Rock and pop

As of: January 19, 2024 5:42 p.m

The “Music Moves Europe Awards” were presented at the Eurosonic Festival in Groningen, Netherlands. Music moves Europe? In times of a torn EU, an almost defiant exclamation, says Mischa Kreiskott.

by Mischa Kreiskott

Musicians like Carla Bruni, Tokio Hotel or Adele, Stromae, Milky Chance, Dua Lipa – they all have one thing in common: They were once awarded the “European Boarder Breakers Award”, the European Commission’s major music prize. Formerly an international television show presented by BBC presenting legend Jools Holland.

That has been over since Brexit. Great Britain is no longer participating in European music funding. The successor prize, in several categories, was now awarded at the Eurosonic Festival in Groningen, the Netherlands.

“Freekind”: female duo from Slovenia and Croatia

“I think we’re lucky to live in Europe, we realize that now when we talk to musicians who don’t have an EU passport, who can’t travel, for whom there are no programs, no exchanges.” It sounds like something from an image film for a European funding project, but these two really mean and live it that way: Sara Gredelj from Slovenia and Nina Korošak Serčič from Croatia. They met at the music college in Graz, Austria. The music they bring into the world as “Freekind” seems as if they come from Los Angeles, at least.

Anyone who sees the two of them would hardly trust them to make this sound. Be underestimated? “Everyday life for us!” say Sara and Nina. Both in their early 20s, rather inconspicuous when you sit across from them. The Music Moves Europe Award will help them with the necessary “credibility”: “After the concerts, people often come to us and say that they had a bad day and that the music lifted them up. People often say, That’s exactly what they needed right now, and not something so dystopian.”

Not yet further defined: Genre “Comfort Pop”

The songs of the two Europeans seem to belong to the yet-to-be-defined genre of “comfort pop.” Musicians in particular are currently adding such concepts to their playlists: the lyrics are about mental health, about comfort, about feeling supported. The arrangements look like a well-woven, warm blanket…

A concept that “Freekind” designed at a time when other musicians were in a state of shock: In the middle of the pandemic lockdown, their first song together, “This too shall pass”, was created: “We were never alone, we had each other, and That gave us strength to do something creative, that saved us.”

Yune Pinku: New Technio-Entwurf

It’s astonishing how many winners of this year’s award used the pandemic as creative jet propulsion: Yuné Pinku – Irish-Malaysian who grew up in London – immediately used the time to create a new draft of techno: “Bluff” is the name of her pandemic track. Music for all those who don’t actually feel comfortable in clubs: “Nightlife can be quite dasy, and can be really fun at the same time” – Yuné Pinku lets heavy beats curve like question marks, which is also a position of new European pop music .

EU Commissioner Häusler: “Culture is crucial for Europe”

“I’m just totally happy and proud. I mean, this is Europe,” he exclaimed, directly after the ceremony, the Austrian EU Commissioner for Culture and MME Award patron Georg Häusler: “Young people full of energy, full of creativity, great Artists. Wonderful, culture must be crucial for Europe. What holds us all together is culture and cultural exchange.

Music moves Europe forward? Yes, that would be a beautiful utopia for a floundering European idea, after all in Groningen this evening you will see people who are passionate about Europe, with their music and their messages.

“Bulgarian Cartrader”: Light-footed game with irony and love of homeland

“I think that the West has a fantasy of what the Balkans are like,” says Daniel Stoyanov, who calls himself a “Bulgarian Cartrader”. He was born in Sofia, grew up in southern Germany and lives in Berlin. Even his stage name plays with clichés and attribution: “That’s partly true, but it’s a bit of a ‘punchline’.” A Wild East as we know it from films and jokes. “But when I look at everyday life in Bulgaria, it has different facets,” says Stoyanov.

“Bulgarian Cartrader’s” social media team consists of three Bulgarian grandmothers from the countryside, with headscarves, high-speed internet and an analog lucky donkey called “Algorithm”: “The Grandma Media Group, they do all the marketing , they do it with other strategies, Balkan Voodoo, and it works very well, I’m nominated here” …and awarded. The “Bulgarian Cartrader” would have earned its prize for this light-hearted game of identity, love of home, persona and irony alone. “I move in an area of ​​fantasies, wishes, longings and absurd impossibilities. Europe as a cultural place, all of that is part of it. We have always been a cultural unit.”

This topic in the program:

NDR Culture | The Morning | 01/19/2024 | 11:03 a.m

2024-01-19 16:54:05
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