With violin, cello and bass, the Leipzig band Hotel Rimini does not have the usual line-up of an indie pop band. Nevertheless, their music sounds quite modern. Now the six musicians have released their first album “Alone under Furniture” – a mix of indie and chanson.
The band’s lyrics shouldn’t immediately reveal what exactly it’s about, said singer Julius Forster in an interview with the German Press Agency. “I always try to avoid clarity.”
If he had to name what he was singing about, he would say that the album deals with isolation, longing and failure, Forster said after much thought. “The first song, for example, is about someone who always wants to please everyone and loses himself in the process. Another talks about an unhappy love or how people talk past each other and disguise their self-portrayal as lived idealism.”
A blessing and a curse with their first album was that there was a large archive from which the band could draw. “Some of the lyrics from the new album I wrote a few years ago, others are new,” said Forster. It’s often the case that he writes the lyrics and the framework for a song and then brings it into the band. “Together, this creates much more than what I could achieve alone.”
Hotel Rimini has been making music together for around two and a half years. The band recorded their first album last winter, says Forster. “We recorded in Leipzig and tried to record as much as possible live together. It’s important to us that you can hear a little dirt – i.e. organic stuff – on the recordings,” he said. The band will be on tour with their new record in November and December – including in Berlin, Regensburg, Karlsruhe and Magdeburg.
