Sex, Drugs, and Roquairol

Heroes (David Bowie)

Roquariol is a romantic and tormented character, hypersensitive and also war-torn. The character no longer sees a distinction between life and art. Although the content of David Bowie's song Heroes cannot be linked to the piece Roquariol, the choice is nevertheless legitimate. While in Berlin in 1976, David Bowie and Iggy Pop visited an exhibition on the artist. Both later drew inspiration for their record sleeve from Erich Heckel's work. In David Bowie's case, it was for the album Heroes. Moreover, he himself owned a number of works by Heckel.

Sehr Langsam (Anton Webern)

Webern's oeuvre is extremely concise, but each sound has its own import. Therefore, you don't notice any ornamental notes. Sehr Langsam expresses a plethora of emotions, from yearning to dramatic turmoil, resignation and a potentially calm, peaceful resolution. With Webern, war is never far away, which is why it fits so well with Heckel's Verwundeter Matrose (‘Wounded Sailor’).

Quasi una Fantasia, String Quartet nr. 2 (Henryk Górecki)

This piece comprises simple repetitive serial techniques as well as a connection to tradition, in which nostalgia is never far away. Like Heckel's work, Gorecki's music is emotionally charged. In Heckel's work, for instance, we see a character who is completely introspective.

C’est Youkali (Kurt Weil)

This melancholic song describes the journey to a land of hopes and desires. A typical product of the Interwar period, Kurt Weil's symphonies have a somewhat cinematic feel. The essence is captured neatly in that one little phrase: “C’est l’étoile qu’on suit, c’est Youkali”.

Häuser am Morgen is an expressionist take on the Augustijnenrei in Bruges. The work escaped the hands of the Nazis thanks to the efforts of a Jewish woman in hiding. What better way to honour this work than to attach a Kurt Weil song to it? After all, Weil himself was forced to emigrate because of his Jewish origins.

Euphoria (James Blake & Labrinth)

‘Just take me anywhere’, the soldiers may have thought when suffering their severe injuries. Nostalgia, hope and solace. Hope for a Euphoria. James Blake refers to a longing for a Valhalla that may be imminent. Every cloud has a silver lining. Heckel writes so in a letter: "Aber Frühling werd es doch” (‘But still spring is coming’).

The Cold Song (Klaus Nomi)

The Madonna emerging from the waves. “What power art thou?” This song was recorded by Klaus Nomi on his eponymous first album The Cold Song. The lyrics come straight from Henry Purcell's opera King Arthur. The message: the heroic future will only occur in Valhalla. Pious wishes may and will be cherished. Like the The Cold Song, the melancholy-sweet work Madonna of Ostend (1915) is timeless and universal, spiritually-transcendent, and it stirs all of us.

Phantom Studies (Marcel Dettman)

Phantom Studies by Marcel Dettman, who is best known as a DJ at Berlin's Berghain nightclub, adds a menacing dimension to Heckel's painting Frühling in Flandern (‘Spring in Flanders’). The landscape shows wrinkles and cracks. A menacing and erratic tragedy makes its appearance.

Omega (Qeight, Hoducoma)

Hoducoma aims to present listeners with a different perspective on music. One that is full of complex, experimental landscapes. Our inner compass is put to the test in both this song and the painting Nordsee. The darker sides of human existence are not shunned. As if a constant sea battle is raging.

Projection (Morton Feldman)

This song has a certain ‘waiting for Godot’ quality to it. Morton Feldman was deeply inspired by the work of Samuel Becket, and his music, like the painting Männer am Meer, has something bare and deeply pessimistic about human nature and man's destiny and purpose of the soul. Feldman himself described his compositions as ‘music without beginning, without middle, without end’. Besides a deep yearning for liberation from societal conventions, Projection evokes a sound world in which all the nuances between movement and stasis are explored.

Listen to the playlist 'Sex, Drugs, and Roquairol' via Spotify.