DIE HEITERKEIT

pop dance
THE HAPPINESS
Friday, April 04, 2025
ARTHEATER, Cologne
Admission 19:00, start 20:00

Nothing more can be expected from those at the top, that's for sure. The gods are maladroit and powerless, the spirits too porous to haunt. And so it is once again up to Die Heiterkeit to guide us, with their characteristic tender severity, along the beaten track that will lead us out of this mess. Or, even better, into a new, in truth naturally ancient world of magical thinking. After the light, glossy pop of "Was Passiert Ist", Die Heiterkeit now shines powerfully and mystically in a forged work between pop and folk and goes all the way to the elementary with a self-evident grand gesture. "Sometimes only black magic can help," sings Stella Sommer and takes us, safely wrapped in warm sound hoods, to the Teufelsberg and between the lines of the great art of songwriting.

Anyone who, in the 15th year of Heiterkeit and on her 9th album (so far: 4x Die Heiterkeit, 3x Stella Sommer, 1x Die Mausis), still refers to Sommer's dark voice in astonishment and once again only digs out the long-since worn-out, well-worn comparisons is missing out on the spectacularly unique aspect of this music, which nobody in this country seems to have mastered as effortlessly and, above all, fearlessly as Stella Sommer. And you miss out on what a great songwriter and musician you are dealing with. Like its predecessor "Was Passiert Ist", "Schwarze Magie" was once again the result of close collaboration between Sommer and producer Moses Schneider.

This album sounds simultaneously new and familiar, heavy and light. Like a collection of the greatest pop songs from the golden age, before this music sounded hollow and faded. Nothing here makes you think of German indie music. The Great American Songbook served Sommer as inspiration (Frank Sinatra sang about "Witchcraft"), a quote from an Elvis speech easily becomes the impulse for a song about the dangers of successful manifestation ("Everything I've ever dreamed"). "Black Magic" possesses a depth and ancient wisdom that is unparalleled in this country. Like heavy velvet curtains, this album drapes itself over our so-called reality with abysmal depth and engaging gravitas, with its very own cheerfulness flashing through again and again. Stella Sommer is the woman who not only carries lightning, but also wit in her jacket pocket. And a sense of which interpretation of the originally Persian hopeful mantra "This too shall pass" we need right now: "This too shall pass", sings Stella Sommer: "The mouth is a wound that laughs / you'll get through this too." In "Teufelsberg" it says: "Sometimes you only realize that you were lonely when you're not anymore." And you can definitely hear how much Die Heiterkeit was missing when she returns after six years with this masterpiece.