“That Mean Old Thing!” – in their new single Love Machine catch up with their own male demons while the accompanying video makes you dream of a sweaty club atmosphere.
Who still feels live music in crowded and smoky clubs? After almost a year with Corona, scenes like those from the current video by the Düsseldorf band Love Machine seem like from another world. The sweat drips from the ceiling, people stand close together. While Richard Eisenach’s video lulls itself into hazy memories of better times, Love Machine in That Mean Old Thing reveal the feeling of failure and powerlessness caused by excessive alcohol abuse. After the band screamed out their anger over toxic role models in their last single The Animal, it is now the booze as a national shrine and fuel of a dilapidated man’s world who has to bite the dust.
That Mean Old Thing is the fourth single from the upcoming album Düsseldorf – Tokyo, out on February 26th, 2021 on UNIQUE Records.
Listen + watch:
Tief im Westen things aren’t as idyllic as you might assume. Find yourself at Worringer Platz at night, Düsseldorf shines in a gloomy neon light. Halfway between Immermannstraße and the city’s notorious nightlife area something got lost. And somehow experiences are always dependent on their surroundings. It’s a dingy and an insane Düsseldorf that Love Machine tells about on their new album Düsseldorf – Tokyo. The hometown becomes the setting for stories of addiction and collapse, and for those of sobering up and friendship. Experienced first hand in the local tension between sophistication and trash. The band around singer Marcel Rösche provides a personal inventory and bows deeply in front of the wondrous city at the river Rhine.
On their fourth studio album, Marcel Rösche, Noel Lardon, Richard Eisenach, Hendrik Siems and Felix Wursthorn play some weird eccentric rock music with German lyrics. Rösche sings in German on eight of the ten pieces from Düsseldorf – Tokyo, which wouldn’t be worth mentioning if it wasn’t a premiere for a band that previously only staged texts in English. It wasn’t planned that way. But sometimes everything turns out differently than expected and it is so wonderfully unabashed in writing in your own mother tongue. And that now meets garage crackling, driving rhythm and all sorts of hissing and whining. The rhythm section around drummer Noel Lardon and bassist Richard Eisenach always stays on point and demonstrates great flexibility and range, as does the joint guitar work by Hendrik Siems and Felix Wursthorn. The quintet is supported by pianist Jan Lammert, whose use of the electric piano, piano, organ and synthesizer gives the pieces on Düsseldorf – Tokyo a completely new dimension. Düsseldorf – Tokyo was created from the end of 2019 to the beginning of 2020 in collaboration with producer Patrick Stäudle during a two-week retreat on a farm in the Black Forest and during the last recordings in Düsseldorf in the basement under the old Kraftwerk studio. Stäudle, who has been the band’s producer since the previous EP Mirrors & Money, knows how to put a stop to madness.
The title track right at the beginning of the record is on the one hand a travel report, on the other hand a classic Düsseldorf thing with a lot of Krautrock history spanning the globe, which resonates there. Holy motors! Drums, bass, samples and synthesizers become one. Then from the runway to the Hauptbahnhof. In the best BRD manner, Rösche sings about the same and the surrounding area as places of crash and disillusionment. This is where it all ends. That sounds bitter-sweet like slacker chanson with flippant guitars and a melting electric piano. If the misery of the world sometimes upsets you, have another drink. And another one. Lieblingsbar sounds confused as if in your head at three o’clock at night and is about escape and distraction. Sometimes you also find a friend, then live together, hold night-long cosmic conferences, indulge in addiction together, then stop doing it together and write a twisted country song like Gemeinsam Einsam. In a final act, Rösche shouts out loud. To the sound of fuzz guitars That Mean Old Thing and The Animal rage against alcohol problems and toxic behavior before the album says goodbye to a nirvana of eternal distortion.
Wer wohnt schon in Düsseldorf?
Tracklist
1. Düsseldorf-Tokyo
2. Golo Mann
3. Hauptbahnhof 02:26
4. 100 Jahre Frieden
5. Lieblingsbar
6. Gunst der Dinge
7. Swimmingpool der Welt
8. Gemeinsam einsam
9. That Mean Old Thing
10. The Animal
Links
Pre-order: https://love-machine.tickettoaster.de/merch
Official: https://lovemachine-band.de
Facebook: https://facebook.com/lovemachineohyes
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lovemachine/
Bandcamp: https://lovemachinegermany.bandcamp.com
Label: http://unique-rec.com
