| Everything will be fine. Maybe. Definitely. It just has to. A little bit of optimism and hope are extremely valuable in difficult times, even for a self-confessed melancholic like Florian Paul, who is now releasing the third album in the band's history with his Kapelle der letzten Hoffnung and, by his standards, sounds pleasantly positive. The charismatic 29-year-old with the warm, smoky voice, who has built up a steadily growing fan base over the past five years with melancholy love songs and other nocturnal pieces between jazz, pop and film music and has long been one of the most exciting and creative representatives of the German-language singer-songwriter scene, is taking an important step forward with ‘Alles wird besser’. The new record is not only a response to its predecessor ‘Auf Sand gebaut’, which was characterised by the coronavirus pandemic, but also a farewell to the general and private lows of those years. At the same time, it picks up on the euphoric groove of tracks such as ‘Bella Maria’, with which the band created a buzz on popular streaming platforms and at numerous concerts on some of the most renowned stages in Germany. No more world-weariness: ‘I'd say that we're in a spirit of optimism now, ’ says Paul. And this new energy is clearly noticeable in the songs on ‘Alles wird besser’. Nevertheless, Florian Paul, like many of his band colleagues a trained film composer, remains true to his narrative style, which is characterised by thoughtful, dark blue-tinted images from quiet, often melancholy moments. This melancholy remains a central component of his music. ‘But for me, it's also an incredibly beautiful feeling and has nothing to do with despair or sadness, ’ he emphasises. Rather, it is nostalgia, the memory of times gone by and the unshakeable dream of a better, happier tomorrow - a dream that is at the centre of ‘Alles wird besser’. ‘I think you can scale the messages, ’ explains Paul. ‘We want to offer an alternative to the widespread fatalism, because you can change things, even if it seems difficult. ’ You just have to keep dreaming - then maybe not everything will be good, but at least it will be better. |
