Berlin (dpa) – A lot must have happened in the five years since Tom Schilling, his band The Jazz Kids and their joint album “Vilnius” debuted as a musician.
And certainly not all has been well since then. This really makes “Das Lied vom Ich” obvious, if you don’t see it as pure theatrical art.
The Berlin actor, one of the sexiest actresses of his generation since the tragic comedy “Oh Boy” (2012), introduced himself as a singer-songwriter in 2017 with the ambitious but fleeting chanson-pop album. Now Schilling, who has just turned forty, sings in his distinctive and clear voice: “I am the emptiness that torments you, I am the other thing you miss, I am the dark deserted place.” Later in this song “Who Am I” as embodies envy, anger, doubt, fear and abyss.
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Too negative, everything. Plus, there’s a grim, industrial-rock sound that oozes vibrancy like Rammstein or Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (both Schilling stars)—surprisingly from almost the same Jazz Kids musicians as they were five years ago. In the end, the singer managed to utter a tormented cry. “Without that cry at the end, the song wouldn’t work at all,” Schilling says in an interview with dpa. But it “cost him effort”, because in fact he is not a “stunner”.
So “Das Lied vom Ich” is no easy feat, and the new album “Epithymia” which has ten huge and always intense songs between folk rock, post punk and dark rock is also a heavy part. And that’s exactly what it was designed for.
Tom Schilling, who lives in Berlin with his wife and children, stresses that the gloominess of the songs on his band’s project The Other Side had to do with a stage in his life. “When I was writing the second album, I wasn’t on the ‘sunny side of life.’ But at least I wrote this album, which ultimately inspired me. Because it gives me so much strength, support, and meaning when I write songs.”
With one back to the wall
According to his personal impression, he would sometimes “actually stand with his back to the wall when writing songs, which gave me some freedom”. Music is a lifeline in crises (Schilling didn’t specifically name it) – one often hears this from songwriters.
The actor, who also often appears sad or even torn in his films, most recently in Dominic Graf’s Fabian Oder der Gang for den Hunde, does not even hide his fragile emotional world when the dpa interview revolves around the heartbreakingly sad song “Aljoscha”.
“In a way, this topic of homelessness excites me, especially when you feel about it in childhood,” Schilling says. The play is inspired by Andrei Swjaginzew’s movie “Loveless”, which is about a boy who is neither loved nor neglected by his parents. (…) It really touched me while I was saying that.”
Schilling is a nice and polite person to talk to, but he’s also a professional communicator – even more impressive is how honest he is about his sometimes complex song inspiration. For his second album, he released a lot of emotion as a lyricist and composer — and he’s now a bit exhausted: “I doubt I’ll be able to do it again so quickly.” But since he is not a full-time musician, he can “take the liberty of waiting for certain states”. There may also be people who are happier again.
Spotify counter suggestion
For Tom Schilling, “Epithymia” is an album that now looks what he thinks his debut “Vilnius” should have looked like today. And it’s an anti Spotify record for him. Because with the streaming giant, a louder, shorter musician who comes into the chorus faster has advantages. So I did just the opposite with the new album. The song is hardly less than four minutes long, there’s a cut narration, I take my time, there are songs that don’t have a chorus at all.”
This alternative to smooth attractive sound can be exhausting at times, but it is very worth listening to. With “The Longing Album”, Schilling proves that he is not only one of the best actors in the country, but also one of the most talented songwriters. He openly admits that here and there he “always plays by myself, Tom Schilling” a bit. It doesn’t hurt his cinematography nor his music.