Feel free to count along: it will take just 20 seconds until you know who is singing here: AnNa R. has recorded a new album.
"Do you know who I am / Do you really know who I am?"
For 20 years, we have known the Berlin native as the voice of Rosenstolz, the duo that made the leap from a sparsely attended small arts stage to the fully packed open-air arenas of this country, and whose albums "Das große Leben", "Die Suche geht weiter" and "Wir sind am Leben" recently dominated the German charts. Peter had written catchy melodies and sensitive lyrics tailored for AnNa, and AnNa presented them unmistakably – sometimes as a delicate chanteuse, sometimes as a wild showwoman. Nevertheless, both decided last year to go their separate ways, seeking new challenges.
AnNa R: "Even though it worked well for 20 years, I now want to write my own songs as a singer, to express my own thoughts." However, this is not a solo career.
GLEIS 8 is a band.
"I had never experienced this before, a first band where you initially make your experiences without being observed, where you can let loose," says AnNa. "With GLEIS 8, I now have this life situation, this feeling of working together with several people for the first time, exchanging ideas, not knowing where it will all lead, and ultimately finding a common path."
"If you don't do anything wrong now / I'll turn around / I'll stay with you / you have a chance"
GLEIS 8 is not a blind date. The four musicians have worked together before. Besides the singer, Lorenz Allacher was heard as a saxophonist on the Rosenstolz tours. They began writing new songs together before Hamburg's Timo Dorsch joined in. Timo: "This happened at AnNa's birthday party. We found a similar musical understanding, the ideas were there. What started as a let's-see-what-happens turned into regular rehearsals." Timo brought along the congenial drummer and keyboardist Manne Uhlig from Hamburg to Berlin. What GLEIS 8 now calls their "feel-good creation" was born, where they have since conceived, played, and discussed until it moves, until it rocks.
And there is a lot of playing, as every instrument, almost every function is here - just like in a good football team - doubly occupied. AnNa: "There are no restrictions. Everyone is allowed to show how they envision it. But whoever does it best, ends up doing it."
This is not least what makes GLEIS 8 exciting for everyone involved. "It's thrilling to reinvent oneself. The structures among each other, it's like a first great love that is still trying to find itself," says AnNa. And this tension, this excitement can be heard on the album "Will it always be like this".
Here, a bridge is built from deep humanity ("Don't go") to self-confident sensuality ("The Chance") to rock ballads that start with warm Rhodes piano and build up to a joyfully distorted guitar roar ("Time").
"Will it always be like this" is much more playful than what one typically hears on the radio today. "We simply let our taste guide us," summarizes Lorenz Allacher, "and since we are four people with four different preferences, we have created something quite unique." Alongside the many guitars, the driving drums, there are also brass and strings, and besides piano and organ, there is even a xylophone and a Paraguayan harp.
It sometimes wants to rock, it can be delicate and soulful in the ballads, it sometimes unfolds like a velvety curtain before a wide Cinemascope screen – and it is always touching, always real.
"Have you never noticed / what winter brings /
has your pain / never been burned away by sunlight?"
The lyrical tone that GLEIS 8 sets here, carried by AnNa's unmistakably deep, powerful voice, reveals what they experience, how they deal with it: a bit of doubt, a bit of loss, but an unconditional connection to this life, the will to cope with it.
By the way: How does a band cope with the fact that its members live in two different cities? "What's the problem? For two of us, the joint rehearsals, which take place alternately in Hamburg and Berlin, are a bit like a vacation," says Manne. Moreover, a train ride from Hamburg to Berlin now takes just one and a half hours. And trains always depart from GLEIS 8 at Berlin's main station. Thus, we have also clarified the question about the name.
GLEIS 8 are
AnNa R.
Timo Dorsch
Manne Uhlig
Lorenz Allacher
