Available in the UK on 8th June 2018 via the Weltgast Label, Music Muscle is a collection of brand new material from the esteemed Berlin producer and innovator.
The frenetic first cut of retro-futuristic funk to emerge from the record is the exceptional: Soul Survivor, which you can listen to below!
We’ve known since the early 00’s that Namosh has a knack for making tracks that are as complex as they are catchy, crossing diverse disciplines of contemporary pop music.
And with Soul Survivor, he very much underscores his reputation: in just under six and a half minutes he unleashes a number which draws from funk and freestyle as much as electro and breakdance – and, in all its multi-layered richness, sounds unique in every second. Namosh, with Soul Survivor,, has updated the genre of the disco anthem – and, by the way – one giant of the scene liked it so much he couldn’t keep his hands off it: Dmtry from Dee-Lite emphasises the danceability of the track with his remixes.
Speaking about this first single, Namosh says:
‘If someone were to say to me: You can keep one of your songs. All the rest will be burned, I’d definitely choose ‘Soul Survivor’… I don’t think there are any songs that better explain why I make music’.
The single is a joyful indicator of what to expect from Namosh’s new album: Music Muscle; a record that tells a story about dancing. It’s anchored in the past, not just in Namosh’s, but also in dance music itself. Whoever listens closely might recognise that. They’ll hear funk and disco and breakdancing, perhaps even the DFA sound of New York or the cool Berlin-Mitte sound that was so celebrated at the beginning of the millennium on capital-city-labels such as Bungalow, where Namosh, too, released his album Moccatongue in 2006. But, and this is important: there isn’t a single second where Namosh copies something that already exists. Instead, he uses the sounds of the past as building materials, sometimes just as an impulse to generate something completely new. The result is a very distinct sound that sometimes catches the listener out, as he suddenly introduces pauses and strikes hooks, and because Namosh has a pretty good feeling for making a song into a track, and vice-versa. Elsewhere, the Berliner, born in Bietigheim-Bissingen (exactly, the place that also spawned current hip-hop chart-toppers Bausa, Rin, and Shindy), takes you by the hand as things begin to emerge that you can’t break yourself away from.
The first ideas from Music Muscle go back to the summer of 2010. ‘I was working on another project, but I noticed at some point that the tracks I was writing were going in a very different direction. They spoke of the essence of electronic dance music and had their roots in breakdancing and freestyle. I finally wanted to integrate that into my own sound. But not as a revival thing, I wanted to expand on the sounds and arrangements so that it sounded contemporary – and became my own.’ In the years following, Namosh repeatedly sat at his laptop and drum machine, writing up to 20 versions of the various pieces. ‘I did that for myself. I didn’t tell anyone about it either. It was a kind of lab work. ‘ Finally, two years ago, the project became more concrete. Namosh sorted out the material and went into the studio. He played a little more piano and recruited his sisters for the background vocals. Some fellow musicians joined in – Daniel Raymond Gahn on drums and Oliver Pfeiffer on guitar – and recorded tracks that Namosh once again re-edited, because a drum roll shifted here and a guitar chord there.
And then there’s one more thing that Namosh holds dear. Even the music of his own ancestors leaves traces on the record. They came from Eastern Anatolia, a region whose sounds are barely known in Germany, but that doesn’t matter much:’Music is one. They all use instruments and play melodies that are similar to one another’, says Namosh. Listening to tracks like Skip To My Foot or Get The Gift, you get an idea of what he means when he says that Kurdish rhythms are pretty wild and that the basslines can compete with those of the capital’s clubs.
They fit perfectly on this record, lending the storyline extra brilliance, and that’s exactly what an album is about: telling a story. Creating tension, like in a good movie. Music Muscle is a stroke of luck of an album.