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GLORIA
GLORIA, the refreshing duo of Mark Tavassol and Klaas Heufer-Umlauf, presents a powerful mix of rough urban poetry and clever German pop. Their debut album, created without a specific goal, creates a unique, inspiring soundscape that captures the heart and mind.
GLORIA – this is the band we need so much that we didn’t even dare to wait for them.
If only those two boys didn't always downplay everything so much. GLORIA – so say Mark Tavassol and Klaas Heufer-Umlauf, the founders of this new band - was actually just a hobby. Private pleasure, a fun project. The accidental product that came about while hanging out and making music together in one-room apartments in Hamburg. And that was perhaps the alibi for it from time to time. Toast to the verse. Lean back to the chorus.
You can see it that way. But you could also say: GLORIA – this is a long-kept secret that is now finally being revealed after years of silence and letting things happen. GLORIA – this is the band that we need so badly that we didn't even dare to wait for them. In a time when there is no German wave of any kind on the horizon, no young laurel poet setting the tone. In a time that is ripe for new music that excites us and embraces us and conveniently kicks us in the butt at the same time.
However, GLORIA are here, finally. They released their first album at the end of September 2013 on Grönland Records, which has a name that is just as beautiful as they are. In November and December they went on tour for the first time. Or, as singer Klaas Heufer - Umlaufit states: "We followed our instincts. And got caught up in something..."
How do the two know each other? Approximately 2006 met Klaas (moderator and entertainer) and Mark Tavassol (musician, guitarist of the band Wir sind Helden) at joint MTV appearances. Unforgettable is the Comet Awards, at which Klaas smuggled himself onto the stage in a Superman costume during Mark's band's performance. That's what brings people together. They went for a beer in Hamburg and talked about all sorts of things, including making music. The first sessions together started in 2008. The two of them. They remembered the lyrics, the song and the melody, discovered a good riff. One song came quickly, like a hiccup, and the next one was worked on for months. Until in the end no one knew who had contributed what.
"These days, you only do a lot of things if you have a goal in mind," says Mark Tavassol. "But with our music, things worked out the way they should: we just wanted to do it."
It was only after a good three years that Mark and Klaas came up with the idea that the many pieces and fragments could make a good record. Mark took over the production, the rest almost happened by itself. And now everyone can hear what it sounds like: great German pop that simply invents the great poses it throws itself into. Colored by British and American guitar stuff of all kinds, by the Hamburg songwriting tradition and everything else that the two of them like. No homages - just exactly what has grown around these songs, pieces like "How much", "Own Berlin", "Too vague", "Wait", which Mark and Klaas wrote together. A voice from two heads, gruff, clever urban poetry, verses for deep nights, sing-alongs for the best times of day, lines that you write on your hand so that you can quickly recall them. Nasty, romantic, when in doubt, what you would never have thought of. Music that lulls you into great uncertainty. But: it lulls you.
“The most important thing,” Klaas emphasizes, “is that we would have made this record even if Mark had remained a doctor and I had remained a hairdresser.”
So without the back stories that are definitely worth telling. No wonder the two are proud of GLORIA, their new band. And perhaps they are already planning - secretly - the overthrow of the pop world as we know it. The founding and global spread of Glorianism. But if that is the case, they will of course never admit it.