Four years after "We Call You, Galaktika," DOTA releases a new album with original German lyrics titled "Springbrunnen."
Dota is back, with new songs, a new chapter that fits perfectly into the series of their previous albums, yet feels new, as if a previously unknown ingredient has appeared in the song lab. The nice thing is: It could just as well be the first DOTA record ever. There's nothing missing that one loves about Dota, but the music is even more minimalist, bouncier – adults would say: more contrasting. The lyrics dive even deeper into the heart of darkness, are even more devotedly searching, and are clearer even in the unclear. Perhaps it is also a product of their engagement with the poetry of Mascha Kaléko, to whose musical adaptation they have dedicated two albums in the last three years.
DOTA – not without reason in capital letters, because the name represents more than the lyrical I of Dota Kehr; it also embodies the community around her, where the music has been created for several years: guitarist Jan Rohrbach, drummer Janis Görlich, keyboardist Patrick Reising, and bassist Alexander Binder. Together with this band, Dota Kehr arranges and records the songs. Together, they write the DOTA formula on the board: Every word also means at least its opposite, everywhere question marks – hardly exclamation marks.
The first single "Einfach zu abgelenkt" plays the DOTA game to perfection. The guitar is by the lake in summer, the synth shimmers. The drums dance stop-and-go, Dota sings as if she must leave soon – about how she can't commit, and neither can anyone else. So ADHD as a societal diagnosis.
In "Kettenkarussell," one of those songs that only DOTA can pull off – relaxed and tense at the same time, like a contemplative bouncy ball – she sings: "Time to turn to something else / That's alright, I can't stand everyday life." And the band grooves, driving the singer as if to say: "One more round."
Question: What should songwriters sing about in these times?
Next question: What are "these times" anyway?
Dota has also posed these questions in preparation for her new album. The answers lie on her path like signs on the road, as soon as she begins to work seriously.
It has always taken only awake eyes, a voice that is one's own, and a heart that holds more than just one's own retirement savings. Dota knows who she is and sees the things that connect her with the world she lives in and separate her from it. Things that give her hope and those that repel her – to which she responds in her songs with honesty (Das wogende Meer) or biting irony (Milliardäre).
Text: Francesco Wilking
Photo: Annika Weinthal
Admission: 6:00 PM
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Hallo, ich bin Maya.
