There are many Ninas. So many versions and incarnations. So many images, moments, voices and songs. So many faces with gaping mouths. Faces from five decades now. Like in the video for her new single "16 Tons". Nina Hagen is a legend. Punk rock godmother, activist, fictional character, performance machine, Jesus disciple, extraterrestrial emissary, Brecht expert. Nina is the beginning and the end. Breaking down walls and starting again. Carrying on and never being quiet. Nina is many. And yet there can only be one of her. The woman who fell to earth. Uncopyable.

Nina Hagen, the most beautiful and shrill arsonist between punk and pop, east and west and outta space that Germany has ever produced, is finally back. Her new album "UNITY" will be released on Grönland Records on December 9, 2022. It is the first since "VOLKSBEAT" from 2011. So the time was long overdue.

The twelve songs on "UNITY" are a wild trip through a densely woven musical jungle, full of chirping, buzzing and twittering, Western twang on spacey synth pads and rock pop on dub and sexy slow funk. Some songs tell of biblical miracles, others are fiery political battle speeches, and still others are covers: of a country classic, a Sheryl Crow hit, or even of a Bob Dylan song with German lyrics ("The wind alone knows the answer," which is something you can only do if you're one of the great song artists). The play with textures, samples and everyday noises on "UNITY" is multifaceted. And in the midst of this rich sound and theme foliage there is of course this voice, which can switch from operatic to demonic in the blink of an eye, from insane heights to terrifying depths, as if it wanted to short-circuit the sexes. Nina Hagen screams and hisses, belts out and speaks-sings, rubs and rolls over in electronic distortions. She has musical dialogues. With us and with herself. Her voice echoes into our present as if from another world.

In short: “UNITY” is a bright, warm-hearted and diverse Nina Hagen spectacle. At 67, she is as productive as ever.

And because she never wasted time playing it safe or giving anyone a gentle start, the album takes off straight away: “Shadrack” is a shimmering half-sung, half-rapped power rock pop with a driving beat and a Bible story as the plot, which ends with the line: "that was a bedtime story for the soul about God's goodness"Nina Hagen, who has been a Protestant Reformed believer since 2009, quotes a pop spiritual by the American composer Robert MacGimsey, which tells the story of three Hebrew men who are saved from death by fire by God. The story continues from those walking in flames with the feminist reggae-punk solidarity anthem "United Women of World", which was written together with the Jamaican singer Liz Mitchel and the new wave icon Lene Lovich. A song with a message that you may have heard many times, but that you can't repeat often enough: "It's all for one and one for all".

With the first single release “16 Tons”, Nina Hagen has taken on a heavy burden: “You load 16 tons, what do you get? / Another day older and deeper in debt”.The song is her version of the old American folk classic about the life of Kentucky miners, shaped by hard work and existential distress. Nina Hagen sings about this hopeless everyday life –“muscle and blood and skin and bones”- with her commandingly deep and darkly vibrating voice. A western twang updated for 2022, recorded with lots of erratic reverb, an unwaveringly advancing groove and desert-dry electric guitars. "16 Tons" brings the heavy, dirt- and soot-smeared miners' social criticism of 1947 into 2022. This song has been waiting for Nina Hagen, who gives its sometimes eerily current lines the gravitas of a century-long echo chamber.

"Unity" is a collaboration with funk visionary George Clinton: a wonderfully light, cosmic, sparkling dub number as a tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement, which the two wrote in 2020 as a direct reaction to the violent death of George Floyd. The synthesizer melodies rock like gentle waves to stuttering hi-hats, while Nina and George sing against hate in the chorus: "Positive vibrations surround the world's nations!" With "Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty" things get very specifically political: Nina Hagen remixes sampled excerpts from two speeches (her own in 2009 at the United Nations Peace Festival in front of the Brandenburg Gate and a UN speech by US politician Dennis Kucinich) into a pulsating tour de force with country guitars, a babble of voices and wild percussion.

One thing has never changed since the beginning of her career almost 40 years ago. Nina Hagen is radical. She tries new things. She speaks out. She knows no boundaries. Neither artistic nor ideological. Entertainment and a serious message still go hand in hand.

There are many and yet there is only one: Nina Hagen.