Painting drops brand new album

Berlin’s avant-garde pop trio Painting are an outfit that have thrown out the musical rule book with an exhilarating sense of purpose. Emerging from the dissolution of Soft Grid, the project sees longtime collaborators Theresa Stroetges and Christian Hohenbild linking up with saxophonist Sophia Trollmann to create something radically different. Building on their background of experimental rock, they bring a hybrid of genres into something completely their own.

With all three members contributing vocals and playing across acoustic and electronic instruments, Painting is a sonic organism in constant motion. With Theresa on guitar, bass and synths and Christian anchoring the group from behind the drums, injecting electronics into every beat Sophia, meanwhile, drifts between saxophone and synths to complete their sound.

Formed during the uncertainty of the pandemic, Painting were never going to follow the traditional route. With live venues shut down, they reimagined how music could be experienced, folding visual art into their sound. This included collaborations with digital artist Reissig, whose immersive walk-through installations transformed the band’s debut album Painting Is Dead into a fully realised multimedia world. It was a bold and genre-redefining entrance that had Rolling Stone proclaiming them “the greatest new band in the German pop avant-garde.”

But that was just the beginning; now, Painting returns with their second full-length release titled Snapshot Of Pure Attention, a record that builds on their explosive debut and expands on their musical output. This is a breathless, genre-hopping trip across six tracks which see the band conjuring an exhilarating fusion of punk energy, math rock precision, techno momentum, jazz improvisation and an unhinged pop appeal.

Kicked off by lead single “AI, Absolutely!,” the modulating pitch of chopped vocal samples and build of drums launches into a spacey soundscape of shuffling rhythms, enveloping textures and theatrical vocalisations. Gliding through lively rhythmic switch ups, hurried passages and dramatic vocal performances, it’s a dizzying musical voyage that puts the band’s astonishing creativity and incredible musicianship panache on full display.

“White On White” follows with the stuttered patter of drums and brass style tones before shifting to a drum-focused groove capped by expressive vocal leads. Progressing with jazz-tinged instrumental flickers and pulsing bass rhythms, the track develops with subtle psych aesthetic and the ever-present charge of percussion, resulting in a spectacular avant-garde jam.

With “WYWAYWG,” the tones of sweeping noise and lopped vocal layers creates an enthralling intro before the slick groove of bass injects a steady rhythmic energy. With a dance-inflected vibe and constantly developing arrangement, the track presents a hypnotic listening experience that offers the perfect showcase of their memorable songwriting, experimental approach and superb instrumental talents.

Tracks like “Helping Others” delivers a raucous beat-driven aesthetic where charging drums and stabbing instrumentation underpins gripping, overlapping vocal lines and engaging arrangement while “Momento” offers a stunning collision of sonic dreaminess and energising rhythmic drive. Closing the record with “Benevolent Dictator,” a fusion of drifting synth textures, rolling percussion touches and warm guitar chords are met with stacks of vocalisations to deliver a stunning finale to their groundbreaking sophomore album.

Commenting on the release, Theresa shares, “The writing process of this album was 100% collaborative and took about two years. We met up one night a week to play together and look for new ideas. It was long, complex, and very satisfying. We recorded everything that felt promising, sent it around to one another, wrote our comments and continued the following week. Ideas that stuck were slowly elaborated upon and turned into parts. We wanted to try out every single possible combination at least once. It got complicated to memorise sometimes, so we went to the discounter around the corner and bought a magnetic whiteboard on which we could switch the parts around, as a visual aid to the song structures we were testing. It’s kind of hilarious, but it helped! Sometimes a song started with a general idea like ‘let’s make a techno song!’ or ‘let’s make a song that starts with lots of energy immediately!’ Sometimes ideas just came to us and kept growing.”

Listen to Snapshot Of Pure Attention below