Sebastian Kellig, Nick McCarthy und Hank Schmidt In Der Beek - Lunsen-Ring

Sebastian Kellig, Nick McCarthy und Hank Schmidt In Der Beek - Lunsen-Ring.
This is a record made by Seb, who I have known for over ten years, and his friends Nick and Hank. The record came about because Hank, who is an artist from Munich, wrote a book of poetry in German all about sleep and going to bed and because Seb and Nick (his friends from when they all lived in Munich) are musicians they all decided to form a group to make music to go with the poems and to make this record at Nick's studio which is called Sausage Studios and is in Hackney.

          The record starts off with a big fanfare and then Hank starts by reciting one of his poems in German before the music starts and Hank starts singing, also in German, Hank has a shouty singing voice a bit like you hear in punk music. In between the different poems on this first track everybody sings "La La La La," this happens a lot on this record and makes it very good singalong music. The first song goes into the second song which is more lively with big guitars and more La la la's - it reminds me a bit of The Who who I like a lot especially My Generation which I have on a 7" Single. After this there is a nice soft song played on an xylophone with a girl singing on it, the girl singing is Sarah, Seb's girlfriend, who also plays violin on the record and sings on some of the other songs - Sarah has a interesting soft voice and sounds good on this song. The fourth track sounds a bit like a country song with Sarah on violin and Hank and Nick playing recorders, they play their recorders very well. The next song has Hank and Sarah talking in German, Hank is teaching Sarah to speak German but Sarah doesn't get it right because German is a bit complicated, the music on this song starts of with slow drums and keyboards but the music gets very fast by the end.

             Side two of the record starts with Sebastian playing his Oud which is an Arabic instrument like a guitar, then middle eastern drums comes in and Sarah again on violins; it is a very nice arabic sounding song leads to the next song which is much faster with lots of fast drumming and very quick keyboard playing from Nick which reminds me of Jewish party music. The next song starts off with everybody singing without instruments in traditional German style then drums start and everybody starts shouting and it all sounds a bit like Piccadilly Circus - You can see interesting video of this song at the start of thes video below which is of a concert of this record in Munich in May this year.

           The next song starts with a whistle from an old steam train and is a fast country song with a very good guitar solo in it and this is followed by a slower shouty song with more La la la's in it - I like all the La la la's on this record. The second to last song starts off slow before getting faster with even more La La la's, we have made a video of part of this song which you can see below - we made the video at the Gate to help Nick, Seb and Hank out.

             The last song sounds a bit like a church choir or maybe like some Hawaiian singers, there is no guitar on it or other instruments just people singing, it is a very good way to end the record.

             Overall I would say this is a very good record with very good music on it, I would give it 10 out of 10.

Peter with Seb & Nick - Dec 2011.