity of the front person has become something of a running gag in the band's short history. Another Sky made their first appearances - of course - on a darkened stage, so that many in the audience initially wondered whether the singing was male or female. Catrin Vincent asks coquettishly: Why does it matter? "And is happy that she is being listened to in this way.

Similar to Thom Yorke, Vincent can switch from sonorous indie murmuring to operetta-like baritone falsetto within a few bars, at high altitudes it sounds a little like the alternative rock version of Joni Mitchell, one of her musical role models. Otherwise she likes to name the electronic musician Jon Hopkins, Tracy Chapman or dystopian writers as inspiration: Margaret Atwood, Sally Rooney. Her own texts are teeming with murderous police officers ("the blues"), violence and despair lurk around every street corner. "Everyone is afraid" she begins the emotional and social exegesis timidly after a long, atmospheric intro in the first song "How Long": "Are we just alive to be until we die / Waiting for another open door?"

As a child, apparently raised in a small English town full of racism and bigotry, Vincent suffered from anxiety so much that she could only sleep on the floor. She was afraid of beds and what could be hidden under them. She did not want to reveal her personality, her progressive thoughts on sexism, feminism and social grievances. Only the move to London loosened this mental locked-in syndrome. Angry lines like "You put on your brave face, now girl / And when they push you, stand as stone, braver still", but also wistful things like "Life Was Coming In Through The Blinds" tell of Vincent's gradual self-empowerment . With this power, she is now very impressively pulling the post-rock genre, defined by male nerds and math freaks, into a feminist context.

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Another sky

I slept on the floor

Label: Caroline

Label: Caroline

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In "The Cracks", one of the best songs from this amazing debut, Vincent finds post-heroic resilience: "Is it enough that we tried to see the void, give pain a voice?", She asks, before heading straight for the abyss: "So we run, head first into oblivion". In addition, the band ignites a driving hymn sound that swings up and down on thundering percussion, glacier noise and pearling acoustic guitar, which will unfold powerfully in arenas, should one be able to perform there again at some point. Otherwise, the credits of a climate disaster blockbuster do the same.

In the intoxicating depression-drama, distilled from emo and goth, hauntology and protest folk, arcade fire, chvrches and "808 & Heartbreak", the no-future fatalism of Generation Z accumulates into a rousing, completely unsentimental pathos of general disapproval: The beauty of the frown. And we thought Rock was dead. (9.0) Andreas Borcholte

Crack Ignaz - "Sturm & Drang"

(WSP / The Orchard, from August 14th)

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We know about the Austrian rapper Crack Ignaz that he has one of the most imaginative artist names in German-speaking hip-hop. What you don't know: what his real name is. How old is he exactly. What else he does besides his art. The self-proclaimed "King of the Alps" is good at hiding.

But what you do know: Crack Ignaz became known as a member of Hanuschplatzflow, a Salzburg crew around Young Krillin and the hipster favorite Yung Hurn, who joined them from Vienna. With a kaleidoscope of sound made up of Trap, Schmäh and Dada. "Sturm & Drang", his third solo album, now sounds like a pop-rap soundtrack asking questions like: Is this love or just (still) a simulation of it? "Baby, I'm not your fucking game boy," it says at one point. And, "Baby, why are you playing games with me?"

Crack Ignaz doesn't pretend he knows the answers. He's pushing around, probably because he's torn back and forth, like in the song "Bipolar": "I've been in therapy for a long time, but I'm back here with you." The beats for it went to the trap school. They kick you in the buttocks, but not too hard. The synthesizers are so fluffy, as if they wanted to distract from the pain. "You look through me with your ice-blue eyes", it says in "Bipolar". "Like I'm not there and I'm starting to believe you. Like I'm not real." To recognize who you are and who is not, what is love and what is not, seems to be made even more difficult for Crack Ignaz by the ubiquity of the virtual: "Online, alone, my love is cyber", he sings on the track "Neon Tears" - and asks in another: "Are you real?" Crack Ignaz is confused. And that's pretty nice.

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Crack Ignaz

Sturm und Drang [Explicit]

Label: Crack Ignaz

Label: Crack Ignaz

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In the song with the flexing word creation in the title, "Herzschmerzgang", he first gives himself coldly ("What is love, fuck love, because I make money"), only to embrace the sadness in the next verse ("We are this crew with the heart so heavy "). Oh, love. “Couldn't even describe what that shit means,” he raps in “Message in a Bottle”. But he can, even if Crack Ignaz mainly uses high-contrast spots in his speech images and prefers to leave a lot of white space instead of coloring everything. He suggests a lot without revealing too much, in keeping with the image as a verberger. He immerses everything in a mysterious melancholy, which also sounds like the rapt sound allusions of the Italian producer Bvrger: Allusions to funk, to soul, to Kanye West's "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy". And when the waves rush in "Message in a Bottle", you immediately ask yourself: Are they real? (7.4) Jurek Skrobala

Biffy Clyro - "A Celebration Of Endings"

(14th Floor / Warner, from August 14th)

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What does the band Biffy Clyro smell like? It's no secret, it smells like success. Amongst other things. The Scottish small town group around singer and guitarist Simon Neil has carved out an exceptional position with sweaty rock music and concerts with no upper body. Biffy Clyro are the last biggest band in the world, they play in stadiums and huge halls, with balloons, confetti cannons and invisible guitar amplification. You have an image and a formula and they both work. Biffy Clyro even survived "Q" and "NME", the two English pop magazines that for decades determined who the biggest band in the world is.

Neil and the Johnston twins Ben (drums) and James (bass) have never denied that their rise to number one albums and platinum awards would not have been possible without fine-tuning. In the course of the last 20 years Biffy Clyro have mutated from art rock offspring to old rock mothership, they have thrown off a lot of what had distinguished the dynamic, intricate songs of their first career phase. In some corners, all Biffy albums before 2005 enjoy cult status. There is a small, loud rock'n'roll minority who still resent the band's pop star twist.

Biffy Clyro have not forgotten anything: Even in their pop and stadium rock today there are still some of their earlier peculiarities. You just have to dig them up under "Woah-oh-woah" and "Hey-hey-hey" -Refrains, hard kitsch from the orchestra pit and synth gimmicks, to which at most The Killers would say: Great sound, brothers! "A Celebration Of Endings" is the name of Biffy Clyro's eighth album, it contains all the aberrations just described, and yet it is worth the trouble that old hardcore fans and listeners who continue to rock'n'roll believers will have with it.

As if Queen had gotten involved in a Scottish bar fight, "A Celebration Of Endings" begins with "North Of No South", an artistic combination of polyphonic vocals and a combine guitar. This is followed by violins, bowed and plucked, more combine harvesters and finally the Biffy-typical liberation chorus. There is no better way to have fun in the stadium than with this prelude - the "American Idol" ballads and the all-too-obvious crowd pleasers only come later on in the album.

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Biffy Clyro

A Celebration Of Endings

Label: WARNER MUSIC UK LDT.

Label: WARNER MUSIC UK LDT.

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Biffy Clyro sometimes seem torn between ambition and duty, but they also turn it into a song. "Cop Syrup" had already been announced as the life story of their singer set to music, now the piece stretches over six minutes, with a screech attack, mellotron and string outro including a new age touch. The album was almost remembered for this kitsch finale, but then comes its best 20 seconds, a final blow to the original three-man line-up of Biffy Clyro that the Foo Fighters, Muse and all the other rock giants would never have. The final word? "Fuck everybody, woo!" Keep the change, please. (7.4) Daniel Gerhardt

Drawn in masculine - "10 years of fucking"

(Four Music, since August 7th)

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Something like the alternative-innovative architects' office of German rapeseed and its internally most broken demolition contractor are at the same time masculine. Moritz "Grim104" Wilken and Hendrik "Testo" Bolz met each other during their internship at the Internet platform "Rap.de" and are now not just hip-hop actors, but also critical observers of the genre. "Ten years later," Grim104 raps on the title track of her new album, "I'm so tired of the struggle between commerce and art."

"10 years of Abfuck" gives the word "demolition party" a new meaning: At this party there is no shooting with confetti cannons, these shots go "in the neck" or "in my head". If there is dancing here, it is "on the volcano". And there is no disco ball hanging over it, but a sign that says "Exit". This is the name of the last track, which sounds as if it wanted to dismantle itself with its constantly annoying and sparkling sounds. "I want out, I want out. Dependent on applause for far too long," raps Testo. "Was hype, was intoxicated, everything was on fire. But it passed and it remained as cold ashes."

Heard on the radio

On Wednesdays at 11 p.m. there is a taped mixtape with many songs from the discussed records and highlights from Andreas Borcholte's personal playlist on the Hamburg web radio byteFM.

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Already in 2015 everything burned on their second album, then Zugzugzug Masculin also committed "patricide", now they pour gasoline on themselves. While the slogan of their third album was "Alle gegen Alle", they are now directed against Nazis or toxic men, but above all against themselves. Against their existence as rappers. Several despots rule in the tracks, here a "depressive King Midas", there "King alcohol": monarchy and abfuck. And when "success" is sung about, then it is a code for: superficiality. Loneliness. The gloom.

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Drawn in masculine

10 years Abfuck [Digipack CD]

Label: Four Music (Sony Music)

Label: Four Music (Sony Music)

approx. € 14.99

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"You should continue to love us while we hate you all", Grim104 hyperventilates distorted in "Dark Counts" about the perverse relationship between stars and fans, while one of the producers of the album, Ahzumjot, reverses the statement on the track "Fans" and so on reveals the hypocrisy of the rappers: "I love my fans, so give me your money." The bass underneath seems to want the listeners, i.e. the fans, to have a cardiac arrhythmia. Even in the album's summer hit, which, logically, is about the "summer over", the synthesizer ends so sadly at the end, as if it wanted to make sure that no one remembers a happy pop song.

In general, the music stutters on this album, which is one of the most uncomfortable and best German rap albums in recent years. She sways or stumbles as if she cannot find a hold. Set the basses to music, what Testo probably means when he raps that he is "staring into the abyss" - to ask himself: "But is it really getting worse or is my view just getting clearer?" Both, probably. (8.9) Jurek Skrobala