SASCHA BENDIKS ignores stylistic boundaries and tells stories about life – about life as it is and about life as it should be.
The ten songs are brimming with stories worth telling. In a language that's light, but by no means flippant, BENDIKS unleashes images and phrases that immediately stick in your mind.
He's lived; you can see and hear it in his voice. "Pain and sheer euphoria point the way, and the two aren't always clearly distinguishable—always keep moving" from the song "MOVEMENT" culminates in the statement, "Everything that doesn't quite fit together, everything you've come to terms with—think it anew."
His lamentations are odes to joy – and vice versa.
After twenty years in Berlin, he returns to the HOMETOWN SMOKE of the small town of his youth, only to realize: “What you absolutely do not want to remember is more present than ever and, like a bubbling lake, fills your memory gaps with moments you thought were long lost, you were so naive and you are knee-deep in the HOMETOWN SMOKE.”
TANDEMROLLATOR is simply one of the most beautiful declarations of love ever: “At some point we’ll put our teeth in the same glass (...) when we don’t think we know who we are.”
Musically, he has deliberately set no limits, combining Tomwait-like rumba rumbling (he has the voice for it), with a fantastically beautiful clarinet-mini-orchestra (yes, clarinets!) and Texan-dusty electric guitars (AMSTERDAM), and immediately afterwards with lap steel and
bowed double bass to thank the moon: "The whole universe is only two by two meters—small, but flawless." (MY OLD BUDDY MOON)
On the album, which stylistically oscillates between pop, Americana, and chanson, loyal companions provide unmistakable sounds. Axel Müller (BAP, Gregor Meyle) and Jenny Thiele (Fortuna Ehrenfeld, Rainald Grebe) have the honor of further enriching Bendiks' distinctive sound.
BEWEGUNG was produced by Tobias Schwab in the tranquility and seclusion of the countryside at Labor Höllental. The album sounds relaxed, poetic, and multifaceted. This is also how BENDIKS himself could be best described.
Live and solo, he continues to break down songs to their skeletal form, because "A good song always works with just one guitar or one piano. That's it. It has to be enough." In the context of an album, however, there are no limits!
“Leichtes Gepäck” by Sascha Bendiks, these are songs by someone who looks for happiness exactly where we last left it.
