BRODERICK, PETER - Blackberry (Sealed) (CD)

For Peter, Blackberry marks the first studio album in five years on which he can be heard as a singer again; his last vocal album Colours Of The Night was released in 2015. He recorded the new album completely in his own bedroom in London in the summer of 2019 - which is why he describes it himself as "experimental bedroom folk-pop". While the 33-year-old has recorded all the instruments himself, the only support he gets is on the final track Wild Food, when Peter shares the microphone with his wife, singer Brigid Mae Power, and his stepson Se?n Power. The Blackberry's range of content is broad. Among other things, it deals with the topic of family, with the bonds we all need as social beings. Another topic is technology, combined with the question of whether progress will turn out to be a blessing or a doom. And of course Peter also writes about nature: about collecting and the search for food, about the importance of establishing a connection to the outside world, both in the cities and in the countryside. Attracted by the spectacular nature of Ireland, Peter and his family have recently returned to County Galway, where they had lived before moving to London in 2019. Peter Broderick is perhaps best known as a live member of Efterklang, having toured regularly with the Danish band from 2007 to 2013. He has also spent many years researching the archives of Arthur Russell and, in his role as restorer, editor and mixing specialist, he was responsible for the US icon's last posthumously published work. Broderick has also released more than 20 albums in the last 13 years as a solo musician and has also composed the music for various film and dance productions; most recently, his soundtrack for the award-winning animated film Two Balloons was released. Instead of curbing his creativity and committing himself to a single genre, Peter has incorporated everything from gospel and soul, spoken word and beatboxing to folk, rock and classical music in his previous work. His joy of experimentation is a constant, as is his unconditional openness to collaborations with like-minded people such as Nils Frahm. Only at the beginning of 2020, for example, did he join Tim Burgess' band (The Charlatans), on whose current hit album Broderick can be heard as a violinist. The very first line of Blackberry is "You can only be as happy as the world that you live in...". - you can only be as happy as the world you live in. A thought with which many can certainly identify in the face of the looming climate crisis, global pandemic and lockdown, and uncertainty about how this modern world will develop. But by presenting a soundtrack to these turbulent times, musicians like Peter Broderick give us a lifeline and a new view of this world, in which glimmers of hope and amazement also have their place.