Techno beats rub shoulders with psychedelic free-jazz interludes, art-pop with a wave foundation is grounded by lively call-and-response vocals. The trio’s second album Painting is an even more colorful grab bag than was to be expected after their debut Painting Is Dead (2022) – although there was already a lot going on: spontaneous and artificial elements, anthemic moments and groove. This time the trio has packed even more into their sound mix. The eclectic elements seem disparate and yet blend into a smooth whole. The band takes its time to meld its exuberant ideas: there are only six songs in 36 minutes of playing time.
They also go against the grain on a textual level: while content producers of all kinds look nervously at artificial intelligence and wonder how replaceable they will soon be, the trio turn the tables: in “AI, Absolutely!” or “Helping Others” they work with text fragments generated by an AI and give them a human voice.
For years, Theresa Stroetges (aka Golden Diskó Ship), Christian Hohenbild (responsible for drums and electronics and a band colleague of Stroetges in the predecessor band Soft Grid) and saxophonist Sophia Trollmann, who also plays synthesizer, have been using the experimental Berlin pop scene as a playground. On Snapshot Of Pure Attention, which contains both epic and amusing moments, they take wonderfully wild turns in terms of content and sound.
