The Düsseldorf Düsterboys - Duo Duo

In the organizer's words:

The Düsseldorf Düsterboys are Peter Rubel and Pedro Goncalves Crescenti, who many music lovers in this country will recognize not only as the unmistakable voices of the Düsterboys, but also as those of their sister band International Music. Having already released two albums with "Die besten Jahre" and "Ententraum", "Duo Duo" is finally the second album from The Düsseldorf Düsterboys, which Peter and Pedro founded as a duo long before International Music.

"It is said that when you bring two minds together, a third mind always emerges, a third superior mind, an invisible collaborator", as William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin once put it in their book "The Third Mind" and must have had something like "Duo Duo", the second album by The Düsseldorf Düsterboys, in mind. Because the way Peter Rubel and Pedro Goncalves Crescenti tenderly play the words to each other on their guitars, alternate in their performance quite naturally and full of love for the music, sometimes switching to the second voice and then back to the lead vocals, it all sounds so much bigger than just two people playing a few songs together for us. How seemingly carefree they let us participate in their associative leaps between casual descriptions of everyday life and beautiful poetry, between pillows and metaphysics, or to put it with the Düsterboys and the album opener "Stars/Sternchen": "So much said, so many clouds. Half a day goes by in my room! Take me higher!"

As far as musical influences are concerned, the outernational folk-pop on "Duo Duo" is no less multi-layered or clearly ambiguous: there are influences from folk music, from Brazilian tropicalismo, some reminiscent of church chorales, others of the anti-folk movement of the early noughties or good old Velvet Underground. Sometimes all together in one song!

Listening to it, you can't help but think of Waldeck Castle and its crooning bards as well as the Monterey Festival and its cosmopolitan esprit. Despite all the retro suspicions, "Duo Duo" is definitely pop music of the present!