by The Nouve

For Leonard Cohen, Felix Flaucher, Karl Liebknecht & Rosa Luxemburg…

So yes, I’m writing songs, producing songs, mixing songs, writing lyrics, novels, screenplays, essays, doing video clips, short films, sure… but you want to know WHY? Great Question, man! What makes us doing what we do? Is there a rational and catchy answer, maybe a citation (Where is Leonard Cohen when you really need him? Why did he had to go at all??) – Well, “Music was my first love”, eh right, that’s what they all say… but that never led to give up their normal lives: they never had the idea to look behind the curtain, sell themselves at the Crossroads and die on the dream to release just this one and only song that sounds like it did in their head once before they recorded it.

So why? It doesn’t make sense if you could have stayed on the safe and secure consumer site, does it?

Listen to the songs while reading the text.

The last goodbye is not always the end

From a distance, the early history of the project and the label is quite a laugh, if not pathetic: almost twenty years ago, in a time far far away, when the industry still worked on CDs and music, we took our budget and some pretty simple songs, booked musicians, did some adverts, had a remix to open up the underground clubs and got some fans on myspace, all this in a manner so naïve and open that it makes me cry for laughing today… – even before we had our first album released, we played for half a year in our own movie of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll: we really had it all, it was the big dream come true even for underground standards – but just the day the album was released, we lost it all of a sudden: airplay, promo, distribution, you name it – everything went down, and we did not even know why. We took our last money to the studio and produced a second album, which fell victim to fire, and so we buried it all.

I’m a part of the system / And the system is a part of me

It took years to dry the tears, but when we resurrected and entered into this second life, it was all for good: we accepted the challenge to become an integrated independent and authentic underground project, including all the pros (total artistic freedom) and cons (no income and annual discussions with the taxman) of it. And we choose right: apart from one video clip that was banned from youtube, we’ve been able to explore the paths we wanted to, be it artistically and musically by converting ourselves into a punk band (“Greatest Hits”) or recreating early 80s underground recording strategies (“Analogue Souls in Digital Times”), or lyrically by crawling into the darkest nights and niches of our souls as on “Depressive Pop” or “Actually, Life is just a metaphysical Exercise, isn’t it?”

Does this mean, we have been brutal or vulgar in our lyrics, music or videos? Not at all – on the contrary: as the backside of freedom is responsibility, we committed to not be just another indie act to play the songs already been written by others, just not that good!

For each wave’s fate is to break / Just like the human heart

There is only one ideal in all of our work, and you can see this in our label’s graphic: be true! Search inside the heart and the soul, and bring out as true as possible what comes out of it.

We do not give a fuck to waste ourselves on reels, stories or whatever the industry wants you to do to jerk you off. We are so tired of all these digital lies, we are so sick of the promises and carrots people hang their lives on to fill this emptiness they sell themselves to every day.

The Future will be open wide / Just let this love begin

So yes, I will always be writing songs, producing songs, mixing songs, writing lyrics, novels, screenplays, essays, doing video clip, short films, sure… and you still want to know why? Well, I simply don’t know.

We live in times of fake news, of eligible mistrust towards mass-media, while human rights are despised and whole countries misled by the men who rule the world: the first victim in any war is the truth, and the biggest victims nowadays are trust, liability and prudence. By bringing the world to our knees, we dismissed the chance to realize the peace dividend and destroyed the basic agreements and principles of communication eye level. And yet we slur the consequences and while each and everyone feels the exhaustion of out personalities, the downfall of the cultures and the life-lies of our societies and politics, we simply cannot stop until the big crash is to come – and it is long overdue!

Evil is going on / Evil is going strong / But it’s up to you to take part or to step aside

There is this one phrase Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht pointed out, facing the horrors of their times while still keep on fighting: Despite it all!! And maybe this is a part of the motivation to go on: when everything is digitalized and lifeless, monetized and sold, predictable and 1984, and when people start to wonder if this destroyed earth and theses wars and their empty lives really what they are living and working for, and if they get in doubt if their feelings and thoughts are just rubbish – there will be still songs that describe this noise in your head, the wonders in your minds, the hope in your soul, the yearning in your heart, and they will lead you out of this: everything can be different, everything can change – these great thoughts are basis of any human vision, and of course: while we are going down now, we will resurrect some day, and hopefully on a higher and more human level. Each song, each authentic artistic statement, can be the desert island or the terra firma for those gotten lost – so we should all reach out and give a helping hand!

Maybe… could be… someday… hopefully… should…

And after all it somehow leads to this…

That’s quite an interesting paraphrase to our “career”, don’t you think?

You know what: life will find you – and if one of our songs or lyrics or my novel is supposed to be the one to make your life a little bit better or deeper, you will find it too, sooner or later; and if one of these texts can give you a new perspective or a motivation to bring your surroundings into question and search for an alternative, even better; and if there ever be a day we change the world back to humanity, reason and trust, that might be the best.

Follow yourself, and someday we will meet and I ask you: “Are you with us?” – And hopefully you say: “Yeah, let’s give it a try!”

Homepage
Bandcamp
Spotify
YouTube
Telegram

Artist’s Note
Berlin, Germany
Alternative, Instrumental, Shoegaze, Electronic, Indie, Punk, Rock, Synthwave
independence, underground, truth, Leonhard Cohen, Felix Flaucher, Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg