Bild dir eine Ausstellung/en
The medium
This is the first album by Solche. Released in an edition of 500 copies, its packaging is particularly striking. The CD comes in a VHS case because it includes a BILD newspaper dated 5 March 2004. The album deals especially with media and communication, which does not stop its eleven songs from rocking.
The band's own description
This work is not easy. Enjoying it can and should bring changes in perception, and this ambitious projectile might respectfully put a strain on your corpus callosum. “Bild dir eine Ausstellung” means this is not the end. But perhaps — and then at least — a beginning. The enclosed newspaper provides the playground for this mental stroll. But why include this newspaper?
Our story begins on 5 March 2004. On that day, the decision is made to set existing songs aside for the first album and begin a completely new project. The band decides to obtain a newspaper to document this. Like hostage-takers, they take that day's BILD newspaper — or rather, BILD supplies it. Work on the pieces begins. Various newspaper articles serve as inspiration, but are used neither for copying nor as cannon fodder. The point is not to leave society outside art, but to carry it deep inside, together with everything attached to it, and there open and tear the eyes wide.
Many people recoil from a subject called “Lady Di”, but Nur Weg takes it up and arrives at the question: “How fast must you drive to get away from yourself?” Flight from what you are ends in what you are. Geschoss is the projectile hanging in the air that will kill us, although nobody is interested. The naked Gina, who may once have been very different, but let everything roll. The two Uniform songs, based on two identical articles, describe the world first from the perspective of the person in uniform, then from that of the person confronted with it.
The opening track Horst Wer? asks why a banker represents the state. The “meta-song” Wetterglas reflects on the whole album. Kolossal concerns grateful unemployed people who still chant “Helmut, Helmut”, and resistance to history as written by the victors. The everyday irrelevance of an article about a flower exhibition is explored in Kamelienblüte. Guten-berg, about the Erfurt school shooting, begins with seventeen beats and becomes a journey into long-repressed divisions of power. Finally, the album sinks alongside an advertisement for the dream ship, while the band plays SOS to the very end.
The different songs describe things that touch on existential questions and human troubles. Thus the album winds its way, sometimes distant, sometimes more distant, from an advertisement to an article to a news brief and back again.
In this sense, “Bild dir eine Ausstellung” also means not despairing in a world of mass media, but recognising, transforming and changing them, using them as a playground and as toys. The next exhibition is yours: hurry and get started. At Solche this is called “Raus aus dem Schatten” — out of the shadows — and that is exactly what is meant.
CD
Reviews
English summaries of the reviews. The original wording is available on the German page.
dreisiebeneins: The reviewer considers the concept successful, especially because of Krieger's lyrics. The sparsely arranged but driving acoustic rock follows its own path, away from fashionable trends.
Stadtstreicher: The album turns headlines, short news items and advertisements into distinctive songs, with strong lyrics and memorable arrangements that go beyond basic acoustic accompaniment.
poprockunion: The review explores the unusual combination of CD, newspaper, booklet and VHS case. It praises the newspaper's second life as artistic material and the shift in listening and reading habits. The edition is limited because the newspaper is integral to the work.
venue music: The review highlights the original packaging and the interpretation of newspaper topics in music. It connects the title's wordplay with Mussorgsky's “Pictures at an Exhibition” and describes lively acoustic rock for percussion, guitar and voice.
Oliver Ding, plattentests.de: This review recognises the project's ambition and care, but criticises limited arrangements, uneven playing and an aesthetic too close to conventional political singer-songwriters. It finds the underlying idea more convincing than its execution.
