Happiness in Italian, a sticky shower curtain and a super moon: Erdmöbel have created a poetic piñata that is perfect for summer and puts you in a good mood.
Almost 30 years after the band was founded, Erdmöbel have still not quite got beyond the status of an insider tip.
Perhaps this will change with their new, meanwhile tenth studio album “Guten Morgen, Ragazzi”, on which the Cologne quartet elegantly juggles between euphoria and everyday life – this time enriched with nice borrowings from Italo-Pop.
You’re wide awake very quickly at the opener with dabbed trombone sounds, before you can admire the feat of how a complicated physical formula is transformed into an airy pop song in the “Bernoulli Effect” – refined with the wonderful refrain “My life sticks to me like a shower curtain ” by singer and lyricist Markus Berges.
A summery grab bag
Bassist and arranger Ekki Maas always comes up with something surprising about his poetic and intricate lyrics, while keyboarder Wolfgang Proppe and Christian Wübben on the drums provide the melodic and rhythmic foundation.
The result is a summery piñata of ten songs that are not heard every day in German pop music. The spectrum ranges from Italo-Pop (“Felicita”) to Steely-Dan echoes to weird psychedelica (“Supermond”).
Almost dutifully, Erdmöbel once again have a political song (“We are not the people”) in their luggage, sing melancholy about the lockdown with “Prohibition of accommodation”, turn a radio quiz into a song. And in the end, poetry and everyday life merge into a catchy tune that is likely to be a hit: “A pink plastic bag blows through your room/she whispers, whispers, whispers/you understand every word”. You just want to keep listening forever. (dpa)