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

Transforming from a blunt object into a smoldering saint, just another day thought on the never ending collage of life, a pattern that continuously evolves like Grotto Terrazza, the Munich based art/music/life project of Thomas Schamann.

‘Stumpfer Gegenstand’ (Blunt Object) is his musical debut for Cut Surface and Maple Death, a beautiful intimate album of translucent dark beat poetry, that flickers between rhythmical murder ballads, Neue Deutsche Welle, the early experiments of Palais Schaumburg and the industrial malaise of Cabaret Voltaire; this is art-punk that plays with musique concrete and finds it’s pop sensibility rooted in EBM and folk noir.

Schamann started collecting bits and pieces of this and that in order to use them for a cut-up of some sort in 2015. Slowly two distinct and cohesive pieces came to life, his editorial debut, “Trattoria Nihil”, a 250 page collection of beat poetry in German & drawings, and this album ‘Stumpfer Gegenstand’, started roughly in 2017 in Paris, France. Thomas was on tour with his other band, darkwave Berlin project Bleib Modern, with a few days off, and decided to split from his bandmates and embark on an odyssey through Pigalle and other parts of the city; this is where the seeds of the album were firmly planted.

Cassette / Digital Album