Cut Surface: Jogger – Strong

Jogger - Strong

With his new, second album “STRONG”, Berlin’s musician Jogger questions common notions of strength. Instead of delivering hymnic calls for self-optimization, he delves deep into the topic of self-pity – not as a burden, but as a radical form of self-love. While his debut album “BRD Noir” (2022) explored dark soundscapes of urban space, “STRONG” is more personal. The focus is on the question of adulthood and the contradictions of growing older, which may or may not bring with them new truths. Jogger moves skillfully between the themes of change and resistance. His music remains raw and direct, but never unfinished. “STRONG” is an album that does not want to shine perfectly, but finds a special closeness in imperfection.

12″ / Digital Album

Posted on November 27th, 2024 under Releases, ,

Cut Surface: Grotto Terrazza – Kalte K​ö​stlichkeiten

Grotto Terrazza - Kalte K​ö​stlichkeiten

Add color, reframe, follow the prism, head to the beach. Not sure we’d ever be talking about Grotto Terrazza, the Munich based art/music/life project of Thomas Schamann, in these terms, but here we are, adjusting to his ever evolving collage of life in the form of his new album ‘Kalte Köstlichkeiten’, an ecstatic uptempo, punchy mitteleuropa celebration of punks in the city.

If his 2019 debut ‘Stumpfer Gegenstand’ (also co-released by Cut Surface and Maple Death) introduced us to Grotto Terrazza’s beautiful intimate translucent dark beat poetry set over art-punk ritmik, foggy nightclubs and musk-induced industrial malaise, Kalte Köstlichkeiten sets the record straight by adding a whole new dimension. Cold Delicacies (the literal translation) delivers so much more, 12 melting popsicles that furiously jump from dancefloor post-punk, brazen EBM, funk sleaze and smoked out cold-wave. What really ties Thomas’ musical world together is the scattered use of field recordings, musique concrete and quite literally… life, all sprinkled across his oeuvre, his personal secret weapon, turning an already detailed album into a scrap journal with laser focus. Songs like Inspektor Ginko, Die Zitronenmelodie and Tokamak continue in his tradition of Neubautenesque art-wave, an imaginary OST for any Kaurismaki setting, rhythmical murder ballads, Neue Deutsche Welle; Grotto Terrazza’s nightlife is soundtracked by the incredible trio of Senza Piombo 95, Der Zaubergeselle and Krank In Der City, three leathered-up EBM crankers that delve into proto-rave territory and cut their teeth on motorik bass and syncopated fluo. I can’t not help picturing video games played at dawn, sidewalks spitting out the heatwave and streetlights buzzing away when listening to Long Ayran Ice-Tea, Tropische Krankheiten and Kurze Arme, another triptych that unites romantic joyfulness, chipmunk hyper-pop, pulsating strobes and drum machine punk swirling across the universe.

Kalte Köstlichkeiten, a refreshing cold delicacy on a hot summer’s night. Death disco, new beat and conscious dada all collapsed, like an orange umbrella sitting on a solitary beach. Swim with Grotto Terrazza.

LP / Digital Album

Posted on August 21st, 2022 under Releases, ,

Cut Surface: Jogger – BRD Noir

Jogger - BRD Noir

Ambivalence runs through all the lines and melodies of Jogger’s debut album „BRD Noir“, which he produced in his own four walls in the current bedroom pop style. The lyrics open up a place where everyone is welcome and where togetherness is determined by diversity and free thought. The album leads to a symbolic pub that gives the listener the feeling of never being alone with their doubts between bar noise and euphoric wishes. Here we are as we are, always wanted to be and never have been.

12″ / Digital Album

Posted on May 23rd, 2022 under Releases, ,

Cut Surface: Compilation D

Compilation D

Featuring 27 tracks from 27 different artists–a blast from Cut Surface’s.

PAST | PRESENT | FUTURE.

2 x CD / Digital Album

Posted on October 22nd, 2021 under Releases,

Cut Surface: Murena Murena – Take Care of Me

Murena Murena - Take Care of Me

And when I took off the visor, I realized that I had nothing in my hand. No straps and no reins that I’d believed on my hands all the way down the circuit. Although I had already realized during the journey that the image of the wheel arch did not correspond to reality, I had not dared to intervene. But then somebody else had to take control! Who?

King Midas wished he could turn everything into gold. Dionysus granted him this wish: Everything that Midas touched with his hands turned into gold, including food and drink – so he threatened to starve and die of thirst. He had become a king who could no longer even take care of himself.

Things become intangible. On his 3d album “Take Care Of Me”, Murena Murena does an about-turn: his new songs are silhouette vehicles in the reverse of all traffic formulas that strive for speed and progress. You can also do it with your back on the floor, you can also go backwards! In Murena Murena’s Augmented Reality Roll, language, rhythm and harmony always turn and expand in the opposite direction. The direction we / they came from.

If the idea of ​​a monoposto was to replace the front passenger with a rear-view mirror, and from then on to let the driver run the distance forwards and backwards in the driver’s eye, then you can also carry out a U-turn while sitting on a chair with eyes painted on the lids. A mandrill will quickly become the Sphinx. And a hawk moth sees just as much as a fire bug.

Dry sump lubrication in the box: camshafts driven by a spur gear cascade ensure additional turbulence of the helium mist in the crankcase through their rotary motion. Of course, that’s hard to believe. Gone, the wet sump lubrication of „Shame Over„! You, listener, now have to grab the ropes yourself and perform wave-like movements, pull the ropes and let them pop. If your eyes go black, you have both hands free again.

CD / Digital Album

Posted on June 20th, 2021 under Releases, ,