Culk sing about the emotional state of their generation
The Viennese band Culk set the mood for their dark contemplation of the present right at the beginning of their new album. "If you look, you won't see for tears, we can't just stand by," sings frontwoman and lyricist Sophie Löw on the first track of the album "Generation Maximum". "Willkommen in der Hedonie" is the name of the solemn song, which also acoustically evokes an apocalyptic mood with a glimmer of hope with soft guitar tones, a hard electric guitar riff and a bass cloud in the background.
Culk released their first single, "Begierde/Scham", in 2018. Now the four-piece group is presenting its third album. The band, which emerged from a group of friends interested in music, stands out in the German-language music scene above all with Löw's strong lyrics, which analyze the world poetically yet clearly.
Like a flight in a floating sound space
"For me, the album is like a contemporary cross-section of how young people in particular are feeling right now," says Löw. "At first listen, the feeling of hopelessness may prevail," admits the 28-year-old musician. But by naming moods and problems, Löw also wants to create optimism. "That in itself gives hope: if you have that feeling when you listen to the music, then you're not alone in it," she says.
"We're on our way to getting lost, we see how you see us and move on," Löw laments to the older generations in the song "Generation Maximum", for example. But the singer and her band never allow themselves to fall completely into depression or self-pity. In the number "Ode to Joy", they call for "a new song about unspoken dreams", and elsewhere they state: "You can fly if you have ground under your feet."
Acoustically, too, this concept album feels like a flight. With guitars, keyboards, bass and drums, Culk often create a wide, floating sound space. In between, metallic sounds, distorted guitars and faster tempos ensure that the music does not slip into sentimentality.
In December, February and April, the band will be touring Germany in particular. "We actually have more fans in Germany than in Austria," says Löw. There is a bigger market for dark music there, she says.
Despite the bleak outlook portrayed in their music, Culk infuses hope into their lyrics, as evidenced in their song "Ode to Joy," where they encourage the pursuit of unspoken dreams. The band's music, a blend of soft guitar tones, electric guitar riffs, and bass, creates an aerial soundscape, echoing the album's theme of flight and hope.
Source: www.dpa.com
