Kings

Never in my wildest dreams would I have dared to imagine that “Strategies Against Algorithms” would receive such a positive response.

Given the unusual distribution method and my previous experiences with releasing music online, I had actually expected to ship no more than 10 albums. But here I am now, four months later, waiting for the next shipment of USB sticks to arrive so I can send out copies 52-58, and I have a very literal treasure vault in which I keep the wonderful wonderful things you are sending me. It’s incredible.

But even more incredible is your feedback.

You write to me, we’re in touch, we exchange thoughts about the songs, about music, and about art and culture in general, and I’m simply amazed, because normally the feedback on my music is close to the square root of zero.

This positive response gave me the idea, a few weeks ago, to thank you with a short series of liner notes about the songs on “Strategies Against Algorithms”.

Many of you have been asking me about the songs and their background and intention (and some of you already know from this exchange that I’m going to do this series of articles ;-))… so why not write a bit more about it for everyone to wrap things up? Well, since the project has only 25 more days to go, it seems like a good time to get started with the liner notes. I’ll simply discuss the songs in sequence – in the order they appear on the album.

Kings

“Kings” is not only the first but also the oldest song on “Strategies Against Algorithms”.

I wrote it back in 2022 – at that time, I had just achieved some initial success with my debut album, “The Drunken Fisherman (And Other Stories)“, and was now toying with the idea of ​​bringing my music to a live stage.

To that end, I began to write a few new, stripped-down, and minimalist songs that could easily be performed with a minimal lineup of motivated musicians (vocals, guitar, and myself), the first one of which was “Kings”.

Well, the idea was lovely, but nothing ever came of it, because, uh, you know, motivational differences and pressing other commitments on the part of my unfortunately-as-it-turns-out-not-so-much-motivated-fellow musicians.

And so “Kings” disappeared back into my big chest of unreleased stuff, I buried my live plans, and instead embarked on a completely different journey, from which “Biike” and eventually “Malers Hüs” would emerge.

When I had the idea last year to make an offline album, I stumbled across “Kings” again while searching for suitable material—and I was completely stunned by how much times had changed and how different the impact of my song now was…!

When I wrote “Kings” in 2022, it was intended as a kind of warning.

My instruction to my singer at the time was this:

“Sing it like a sad lullaby, like a mother explaining to her child how the world works – gently, lovingly, but also resigned and horrified about the fact that she couldn’t change it.”

Today, five years later, this song is on the verge of simply describing the reality on this planet – and we’re the ones who couldn’t change it.

Maybe I shouldn’t strive to warn people about things anymore.