DOTA – Springbrunnen – Tour 26

In the organizer's words:

Dota is back with new songs, a new chapter that fits perfectly into the series of her previous albums, but still new, as if a previously unknown ingredient had appeared in the song lab.

What's nice is that it could just as well be the first DOTA record ever. You won't miss anything you like about Dota, but the music is even more minimalist, bouncier - adults would say: more contrasting. The lyrics go even more directly into the heart of darkness, are even more devotedly searching, even clearer in the unclear. Perhaps it is also a product of her preoccupation with the poetry of Mascha Kaléko, to whose musical realization she has dedicated two albums in the last three years.

DOTA - not in capital letters for nothing, because the name represents more than Dota Kehr's lyrical self, but also the community around her in which the music has been created for several years: guitarist Jan Rohrbach, drummer Janis Görlich, keyboardist Patrick Reising and bassist Alexander Binder. Together with this band, Dota Kehr arranges and records the songs. Together they write the DOTA formula on the blackboard: every word means at least its opposite, with question marks everywhere and hardly any exclamation marks.

The first single Einfach zu abgelenkt plays the DOTA game to perfection. The guitar sits by the lake in summer, the synth flickers. The drums dance stop-and-go, Dota sings as if she has to leave right away - about the fact that she can't commit and no one else can either. ADHD as a social diagnosis.

In Kettenkarussell, one of those songs that only DOTA can pull off - relaxed and tense at the same time, like a thoughtful bouncy ball - she sings: "Time to move on to something else / It's okay, I can't stand everyday life." And the band grooves to it, driving the singer as if to say: "One more round."