Alien Area soars to new sonic and stylistic heights on his expansive and sophisticated new album The Gulls And The Crows — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
The latest release from the German singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist offers a dynamic hybrid of genres and approaches, encompassing and embracing everything from dark-hued indie-rock guitar heroes and post-apocalyptic elecetonica to horn-fuelled jazz / blues and spoken-work / soundscape experimentalism. The overall effect is somewhere between a fever dream, a psychedelic trip and the soundtrack to a David Lynch film from an alternature universe.
But even though it often sounds like something not from this world, The Gulls And The Crows remains firmly rooted in our turbulent and tumultuous reality, Alien Area insists. “The songs are different in style and capture the chaotic times we live in. Lost is about the TV series. When you exchange the K with the b in burt CoKain, you know who the song is about. Dreaming Of Tigers is an established symbol of fear in the interpretation of dreams. Written In The Sand is a late answer to Blowin’ In The Wind. And so on. Inquiries welcome.”
Another standout from the album — Sea Of Pain — is accompanied by an anime-style video. “It’s about getting hurt as a child, and overcoming it many years later,” Alien Area explains. “It might have been caused by the divorce of the parents, might have been child abuse. Though the last verse is optimistic, a stain will always remain.”
For more, check out Alien Area’s track-by-track liner notes below:
The Gulls And The Crows
The gulls are symbols of freedom and elegance, while the crows are deemed harbingers of doom.
A Thousand Kinds of Strange #3
Each verse of the song is a season, it starts with summer, then fall, next winter, finally spring. The seagull in the last verse is a play with the gull’s image as a symbol of freedom, and continuation from “The Gulls and the Crows”.
burt CoKain
It’s not about cocaine, just exchange the K with the b. The dreaming of tigers is an established metaphor for a dream of fear, and Nirvana covered Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World” on MTV unplugged. And grunge was compared to the hippies of the 60’s. This is captured in “We aren’t stardust, we aren’t golden, we’ve seen the future and then we sold them”.
Morrison’s Curse
Morrison’s Curse is about other idols of mine, Jim Morrison and the Doors. I put in my most artificial rhymes like “the naked lake faked a quiet quake” next to deep ones: “The last war will be fought between women and men, and I don’t believe they are going to win.” And sneaked in a Pink Floyd reference for good measure.
Lost
This is about the tv series. In case you watched it, you will understand.
Written In The Sand
Written in the Sand is a late reply to Blowing in the Wind. When it gets too serious “How many times will I wake up again, until it’s the last of my days?”, I pull away the carpet by switching to Klingons and girls.
Unbroken
I wrote this song while listening to Bruce Springsteen’s Greatest Hits. The first verse takes the cliché of walking through the rain and emphasizes it by walking through snow. Additional clichés are “finding out what you got” and “burning for something”.
Smith and Jones
You know who this track is about, don’t you?
Sea of Pain
Sea of Pain is about getting hurt as a child, and over-coming it many years later. It might have been caused by the divorce of the parents, might have been child abuse. Though the last verse is optimistic, a stain will always remain.
Cruise the Night
Cruise the Night is my Jungleland, my L.A. Woman, my November Rain. It is three songs in one. The title track, Cruise the Night, is in the center. It is a story of two friends spending a Friday night in the city, with the idea of picking up girls or maybe getting into a fight. They have some burgers, visit a club, one of them picks up a girl. The lovers dance in another place and finally make love on the backseat of his car. All the rock ’n’ roll cliches you can ask for. In parallel, on the left channel, the previously released song Downtown happens. A gangster faces revenge and finally gets shot. And on the right channel, a businessman, married, pays a dominatrix to get whipped. All three songs are glued together by the O-Ho of a bluesman (from The Blues Session Vocals), out of place saxophone licks, a police car driving by, and so on. The sound of the big city isn’t rock, blues, jazz or hip hop, but an amalgamation of them all, with other noises added.
Listen to The Gulls And The Crows below.
