I have to admit that I simply love SynthPop acts like Soft Cell, early Depeche Mode (before they went all preposterous and pompous), Human League ("Travelogue" and "Reproduction" are such brilliant albums), Yazoo or early OMD - and so I wrote "Ocean's Too Wide" as a kind of tribute to those heydays of Electronica. This track also contains a very fine pipes-solo by Näx as well as vocals by Ayuma and Frank. 

All instruments (except uilleann pipes) and male lead vocals by Sid 
Female vocals by Ayuma 
Male backing vocals by Frank J. Hennig 
Uilleann pipes by Näx 
Music and lyrics by Sid 

Ocean's Too Wide

“The Point of No Return” is what one might call a mini-opera in Electronica: lots of different scenes and stages reflecting lyrics that deal with the end of a relationship (Yes, I know: not exactly a brand new topic for Antichrisis - but this song was kept in the vault for some years because it was actually waiting for Ayuma to perform it just the way it needed to be performed). 

All instruments and male vocals by Sid 
Female vocals by Ayuma 
Baritone vocals by Frank J. Hennig 
Uilleann pipes by Näx 
Music and lyrics by Sid 

The Point of No Return

A very sinister song about some kind of Armageddon: Finally the fates decide that this planet is having it up to here with mankind and that creation could be bloody well better off without human race, hence they're calling the Angels of Doom to straighten things up. The middle-part of this track might have become a bit sanguinarily and violent, but then that's Angels of Doom for you (Maybe it's all because I've just recently re-read the highly recommendable novel "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman). 

The funny thing about that song is that it originally started as a very heavy piece of Doom Metal much in the vein of early Black Sabbath, but then I layed my hands on the keyboards and couldn't stop until it transmuted bit by bit and much to my own surprise into a Tibetean Dancefloor track. 

All instruments and vocals by Sid 
Female vocals by Ayuma 
Music and lyrics by Sid

Crossing The Line

“Adrenalin” is -- measured by Antichrisis-standards -- a quick and dirty track: I got the idea to that song when I was fiddling around on my electric guitar one evening, the riff that turned up sounded pretty good to me, and within half an hour the song was written (not the lyrics, though - they usually do take much longer as I’m not exactly a much of a poet). 

Ayuma came up with her vocals almost as fast: I gave her a rough mix, asked her to go along and improvise, and after the third take everything was in the can. She also came up with a vocal line that I didn’t expect, as I originally thought a playing a solo guitar in the middle part of the song - but Ayuma’s line was so great and catchy that this guitar solo suddenly seemed somehow dispensable to me. 

All instruments by Sid 
Vocals by Ayuma 
Music and lyrics by Sid 

Adrenalin

This is the first track featuring my wife Ayuma as Antichrisis' new female vocalist. As it was her first performance for Antichrisis she was a bit nervous if everything would work out fine, but I think she has done an awesome and impressing job. 

The song itself deals - just like "Crossing The Line" with some kind of apocalyptic vision of the last days of the earth, but there is one thing that is even stronger than death, that simply cannot be conquered by the forces of evil - and that is love: "You will meet me on the other side!" 

The idea to that song came to me while I was exploring new sounds with Spectrasonics' brilliant new Omnisphere-plugin: Suddenly there was this strange buzzing sound being heard in the song's intro that started to built the foundation of "Here Comes The Night" - a happy little accident as Bob Ross would have said. 

All instruments and male vocals by Sid 
Female vocals by Ayuma 
Music and lyrics by Sid

Here Comes The Night

I wrote this song for my wife Ayuma (you may check out her own stuff at MySpace): We've met on New Year's night in 2005/2006, and from the very first time that I saw her I was simply attracted to her shining and beautiful energy - as if all of a sudden a warm summer breeze would have touched me on that cold and chilly winter night. 

Since then my life has changed in many ways: Ayuma and me learned from each other, and she made me see the world and myself in a different light. We then got married in 2008, and it feels like our love is growing with every day (and also every argument, as we're both capricorn). 

Seems like both of us have found what we were always looking for, and so "Shine" is my way of saying "Thank you" to Ayuma for the time and the love that we're sharing, and I do hope that this song somehow manages to capture all her beauty, her warmth, her energy, her empathy, her spirit and her soul. 

All instruments and vocals by Sid 
Music and lyrics by Sid 

Shine

Der Tiger

It’s hard to keep tracks with international events these days: the devastating earthquake in Japan followed by a terrible tsunami and the explosions at Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, Libyan rebels fighting against Muammar “Mad as a March hare” Gaddafi, the uprisings in Syria and Ivory Coast - and also the protests in Bahrein, where demonstrators are suffering from ruthless attacks by mercenaries of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

To honour the Bahraini victims I’ve created this short piece of music; the voices on this track are taken from interviews of Bahraini citizens who are hopefully still alive.

All instruments by Sid
Music by Sid

But Does Anyone Care? (Bahrain Uprise)

Organised crime and organised religion have two things in common: both use blackmail and false promises. And every monotheistic or abrahamic religion has traits of fascism and totalitarianism, because there is only one God— of course, a male entity—who offers the only path to salvation and who justifies the persecution of those of other faiths as well as the devaluation and oppression of women, as we can easily see at present in Afghanistan.

The suppression of female spirituality, identity, and autonomy is the primary doctrine of every monotheistic religion, be it Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. In all these religions, the absolute privilege and unrestricted dominance of men is disguised as piety and orthodoxy; heterosexuality is declared the godly norm, and all other human beings who reject this belief are discredited and devalued as kāfir, goyim, infidels, or sodomites.

The spoken passages in this song are not fictitious, but are literally the current “rules” of the Taliban, which women in Afghanistan must obey if they want to stay alive. “Why?” is our contribution to drawing attention to the intolerable and inhumane situation of women in Afghanistan, because what is being done to the women there on a daily basis is nothing less than slavery and therefore a violation of human rights.

Why?

Buy this song

Taken from Antichrisis' brand new album "Not Fade Away"; available for a minimum price of only €7.00 at http://antichrisis.bandcamp.com.
For more information see http://antichrisis.net

Who You Are

Dieser Song ist für unseren Kater Whisky, der leider seit März 2020 nicht mehr bei uns sein kann.

Whisky kam 2010 zusammen mit dem Katzenmädchen Kira zu uns. Im Gegensatz zu der unerschrockenen, neugierigen und vorwitzigen Art von Kira war Whisky mit seinen 6 Monaten unglaublich ängstlich, scheu und ohne jedes Vertrauen in Menschen. Wir hatten keine Ahnung, was er in dem ersten halben Jahr seines noch jungen Lebens schon erlebt hatte, aber es mussten schlimme Momente dabei gewesen sein.

Sechs Monate später verlor er dann auch noch das einzige Wesen, zu dem er etwas Zutrauen gefasst hatte: Kira wurde unglücklicherweise von einem Auto überfahren, und nun war er alleine mit zwei Menschen, zu denen er noch kein Vertrauen fassen konnte.

Nachdem Kira nicht mehr da war wurde es richtig schwer, noch Zugang zu Whisky zu bekommen. Mit viel Geduld, Liebe und Hoffnung blieben wir jedoch am Ball, und Whisky fing irgendwann tatsächlich an, sich uns gegenüber vorsichtig zu öffnen:  Zwar nur ganz langsam und Schritt für Schritt, aber er ging auf auf uns zu und signalisierte „Okay, ich will es doch auch! Lasst es uns gemeinsam versuchen".

Als das alles geschafft war, war aus dem kleinen, verschreckten Kerlchen ein großer, stolzer, selbstbewusster und wunderschöner Kater geworden, der uns so oft es ging auf Schritt und Tritt begleitete und stets an unserer Seite war. Er wurde zu einem witzigen Schlingel, der gerne Quatsch machte und auch mal die Katzenmädels in der Nachbarschaft im Spass ärgerte.

So war Whisky für für uns bald nicht mehr wegzudenken und wurde zu unserem Trabanten, der uns jeden Tag begleitete und uns seine Geschichten - natürlich in Katzensprache - erzählte.
Es gab so viele lustige, überraschende, erstaunliche und wunderbare Momente,  die er uns beschert hat, und die hier natürlich nicht alle wiedergegeben werden können.

Am 14. März 2020 mussten wir diesen wunderbaren Charakter leider in die nächste Ebene gehen lassen.
Eine vorausgegangene Krankheit, die wir als überstanden und erledigt glaubten, flammte brutal schnell und überraschend wieder auf und führte ihn quasi direkt in ein totales Organversagen.
Es ging so schnell, dass wir es zuerst gar nicht begreifen konnten.

Danach war unsere Wohnung nicht mehr dieselbe wie vorher.
Kein Tag war mehr wie vorher.
Und seitdem denke ich jeden Tag: “Whisky - Du fehlst…“ - obwohl er auf seine ganz spezielle Art und Weise noch immer hier ist.

Du fehlst

Ayuma ist im Januar 1965 in Nürnberg geboren und seitdem dem Frankenland treu geblieben. Ihre Begeisterung für Gesang war schon immer vorhanden, jedoch lange Zeit nicht der Mut, dies ernsthaft in Angriff zu nehmen. Im klassischen "um-die-40-Alter" kam dann die genauso klassische Frage in ihr auf: "Was wollte ich schon immer einmal versuchen und habe es noch nie getan?" Ihre Antwort darauf lautete: "Singen! Wenn ich es jetzt nicht angehe, dann werde ich es nie mehr angehen". Somit wurde im Jahr 2007 eine Schule für Gesang konsultiert und im Jahr 2008 entstanden die ersten eigenen Songs.