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Berq

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‘For you, it was hours, maybe days / I grew up there, a week felt like years to me’ - Singer, producer, composer and songwriter Berq was not allowed to grow up gradually. No sooner had his first single been released than the then eighteen-year-old was declared a prodigy, praised by Herbert Grönemeyer and placed on the most relevant playlists in the country. Between creative sessions in his parents' basement, the stress of his A-levels, moving to Berlin and appearances on Böhmermann or Inas Nacht, Felix's life spanned less than twelve months; between support shows for Schmyt or Ennio, sold-out festival concerts, sold-out solo tours and over a million monthly listeners on Spotify, he had just one debut EP to his name. Berq has risen to become a fixture in the German music scene – without needing ten songs, a degree, role models or even features. By the time he realised that he basically never wanted to be ‘up there,’ he had long since been ‘up there’ – and suddenly wasn't so sure what Berq music was supposed to be and, above all, what he wanted it to be.

Luxury problems, sure; but even those can weigh heavily on a person's life – especially that of an artist who refines his visions with such precision, pedantry, attention to detail and ambition as Berq does. He sees making music as a boundary-pushing act in many ways, preferring to reinvent the wheel and crash several laptops under the weight of utopian multi-track compositions rather than release even one half-baked song into the world. During the 2023 concert summer, it briefly seemed as if Berq was standing in his own way, precisely because of his inherent overambition. By this point, it had long been clear to him that the only logical next step following the recently released EP ‘ROTE FLAGGEN’ could only be a project with the working title ‘Album’. Felix had respect for this step, perhaps even a little fear.

Several weeks later, marked by persistent writer's block and backstage melancholy, a typically Berq overambitious concept emerged; or rather: an inspiring challenge. It forms the foundation of a debut album that is complete in every sense of the word, which will be released on 25 October 2024 and – this aspect alone illustrates the immense significance of this LP – bears the stylish name ‘berq’. Felix realised it in collaboration with producer and multi-instrumentalist David Bonk. Over the past few months, this man has become a close friend and Berq's right-hand man on the laptop, was involved in the entire album process up to his neck and invited them to his recording studio in Lüneburg again and again. At the beginning of 2024, Felix and David entered the ‘Berq’ tunnel during a creative trip to Tuscany – after that, they met almost exclusively in the hinterland of Lower Saxony. This place was important because it was untainted and enabled Berq to make music for himself again – and not for his audience.

Back to the challenge, to the knot-untangling vision that got ‘berq’ rolling on a stylistic level: to develop an off-pop variation that leans out of the window as recklessly as possible, but never loses its pop appeal. Complex, but never discordant; experimental, but never too sprawling; revolutionary, but never unbearable. Spoiler: this idea worked. Its implementation is based largely on a large-scale creative trick. Berq has succeeded in making synthetic sounds sound as organic as possible and organic sounds sound as synthetic as possible. He has transformed swirling synth pads and broad choir pads into physically apparent sound elements. In direct contrast to this, he has remodelled analogue piano, string, guitar and wind melodies, as well as weird field recording fragments, into ethereal, artificial tapestries.

Contrary to every rule of standard pop, Berq has exploited contradictions, turned classic arrangements and song dramaturgy inside out, made verses sound like hooks and transformed noises into powerful instruments that don't actually exist in pop music, placed crash cymbals on snare drums, held his recording device up to empty plastic bottles and slamming doors, dragged analogue instruments into lifts and car parks, shouted at microphones from a distance and whispered into them at close range. Felix's voice, which has remained the same since ‘ROTE FLAGGEN’, is always at the epicentre of his songs: as the carrying element that expresses the lyrics, but always also in the form of widely shimmering, beat-setting, unpredictably detonating choirs. These choirs act as instrumental glue, holding even the most contrapuntal productions together, smoothing rough edges with a multidimensional tangle of branches – and serving as elastic, comfortable nests for the main vocals.

The main vocals rely on precisely such nests – because Felix has pushed his distinctive voice to the maximum and beyond this time. New heights, new depths, new arcs; even more ping-pong between tenor, soprano, baritone and bass episodes; bold, delicate, sharp, fragile moments; softly gliding angelic, offensively tapping spoken word and pain-twisted swan songs – Berq's vocal performance seems to have finally arrived outside of any limitations. The same applies to the lyrical superstructure of the building that is ‘berq’. In contrast to the EP from 2023, this album does not tell a self-contained story – its range of themes is too broad for that, too many things come together here: new and old, acute and timeless, true and partly fictional matters. Nevertheless, a few common threads run noticeably through all the lyrics: ‘berq’ is an eloquent examination of processes of attachment and separation; of different forms of loneliness; of rapid fame, panic attacks and the challenges of adult life.

The tracklist begins with ‘Heimweg’ (Way Home), which fittingly opens with a brief, unanimous choir interlude and tells of recklessly succumbing to old ghosts. At first glance, this piece seems to tie in almost seamlessly with the odyssey ‘ROTE FLAGGEN’ (Red Flags). The only fundamental difference between ‘Heimweg’ and ‘Echo’ or “Achilles”? Berq has grown older, moved out of his parents' house and is now officially no longer a teenager. He now sees himself – and the world – through the eyes of a twenty-year-old: ‘Sit next to me on the way home / but take your pain with you this time’. Felix discovered that adulthood can quickly dampen your spirits: his first winter in Berlin introduced him to the harsh reality of loneliness. In the orchestral ‘STILL’, he recounts the cold withdrawal of love, which even the noisy, siren-like pulse of the big city cannot drown out – in the silky, tranquil piano ballad “Vergissmeinnicht” (Forget-me-not), he seems to fully realise his new reality: ‘I'm not coming home anymore, Mum’.
Those who venture out into the world can reflect more clearly – on their home, their socialisation, their family structure. This happens in ‘Träumen’ (Dreams), a broadly effervescent song in which Berq reflects on his father's character traits in a reproachful yet forgiving manner: ‘He could never cry together with others because he was forbidden to do so / but he dreamed the dreams from up there while lying on the ground, and he taught me how to dream.’ After that? The chamber play-esque revenge fantasy ‘Mein Hass tritt dir die Haustür ein’ (My hatred kicks in your front door), enveloped by weird drums and ominous strings. It seems to tie in with ‘2 Minuten’ from 2023, imagining a bloodthirsty cockfight, letting the evil, the domineering side of Berq come out. The following ‘Licht geht aus’ then presents a fragile protagonist again – and a new category of piercing loneliness. Accompanied by frantically rattling, heartbeat-like drums and menacingly booming bass tracks, Felix sketches the moment marked by fear of failure, panic and sensory overload in which he is pushed onto the stage, surrounded by countless people and yet alone: ‘Two eyes against thousands / tell me how to get out of here’.
The thoughtful ‘SCHLEIERKRAUT’ – a melancholic love song in which Berq looks back on the months of his unexpected rise to fame – strikes a similar note. ‘A child doesn't sign contracts,’ it says – and: ‘You surely didn't want us to be followed all the way home.’ When Felix reflects on his rise to fame and the limelight, there is always a sense of regret; regret for this boy who was able to walk through the world unnoticed, without being asked for selfies – but above all for those around him, who now have to bear the downside of fame without being asked. ‘Blauer Ballon’ (Blue Balloon), introduced by a massive, operatic instrumental ‘interlude,’ deepens an effective change of perspective, embedded in introspective, self-referential songs such as “Vergissmeinnicht” (Forget-me-not) and ‘Alleine’ (Alone). The basis of this piece: a letter that Felix's mother found while walking in a field in the Hamburg countryside – written by a little boy, addressed to his deceased mother.
This letter moved Berq to tears – and inspired a tear-jerking, interstellar-sounding novella that takes centre stage on his album. Before ‘berq’ finally reaches its space-shattering finale, Felix circles around a torturous process of separation in the deceptively melodious song “PIROUETTEN” – there it is again, the loneliness: ‘You roll your cigarettes, you keep rolling them even without me.’ After that? The almost terrifying, metre-high ‘berq (Outro)’. It evaporates as a result of a wildly expansive final third, permeated by strings, synth pads and percussion instruments. This outro is not a happy ending – but it is definitely a confident closing statement. After Berq has recounted his endless sessions in the wet, cold, gloomy basement studio over dozens of lines – ‘I come here to suffer’ – the sky brightens towards the end. Berq recently left his parents' basement and can now play out his exhausting relationship struggles with his love-hate relationship with music in Tuscany: ‘I'm here and the view is good.’ Wasn't that exactly what Berq always wanted?