Sony TAPE - 516923

To say that Mark Forster is back is actually a bit of an understatement, he wasn't actually gone. And after the bombastic success of Au Revoir (900,000 singles sold, German author's award), the album success of Bauch und Kopf and the first #1 position in the German single charts achieved with EFF, it would be difficult to imagine the German music scene without it. Just as Udo Lindenberg is the most famous hat in Germany, Mark Forster has been well on his way to becoming not only one of the best songwriters, but also the most famous peaked cap in the Republic since Au Revoir. His new album Tape is now preparing to underline this status with an unheard of ease. Lightness, which certainly comes from the fact that Forster had no idea of ​​the impending success at the time he began the creative process; his stomach and head hadn't even appeared yet. Normally, Forster says, he likes to take some time between albums, but this time it just came over him. One night, while walking through New Orleans, everything suddenly became clear. By chance, Forster, who actually just wanted to recover from recording his last album, came across a twelve-piece brass band giving a concert on the street. This moment, captured on a shaky cell phone video, became the initial spark and starting point for Forster on a not just proverbial musical journey. Inspired by the idea of ​​capturing the spirit of the city in general and this moment in particular, Forster set out to find suitable musicians. He often took the astonishing, because astonishingly simple, route of finding them using a large search engine. When he confidently entered best gospel choir in the world, the machine spat out the Harlem Gospel Singers, which Forster was actually able to get on tape, to his own surprise and joy. A similar thing happened with the string arranger Rosie Danvers (including Adele) and Jason Yarde, who, among other things, arranged the brass section of the Plan B hit She Said. This took him and his producers Ralf Christian Mayer and Daniel Nitt from the first recordings in Motril, Spain, via London and New York and finally to Tenerife, where Forster completed production. Probably due to these impressions, Tape shows us a relaxed Mark Forster, despite the usual melancholic tones. That was important to him; he says he wanted to make an album that corresponded to his state of mind and, in fact, to his fundamental nature. Tape has become, just like back when Forster sat in front of the radio and recorded himself on cassettes, an album full of favorite songs. An album that consciously foregoes the almost cinematic stringency of the gut and the head in order to instead break out in different directions. In the tradition of classic mixtapes, Forster worked alongside Nitt and Mayer for the first time with hip-hop producers. Together they succeed in translating Forster's vision of brass and gospel elements and, as he himself says, specific strings into a lively, contemporary form that pays homage to hip-hop and pop as well as their origins. Tape is playful and megalomaniacal, small-scale and clever without seeming cerebral and for all those who haven't had a tape deck for a long time (or don't even know what it is anymore) it's a reminder of what it's like to sit in front of the radio and discover songs for life as if by chance. Because tape is more than full of them.

• Sony TAPE

Category: International music