The eternal artist paradox: actually art is introverted work, but you want to sell them.
Photo: Sebastian Mayer
Her new album is a colorful collage of cover songs, own compositions and poetry toning-and at first glance the opposite of her concept album “somewhere else”, on which you set poems by the well-known poet Thomas Brasch.
That’s correct. The question was actually, what do I do after “somewhere else”. And while I was wondering what I could do now, I was actually about to write and record pieces all the time. Actually as always, because as a musician I also live from commissioned work. I sometimes write for film, sometimes for the theater, play radio plays. Or I meet with colleagues – in the case of Michael Mühlhaus – to produce something for the next, unreasonable commitment work. Or on behalf of the Saxony-Anhalt Culture Foundation, I torture myself like a student in German lessons through Novalis texts, and suddenly I find a way in the translation into English to set it to music. Somehow music is always created under the radar.
What generally excites you to adapt or cover works or songs from other artists?
In fact, I wish that I had the necessary time to think about a new concept album or a complete album with your own compositions and to work more stringent on one thing over a longer period of time. But getting into such a condition is not that easy. Between everyday family life, commissioned work and also in the current social situation, I find time as a luxury. At the same time, I am always totally happy about orders, thanks to which I also make money and they let myself be beamed and looked at from my own cosmos that I would otherwise not see. The first two years after “somewhere else” I had one order after the other and then the demand stopped again and then nothing came. So it was clear: OK, a new album was needed, and then you get under pressure quickly.
What exactly is that pressure?
I think in general that the requirements for artists are very large today. You have to be an all -rounder, and I’m not actually. I like to dive into things and hide everything else. Artistic or creative work is actually a very introverted affair for me. A publication or a public appearance is exactly the opposite. You have to switch in mode. It is now totally natural that you not only have to deliver the record, but also artwork, videos, photos, newsletters, websites, stories and texts. That takes a lot of time. Sometimes the input stands in no relation to the output.
Interview
Masha Qrella was born in East Berlin in 1975 and was considered a protagonist of the Berlin Post-Rock movement in the 1990s. For the Hebbel on the bank in Berlin, she set a poem Heiner Müller and a short story by Einar Schleef. Together with the director Diana Näcke and the dramaturge Christina Runge, she recorded the radio play “Wedlands elsewhere – in dealing with texts by Thomas Brasch”, which was elected to the radio play of February 2021 by the Academy of Performing Arts. Most recently, the album »Songbook« was published by the Label State act, with which it has been under contract since 2019.
They have been musically active since the mid -1990s. Have the challenges described have changed or tightened during this time?
Yes, I think so. I remember that we sat with Contriva (Qreella’s former band, editor’s note) in a radio interview on Radio one and knew nothing to answer the question of journalists. And then there was just silence on the radio.
That would be unimaginable today …
Yes! That was a really weird moment, but it was completely ok that as a musician you were also a bit awkward and also bulky. The music business was also allowed to show a certain anti-attitude towards the music business. We had no websites and no social media accounts and the responsibility for a full shop was with the organizers and not with the artist. Back then we just made music. The labels took care of photos, videos, texts and remixes. You then looked at the photos and read the texts and found it all shit, but to do it myself – I didn’t get the idea back then. It’s different today. But on the other hand, I’m also happy about the control that you have in this way over your output.
You have received a comparatively large media coverage for your last album. How did you explain this and what did that do with you?
I think the surprise moment was on my side. I suddenly sang in German and have embedded these great poetic texts from Brasch in a new context. We have also received funding from the Berlin Senate for the album. This made this more complex work, in which other artists were also involved, possible in the first place. As a result, not only the songs were created, but also texts and visual equivalents, an argument that asked me differently and which then also found the theoretical superstructure and the shape of the album. This helped a lot in the course of the media reception.
Has she sometimes overwhelmed the media focus?
No, I thought it was great. Which was also due to the fact that the content of the content was very respectful and appreciative. If I had felt misunderstood, it would probably have been different.
Is the success of a certain plate also a mortgage for the following? Or rather a encouragement?
It can paralyze you. I had already received a certain attention with the second record “Unsolved Remained”, including internationally. At that time, two pieces for the American series “Grey’s Anatomy” were licensed. This led to the fact that I was under a lot of pressure on the third plate and could not finish it for some time.
Her music was once referred to as “disco of inwardness”. Her introverted version of the Whitney Houston song “I Wanna Dance with somebody” on the new album seems to be exemplary for the connection between these two worlds.
That’s correct. I like disco, but I also feel very comfortable in inwardness and melancholy, so the description is actually very correct. The fact that I would covers Whitney Houston was actually not intended and more of a random product that resulted in a planned participation in a film production. I bitten my teeth on the danceable version that was close to the original. So I then recorded another version that suddenly put the text in a new context. This version has then developed a kind of own life and is now the one that is on the album.
They became known as musicians of bands like Contriva or Mina. While bands are a democratic structure that requires a lot of willingness to compromise, you act as a solo artist mostly. So was the decision against the bands also implicitly a decision for more artistic legroom?
Above all, it was a decision for singing and text that did not matter in the instrumental music of the bands mentioned. I never decided against the band concept as such, on the contrary: I actually always liked the collective work. But it is true: As a solo artist, I have the opportunity to implement my artistic ideas more radical in case of doubt.
In their early days they sang in English, “somewhere else” was completely in German for the first time. Her new album now moves between the two languages. What influence does the choice of language have on your music and the relationship you build with it?
I try to find out. I was traveling a lot abroad for a long time and therefore spoke a lot of English. Not least because of this, it felt completely natural for me at first to sing in English. But there was a distance between me and the text. What I actually always liked. Only with “somewhere else” I discovered German as a pop music language for myself. That then had a different force, which of course was also due to the texts by Brasch, but also in my greater proximity to language. I don’t know what the future brings. I’m still trying around there.
»Even then the feeling that the good times are over, ”they sing in their single» Anger and Glück « – an adaptation of an essay by Alexander Osang. What fascinated you about this text?
I like that he is both a settlement with Berlin and a declaration of love to the city. When I read the text, I just came back from a long tour from Poland. At home in Berlin I noticed that the stay there woke up many memories of my childhood, but also the time after the turn. I had the feeling that I was traveling back into the past and at the same time not, because in Poland the same globalization processes ultimately run as with us. Then I read the article from Osang, which also deals with a lot about the changes and continuity lines in Berlin, and the lines from the song have remembered.
You are born in Berlin and still live in the city. What would you say what is currently outweighed in your relationship with the city: anger or happiness?
I have identified myself strongly with Berlin for a long time. When I was asked abroad where I come from, I never replied with “Germany”, but always with “Berlin”. My reflex was long to distance myself from Germany and to say that it had nothing to do with me – unlike Berlin. This is of course a myth. Berlin is just the capital of Germany.
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