New album “Quarterlife Blues” available

My new album “Quarterlife Blues” is now available on Bandcamp. It contains all the blues, jazz and soul songs of the last two years that were recorded in international collaborations. The album deals with quarterlife crisis and typical challenges of young people, especially millennials. Of course, rock is also a part of it.

About the album “Quarterlife Blues”

During the last months, plenty of songs were written in collaborations with musicians all over the world. I decided to compile them into stylistically consistent albums, so “Quarterlife Blues” will be the first one containing blues, rock’n’roll and jazz music. This album is about a crisis most young people in their 20s and 30s go through. In this age, you have to take important decisions and feel a bit insecure if things don’t turned out the way you imagined. You can easily find yourself in the quarter life crisis, when others may have a better job, a stable relationship or successful hobbies. Thus, most of the lyrics are about decisions, regrets and new beginning. Sometimes with a bit of dark humour.

My focus on this album is composition and production, but I also played piano and guitar on a couple of songs. Please forgive me if not everything sounds perfect. I started to learn the guitar in 2021, and it raised my interest for blues and jazz music. Something I would have never tried if I stayed on my piano. This album could not exist with nearly 30 international musicians. Thanks a lot for your help, ideas and stems. You rock!

The tracklist

Compiling the tracklist of my album “Quarterlife Blues” has been the hardest part of the whole project. Though being more stylistically consistent than my previous album “Going My Way”, I had a hard time telling a convincing story over many different genres. We touched rock’n’roll, blues rock, blues, ballad, swing and acoustic jazz. The story starts with a long list of complaints and pushes the narrator into a severe crisis. In the end, they realize, that it’s better to take life not so serious and enjoy some aspects like a new relationship or watching the rain. It’s been important for me that the last song has a positive message.

What I learned

There are many possibilities to collaborate with musicians, and you always have to think about the setting in that particular song. Working on “No Time For Blues”, “High Noon” and “Disco Blues” reminded of a jam session, where every musician had lots of freedom for improvisation. Even “Blackout” consists of plenty of licks, I would never play the same way as on the recording. In contrast, “How are you?” and “I’m not angry” are well-structured and arranged songs, that follow a pop music approach. Last but not least, “Fit Right In”, “Overjoyed”, “Love Lasts Forever” and “Rainy Sunny Afternoon” were a technical deep dive into sparse arrangements. Getting the maximum out of a handful of tracks has been very new to me, as I came from full band recordings with 30–50 tracks. Actually, only “Hero” and “Quarterlife Blues” have this huge amount of tracks. Same as I never worked with brass, harmonica and double bass recordings before.

Where can I find the album?

You can download the full album “Quarterlife Blues” with hidden tracks and booklet on Bandcamp. You can listen to some songs on YouTube and SoundCloud. As usual, we are happy for your donation, radio plays and comments. We haven’t planned to publish this album on commercial streaming platforms.