On his new solo album "Das ist alles von der Kunstfreiheit gedeckt", which will be released on April 30, 2021, Danger Dan ascends to the Randy Newman of rap, even though it is not a rap album at all. Eleven moving piano ballads that combine Comedian Harmonists choirs with Hannes Wader, antifascism with love songs, and insightful zeitgeist diagnostics with soaring strings. The first single "Lauf Davon" is released today along with a music video.
The new Danger Dan song "Lauf Davon" is a piano ballad, just like the upcoming solo album of the Berlin musician who grew up in Aachen, "Das ist alles von der Kunstfreiheit gedeckt", is a piano album; it reminds one a bit of "Sail Away" by Randy Newman or "Your Song" by Elton John. In any case, the protagonist in "Lauf davon" sees Lou Reed, who gives him a tip: "Run away as fast as you can and start over somewhere else."
Danger Dan repeatedly uses real experiences as a basis for universally valid excursions, insightful zeitgeist diagnostics, and kitsch-free love songs on "Das ist alles von der Kunstfreiheit gedeckt". With great storytelling skill, he intertwines his biography with the drama and absurdity of human existence. For example, the actual events surrounding a Lou Reed concert in Bordeaux indirectly led to an important move and to one of the most versatile and interesting rap-and-something-more careers of the past ten years, namely that of Antilopen Gang, of which Danger Dan is primarily known as a member.
Earlier piano pieces by Danger Dan were still characterized by a humorous note, which is usually subsumed under the term Kleinkunst in Germany. Danger Dan's perspective was ironic – and thus above things, not vulnerable. "Das ist alles von der Kunstfreiheit gedeckt", on the other hand, speaks of this man's love for the music he makes here and for his instrument: the piano. Danger Dan lays his heart on the table, which makes the album so good.
The music video for DANGER DAN - Lauf davon - can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-p5o57zrXA
A brief excursion: The German equivalent of the Anglo-American singer-songwriter and the French chansonnier is the so-called Liedermacher. Politically connoted, folk-based music, usually performed on the acoustic guitar or piano, with the lyrics in the foreground. Particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, popular Liedermachers like Franz Josef Degenhardt, Reinhard Mey, or Hannes Wader formed their own genre that functioned in complete distinction from rock and pop.
"I know all these old records from my parents," says Danger Dan. "Wader, Degenhardt, Konstantin Wecker, but also someone like Bernie Conrads I inevitably heard as a child. My father also later provided me with things like Georg Kreisler because he thought I might find that cool. But that was not my sound at all. Since I started choosing my own music, I had actually closed the door on that. Nevertheless, I know this music and its language, of course, and I know how it works." The engagement with the sound of his childhood was still ironic and distanced for Danger Dan back then: Initially, he ran a Liedermacher evening that he moderated in his hometown Aachen into the ground, later he applied with a completely invented Liedermacher program for performances at Christmas markets. He even received a confirmation from the Bochum Christmas market, but the programless evening that resulted ended in fiasco.
"This performance in Bochum ended under booing," he says, "but the underlying idea has not left me for years. So making an album like 'Das ist alles von der Kunstfreiheit gedeckt' was something I had been planning for a long time, maybe always. I always wanted to write such simple, beautiful songs. In a way, sentimental songs, not comedy. So this is not a Corona idea either."
How it finally came to be: Until the first lockdown, Antilopen Gang had been on tour, and out of a spontaneous impulse, Danger Dan took the piano with him afterward. Actually, the instrument had been stored between tours, and Dan hadn't had a piano at home for years. But now he started playing again, and while the world outside came to a halt, his playing became smoother and better. "I had never practiced and had always just gotten by with the interludes at concerts," he says.
The first song that ultimately emerged in this way is indeed "Nudeln und Klopapier", that Corona song with which Danger Dan parodied the consumption habits of his apocalyptic-minded fellow humans during the relatively carefree days of the first lockdown. Essentially a little play, a creative quick shot with an improvised shaky video – which has been clicked over five hundred sixty-nine thousand times to this day. Danger Dan had struck a nerve.
Encouraged in this way, he continued; he was now having real fun. Danger Dan sat alone at home at the stage piano, developed piano accompaniments, and wrote lyrics, then went to the rehearsal room of his musician friend Charlotte Brandi, where he further elaborated the songs. Brandi added some accordion tracks, and the songwriter and singer Mine composed and arranged the very kitsch-free, very tasteful strings, to which the choirs almost sound like those of the Comedian Harmonists. "Mine has an intuitive feel for the language of people like me, who don't know much about music theory."
Danger Dan has hit exactly the right tone with the help of his collaborators: With the means of Liedermacher music, he describes the world as it is now and today. And thus, with "Das ist alles von der Kunstfreiheit gedeckt", a musical dream that has accompanied Danger Dan throughout his life is fulfilled.
