Biography
Artist: BOTANICA
Album: Berlin Hi-Fi
Label: rent a dog
Catalogue-Number: bone 3007-2
Release-date: May 5, 2006
European tour starts: May 19, 2006
BERLIN HI-FI is the fourth and brand new album from New York’s
acclaimed Botanica, a band founded 6 years ago by singer and
keyboard player Paul Wallfisch. (ex Firewater)
INTRO Magazine called Botanica’s highly praised 2005 release
“…vs. the Truth Fish” “A slow-burning but
surely hit-filled and lasting sleeper” and Visions gave
the album 11 out of 12 stars. The band toured Europe 3 times,
including support slots for Madrugada, and TV appearances in
Germany, (Rockpalast), and Austria, (ORF). (They even made it
to #5 on Slovenian radio charts!)
Capping a busy and successful year, Botanica returned to Berlin—their
“second home”—in December 2005 to complete the
new album with producer/engineer extraordinaire, Moses Schneider,
(Tocotronic, Beatsteaks), manning the controls.
The 14 songs on BERLIN HI-FI show off the full range of a mature
and powerful band firing on all cylinders. Right off the bat,
the opening “Eleganza & Wines” is a perfect example
of Paul’s songwriting. With an East-European lilt in 7/4
time, the warmth and power of Anne deWolff’s string playing
and the gutwrenching vocal carry this melancholy tale, producing
the smoldering soundtrack to a vignette of Paul’s sojourn
in Los Angeles. A song written in Berlin about bad wine, worse
dry-cleaning and a strip of dreams in Silver Lake.
The title track, “Berlin Hi-Fi”, that opens the simultaneously
released single “Botanica Lifting Over Berlin”, explodes
with a full-frontal pop blast reminiscent of Stereolab on Steroids
and is followed up by “I’m Lifting”, (2nd song
on the single), a co-composition with Moses Schneider.
“A Freestyle Kiss to Hedy Lamarr” is inspired by
the unique story of Austrian native and legendary Hollywood
screen goddess Hedy Lamarr and her collaboration as inventor
of torpedo guidance systems with the “worst” boy of
classical music, George Antheil.
“I Desire,” (3rd song on the single), will surely
be the power ballad of the year, while “How” features
Anne on violin through a Vox and returns with a vengeance to
a gypsy-punk stomp making good on Jazzthetik magazine’s
rave that “Everything we love in bands like Gogol Bordello
and Firewater reaches a new peak in Botanica.”
BERLIN HI-FI. Recorded in Kreuzberg and Brooklyn, is, without
a doubt, the high-point so far for this extraordinary band with.:
John Andrews – guitar
Christian Bongers – bass
Keith Crupi – drums
Paul Wallfisch – vocals, Wurlitzer, organ
and as a guest:
Anne deWolff – viola, violin
