Diesen Sommer auch keine Postkarte gekriegt? Schnell drüber hinweg trösten sieben Audio-Grüsse von Songbastlerin Julia Kotowski aka Entertainment For The Braindead.

And you start writing songs not for yourself but others, as you learn that they can be not only diaries but medicine, if applied with care to the right ears in good moments.

Nette Idee: Julia Kotowski aus Köln, welche wir vom Netlabel Aaahh Records kennen, hat unlängst an alle offenen Ohren musikalische Postkarten verschickt, die das nahende Sommerende versüssen. Die Bezeichnung als „Rohdiamanten, der sich mit einfachsten Mitteln selber schleift“ gilt noch immer. Im kleinen Koffer trägt sie grosse Gefühle, jede Menge Kreativität und ein mobiles Tonstudio, womit sie ausreis(s)t, um ihre eigene Welt aufzunehmen: als Instrumentarium wird genutzt, was grad rumliegt, Fieldrecordings lassen die Umgebung sprechen und ihre Stimme schichtet sie zum himmlischen Chor.

Auf den sieben herzlichen Audio-Grüssen befindet sich je eine Hampfel „wunderbar feingliedriger Songs, die auch getrübte Laune sanft streicheln“. Beste Medizin gegen den schleichenden Hirntod, die sie via Bandcamp kostenlos teilt – intime Postkarten einer geheimnisvollen Unbekannten, die doch so vertraut klingen:

Postcard #7: Songs from the Dust (aus der südkalifornischen Wüste)

A rock on a mountain is my home, a small sheltered place where I cut avocados in half and burn things I need to get rid of along with those dry twigs and branches. Some melodies sprout on lush lawns in the park, remember them, record them half asleep in the blue dreamy haze in the evening. One moment she‘s a stranger at a downtown traffic light. And in the next I‘m drowning in a twisted life‘s long story, being poured into my ear so boldly and yet trustfully sincere, that I don‘t dare to run, although I never asked about her foster parents, nor about her alcoholic husband, her despair.

Postcard #6: Deconstruction Site (Köln)

Construction sites cover the city‘s face like open wounds, and it‘s time to rub salt in them.
Yet home is not just the place, it is also the people, my friends that I found in recent years and began to love dearly…. Now these songs attempt to unite both. Home‘s impossibe to deal with. You‘re wrapped tightly in its embrace, can‘t shrug it off easily. And yet at times there‘s nothing more desirable than to cut loose from it for good.
You can‘t, you won‘t. You‘ll always bear a trace of your connection like a scar, like a second belly button. Deal with it. And disassemble, deconstruct and analyze your paths and where they‘ll lead you, remember where you are.

Postcard #5: Songs for the Sleepless (Berlin)

You‘ll take naps in the park between long work shifts and after journeys, sing lullabies to friends who are in pain and fall asleep with their hand clung to yours, you‘ll rediscover and appreciate old and find new ones and for the first time feel truly embedded and held by that increasingly dense net of people around you. You have nothing left to hide and everything revealed will be in good hands.

Postcard #4: Songs for a Soft Heart (Köln/Californian Wastelands)

Then suddenly I find myself in someone’s kitchen, playing a weird instrument he brought from South America, and as I leave I hear: hey, by the way, I brought this one for you. This might have been the greatest gift ever received; a scissor to cut loose my inner knot, evoke the memories of my journey and to cast that winter’s demons into sound and song, just when I needed to.

Postcard #3: Songs for the Breathless (Köln, A Room)

In fact, the first cords I ever made vibrate were right in my throat, the first body I made resonate my own. Before I could even think of ways to hold or play another instrument, I had already discovered I was equipped with one: a voice.
It still took a long time to get to know it and befriend with it. You have to go through the unsettling, dissociating experience of hearing your recorded voice for the first time, and believe me, you won’t like it. You have to face its flaws and maybe learn to use turn them into benefits.

Postcard #2: Songs for the Homesick (Üsküdar)

My friends left me in their apartment in Üsküdar for a few days, alone with a talking cat and a piano. I‘d feed the cat in the morning and then play the piano ‚til noon, having no idea how that instrument works but enough time to make errors and more errors until uncontrollable sounds turn into melodies. (…) Back home, over there, in the West there are things waiting for me, unresolved stories, but I keep lingering over here, far away and out of reach from everything.

Postcard #1: Songs for the Apocalypse (An Island)

A room to myself for seven days, far from everything, detached from motorized traffic, from city noises, from the entire world. The only sounds being the sea and its boats, horse carriages and birds in the heath.