Deep in the west it is not better than you think. At night at Worringer Platz, Düsseldorf glows in neon light. There where longing is a neon sign and where you'd rather grab a cab quickly. Provided you still remember the name of the street you live on. Something got lost halfway between Japan-Connection and Altstadt and somehow the experiences are always dependent on their surroundings.

It's a grubby and an insane Düsseldorf that Love Machine tell about on their new album Düsseldorf - Tokyo. The hometown becomes the scene of stories about addiction and crashes and of those about sobering up and friendship. All experienced at first hand in the local tension between mundanity and trash. The band around singer Marcel Rösche takes a personal stock and bows deeply to the wondrous city on the Rhine.

On their fourth studio album, Marcel Rösche, Noel Lardon, Richard Eisenach, Hendrik Siems and Felix Wursthorn play night-illuminatingly quirky rock music with German lyrics. On eight of the ten tracks from Düsseldorf - Tokyo Rösche sings in German, which would not be worth mentioning if it were not a premiere for a band that previously sang exclusively with English lyrics. That was not planned that way. But sometimes everything turns out differently than expected and in general it writes itself so wonderfully uninhibitedly in its own mother tongue. And that now meets Garage Geknatter, driving rhythm and all kinds of hissing and cheeping. The rhythm section around drummer Noel Lardon and bassist Richard Eisenach always stays on point and proves as much flexibility and range as the joint guitar work of Hendrik Siems and Felix Wursthorn. The quintet is supported by pianist Jan Lammert, whose use of electric piano, piano, organ and synthesizer gives the pieces on Düsseldorf - Tokyo a completely new dimension.

First single Hauptbahnhof is online, listen on your favorite streaming platform here

The band comments: "Night after night it flickers gloomily in the streets around Düsseldorf's main train station. This is where the flotsam and jetsam strands and where every dream comes to an abrupt end. Love Machine sing a grubby neighborhood chanson about the crash at the wrong place and set their personal monument to the Hauptbahnhof. Mood: mellow, thoughtful, melancholic, romantic."

Also, the band released a video for the single: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Toy4mG0quI&feature=youtu.be

Düsseldorf - Tokyo was created in collaboration with producer Patrick Stäudle from late 2019 to early 2020 during a two-week retreat on a farm in the Black Forest and during final recordings in Düsseldorf in the basement under the old Kraftwerk Studio. Stäudle, who has been the band's producer since the previous EP Mirrors & Money, knows how to put a stop to madness.

The title track right at the beginning of the record is a travelogue and a classic Düsseldorf thing with a lot of Krautrock history spanning the globe. It is motor-driven. Drums, bass, samples and synthesizer become one. The motors go round and round. From the runway to Hauptbahnhof. In best BRD manner Rösche sings about himself and the surrounding area as places of crash and disillusionment. Here the flotsam strands and here every dream ends. It sounds bitter-sweet like a slacker chanson with brash guitars and melting electric piano. If the misery of the world sometimes makes you feel bad, drink another one. And another one. Alone. Lieblingsbar sounds confused as if in a full head at three o'clock at night and is about escape and distraction. In front of yourself and in front of the things you don't want to talk about. But sometimes you also find a friend, live together, hold cosmic conferences for nights on end, indulge in addiction together, then stop together and write a spoiled country song like Zusammen Einsam. In a last act Rösche screams the things from his soul. To the sound of free-turning fuzz guitars, That Mean Old Thing and The Animal rage against alcohol problems and toxic behaviour patterns before the album takes off into a nirvana of eternal distortion.

Who lives in Düsseldorf already?

Love Machine Düsseldorf - Tokyo will be available from Unique Records on February 21, 2021.

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