9. February 2014
Andrea Schroeder: Ghosts Of Berlin
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| ‘Where The Wild Oceans End’ (OUT NOW) |
By Walter Price
I can’t say I know the full music history of Andrea Schroederoutside of what I recently have had the pleasure of running across. Most notably the track “Ghosts Of Berlin” and accompanying video from her just released album Where The Wild Oceans End (Glitterhouse).
The airy and romanticized nature of her voice and lyrics on the track are absolutely enticing. Driving the point home is the amazing choice of film footage that she has stunningly used for the track’s video.
Taken from the 1927 Walter Ruttmann film, Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (Symphony of a Great City). A film chronicling the German city from dawn to dusk and its citizens going through their pre-Nazi controlled lives and before the Deutschland film community found itself under the thumb of the Goebbels propaganda machine. A film documenting a simpler time and seemingly in far contrast to the roaring 20’s images from the US and the UK.
Berlin, as it was before World War II changed its landscape and inhabitants forever.Haunted by and yearning for what and who was lost in a period in a time that some have tried to forget. Almost endless thoughts have been conjured up while listening (and watching) Ghosts Of Berlin…
I reached out to Schroeder to ask directly the story behind this wonderfully chilling track…
“The song idea for the lyrics of Ghosts Of Berlin came through a talk with my band, when Dave Allen (bass) and Chris Hughes (drums) were telling ghosts stories. Dave said that in Berlin wherever you see daisies growing in a big amount on green fields, that there were bodies buried under it. I kept the thought with me a long while to once write a song about it, because Berlin carries a lot of history, you can feel it everywhere. And the town is full of forgotten people out of different times in history, with special lives and stories behind. Jesper had created a wonderful guitar melody, he was playing it for a while, but someday suddenly the voice melody and lyrics for Ghosts Of Berlin popped up in my head to his guitar lines and we recorded the idea while it came. Then worked further with the song and it became like it is now.”
Thankfully, Andrea continued about how the video come to be….
“A friend of ours, Iulian Morar (who soon makes the live album and concert filmfor our concert evening where also Mick Harvey and his band will play in Bucharest), was often at our concerts and when we were planning a video for Ghosts Of Berlin he told me that he always saw the images of “Berlin, die Sinfonie der Großstadt” in his head, while listening to us playing the song. I took a look at the movie and was extremely touched and impressed, amazing pictures which fit perfectly, and wherever you lay the music, it always tells a different hidden story. And also the rhythm of the cutting was like made for that song. I researched the net and found the “Bundesarchiv”, who have German films restored, they gave me the contact of Eva Riehl, the daughter of the filmmaker Walther Ruttmann. I sent her the song and my wish to ask for permission and the license to be able to use it and were very lucky that she liked the idea. So we were able to cut the video and use those amazing scenes.”
At the end of the day what should be said is that Ghosts Of Berlin is what the art of the song and video marriage should do. Invite the audience to feel something. Come to their own conclusions, search for meaning and dig deeper into the track. Creating a need for more.
I hope to soon be able to get my hands and ears onto the full album Where The Wild Oceans End and continue my investigation into this artist I have recently had the pleasure to stumble upon.
Andrea Schroeder: Facebook. / Website. / Twitter. / YouTube. / Pledge Music Project.
Wonderful…