Dirk Homuth, head and heart of the band Almost Charlie, and Ralph Gerstenberg, author and occasional singer-songwriter, have recorded a joint album.

Gerstenberg meets Almost Charlie is the result of a collaboration, a friendship, a musical-poetic transformation. Or, to put it less pompously: Ralph Gerstenberg drew inspiration from 12 Almost Charlie compositions to create his own lyrics. Dirk Homuth gave him the microphone, rearranged the songs, played more piano than guitar, produced, mixed, and transposed.

The songs now sound rawer, more chanson-like, less folk-pop and Beatles-esque, more like... Gerstenberg meets Almost Charlie. What remains is a strangely cheerful melancholy and a penchant for a poetically reflective view of the world. They address loneliness ("Where are you"), the economics of love ("Keep your money"), and polyamory ("The thing between you and me and her").

The opener, "Shadows," contrasts autumn scenes with images of looming unrest. What begins with an acoustic guitar ends with the sound of ethereal female voices, wafting over as if from afar—or from another time.

"Nadine, Nadine" is an unsentimental love story in three verses, from the rather random beginning through the euphoria of falling in love to the unspectacular ending. Bright chords and multi-part backing vocals provide the perfect soundtrack for a look back – without anger.

The country-esque, optimistic “To Die For” is about the “ever-better” failure in everyday life, while the jazzy “I Have Seen You” is about the aftermath of a toxic relationship.

Things get pretty rocky at the end of “Take your heart with you on the train,” a bitter song about unequal feelings and expectations, while “A twenty-euro note” describes the circulation of money on a windy street with the indie pop appeal of Belle & Sebastian or The Divine Comedy.

In "The World of Yesterday," a Mellotron à la "Strawberry Fields" takes you on a journey of memories to places of childhood and youth. Then, in "Winsstraße mit Taube," a street scene from the 1980s comes alive as you look at the photograph of the same name by Helga Paris.

The finale is the elegiacally beautiful Berlin song “Are the lights out in Friedrichshain?” – a nighttime stroll through a dark park landscape, while, accompanied by a flute, the moon “moves almost unnoticed” over the city.

The first recordings were made in the hot summer heat of the Uckermark region, and the rest were recorded in the bitterly cold Berlin winter. The album was supported by musician friends such as Toni Mahoni (backing vocals), Christoph Affeld (piano), Amatu (backing vocals), Matthias Geserick (double bass), and the changing lineup of the famous Almost Charlie Band.