Dennis Kiss has published his debut album since he became a solo artist. Norddeich Mole was released on October 6, and it's an opus for the thoughtful, the dreamers, and the sad. Raised in Switzerland, now living in Hamburg, Dennis Kiss sings in his native language for the first time.
Janosch Troehler
Songs like Bordeaux, previously featured in Weekly5, or his latest release, Gewitterwolken, are bittersweet indie-pop songs that perfectly complement Germany's rise in something called «Neue Neue Deutsche Welle», a resurgence in post-punk-esque, melancholic sound spearheaded by artists like Edwin Rosen, Betterov, or Temmis.
At least in Kiss' case, the musical inspiration for his sound, labelled by himself as «Neue Deutsche Einsamkeit» [New German Loneliness], is, in fact, driven by the more saddened works of other artists.
We asked Dennis Kiss to share five songs and artists that heavily influenced his own musical creativity. For Negative White, he opens his treasure chest of influence and tells, in his words, how these songs and artists inspire him.
Editors – Open Your Arms
I love the first Editors album, The Back Room, for its simplicity and bluntness. There are very few other albums that encapsulate tristesse and melancholia like this one does. It always appealed to me how Tom Smith somehow manages to gather so much bitterness and sorrow in so few words.
It’s a fine art to write a song in this typically post-punk-esque manner of monotonously repeating the same line and theme over and over again and then, at some point, just slightly changing it in the most painful way. That’s what always fascinated me about this album: the that lives in monotony.
The Cure – Pictures of You
It was my mother who first showed me The Cure. Generally, if it wasn’t for my parents, I don’t know where I would have gotten my musical education. From early on, they confronted me with bands like U2, the Chili Peppers, Nirvana, and so on.
I remember trying to dislike The Cure as an act of rebellion as a teenager. Obviously, this act didn’t last long, and I soon had to give in and admit that this band probably inspired me more than I would even imagine today. Pictures of You is the second song on Disintegration, my mother‘s favourite album by The Cure, and it’s a downright masterpiece.
