Album of the week with Mine: A secret hit forever

Highlights: Album of the week with Mine: A secret hit forever. Why is Mine still not a pop star? On »Baum« the songwriter shows that she can do practically everything with chamber music, male choirs and hyperpop. And: News from Yes, Panic. . “Tree” is not a weeping willow, but a singing, ringing miracle tree. It's an album full of melancholy ballads, but also one full of colorfully exploding pop and dance tracks and almost chamber music interludes.

Why is Mine still not a pop star? On »Baum« the songwriter shows that she can do practically everything with chamber music, male choirs and hyperpop – our album of the week. And: News from Yes, Panic.

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Musician Mine: "I'm so old, I'm a tree / I water myself because I'm smart"

Photo: Bastian Bochinski / Virgn Records

Album of the week:

Mine, actually Jasmin Stocker, is one of the most recognized songwriters in German pop and has already won numerous awards for her work. But the hits have always been different. Mine wrote the string arrangements for Danger Dan's successful and protest album "That's all covered by artistic freedom"; she worked with the Orsons as well as with the Prinzen. "Baum" is her seventh album in ten years, including a joint project with rapper Fatoni and one with an orchestra, again it's under the radar.

Why doesn't the general public know Mine yet? Why does everyone always look at her? And then why do they enjoy the spotlight instead of them?

On her new album, Mine addresses the common pop industry theme of copying in a casual, briefly thrown trap-rap piece called “Copycat,” which is supposedly based on a real song theft by a well-known musician. She doesn't want to say who, her battle verses (and a connoisseur sample from Romano's "Copyshop") will have to suffice: "I hear your song: au backe/ You have no idea, then leave it/ You're a thief, not an artist,” she raps.

It is an example of Mine's feeling for language and text: she has the ability, which is rare in Germany, to slur and phrase words in such a way that they sound like rhymes even though they do not form one. So “au backööö” suddenly matches “then let ööös”. And before anyone asks: No, it has nothing to do with Grönemeyer's singing style.

Mine's playing field is pop in its fullest form. In contrast to the copycats, she has lots of ideas and can't resist implementing them all. Your albums, most recently the light-hearted Corona blues “Hinüber” from 2021, always seem a bit effervescent and unfocused.

“Tree” too, although grounded in the pain of her mother’s death, is not a weeping willow, but a singing, ringing miracle tree. It's an album full of melancholy ballads, but also one full of colorfully exploding pop and dance tracks and almost chamber music interludes - including funny male choirs.

As soon as you think you've nailed down a style or mood for Mine, the 38-year-old is already somewhere else entirely. Maybe that's why it's so inaccessible to the general public.

A rollercoaster of emotions

But maybe she can just do too much. And feels too much at once, just like it is: Nobody is just sad and depressed, not even in the most depressing times. “Thank you well,” a musically restless but lyrically melancholic R&B song about farewell and pain, is summarized in the line: “If someone asks you, say: Thank you, it's going well.” Mine's songs are also invocations of one's own resilience , that's what makes her so strong.

So you have to brace yourself for a rollercoaster of emotions – and mercifully overlook the fact that the artist herself is losing track of things. At the beginning in the title track she claims to be a "tree", at the end she describes herself as a "stone" - and in between, in the intro to the beautifully fatalistic chanson "Schattig", she is also simply "dust", if not downright sanctimonious breathed out, “a nothing.” Yes, what now?

Everything at once. “Tree” begins as a reflection on the finiteness of life and initially glides along elegantly and urbanely on a Massive Attack-like beat. But then the album leads to an orchestral, opulent soundtrack that wants to compete with Hans Zimmer. "I'm so old, I'm a tree / I water myself because I'm smart / I'm born and then I grow up / Learn to live and then I'm dead," she sings.

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But Mine doesn't dwell on the gravity of these thoughts for long. Just a moment ago she seemed to have checked everything, and now it's tabula rasa again: "If I could, I would know what's important and what's not/ What's important, I don't know," she muses in the (Danger Dan sends his regards) Piano and word play “I don’t know”. And after that: “Nothing is for free,” a ringing hyperpop track about tightness in an emerging relationship that whizzes breathlessly between Blümchen and Robyn: “You pushed me, that makes me fatigué” is a crazy line from this delightful rave.

Of course, Mine also knows how to imitate styles and role models. She achieves this most beautifully and astonishingly in “Fesch,” where the crystalline pop of Scritti Politti merges with the bass-fumbling sweaty funk of Prince. “I tried it, it works,” says Mine jubilantly, completely intoxicated by her own power. This is so off the charts that it might be okay if it remains a secret hit forever.

(8.2/10)

Listened briefly:

Barbara Morgenstern – “In a Different Light”

Another all-rounder who doesn't get the fame she deserves. Barbara Morgenstern, legend of the Berlin living room scene, electronic minimalist and theater musician, has had enough of sitting “between the chairs” after her late, hungover coming-of-age album “Innocence and Desolation” from 2018, that’s the name of one of her new ones Songs.

"How do I solve this?/ I have to act now/ What's wise now/ And okay with the others?" she asks, although she has long since found the answer. In the face of the end of the world and the cramping of discourse, she celebrates the beauty of classical music that transcends even the darkest spirit of the times with great, lavish melodies and euphoric songs, surrounded by grand piano, saxophone and strings. In doing so, she also puts her own art in a different, new light. “Nevertheless, the Music” is the name of the central, epic soundtrack to their liberation from genre niches and traps, a vehement, self-assured commitment to euphony and its uplifting power. Still hope, still love, still music!

(8.0/10)

Yes, panic – “Don’t Play With The Rich Kids”

Anyone who has recently seen the discourse rockers Ja, Panik, who have long since arrived in Berlin from Burgenland, knows that Andreas Spechtl, Stefan Pabst, Sebastian Janata and Laura Landergott have now entered a new, more experimental (some say half-baked) phase. an almost quaint, but difficult to like, tightness - as if capitalist social knots could only be broken with a clear and hard rock edge.

"Kung Fu Fighter" evokes the labor and physical struggle in neoliberalism with Springsteen's blue-collar force and saxophone alarm sirens. Other references that no longer seem irritating: David Bowie (“Dream 12059”), Primal Scream (“Hey Reina”), Blur (“Fascism Is Invisible (Why Not You?)”). The whole neo-proletarian piggy rock then leads into the eleven-minute, Crazy Horse-like guitar jam “Ushuaia”. Hell too! Is this all an inside joke? Also of course. But a good one.

(7.5/10)

Ty Segall – “Three Bells”

2024 seems to be the year of physical impositions, at least for indie artists. The British singer Marika Hackman recently swung around in circles until she vomited in a video, and now the Californian garage rocker Ty Segall is doing the same in his clip for "Eggman": Like Paul Newman in "Cool Hand Luke", he eats a whole one Bowl full of hard boiled eggs. Well, at least he's trying. The music ebbs and flows analogous to his changing states while stuffing.

Beatles references (Eggman, sure) meet Masters of Reality (the band, not the album). It's great fun - and a nice illustration of Segall's all-you-can-eat approach. The frequent publisher is once again in top form after a long time on his 15th album since 2008 (not counting numerous collaborations and side projects). He is letting go of the stylistic genre boundaries that he had recently set for himself. Segall is at his best when he channels influences like Zeppelin, Sabbath, Thin Lizzy and a lot of Sixties psychedelia into a musical stream of consciousness and lets it float freely into his very own Gaga groove.

It sometimes sounds like Beck's best days ("Hi Dee Dee"), slow-motion disco ("I Hear") or mushroom-drunk Bowie ("Void"). In "Denée" he simply raves for minutes about his obviously very inspiring wife, who co-wrote several songs here, to funky organ. He's the Walrus, goo goo g'joob.

(7.8/10)