Retirement Kenneth Minor

• 1 Down in Our Hearts 04:19
• 2 Down My Spine 04:13
• 3 Always 03:01
• 4 From What We Know 03:49
• 5 Crew Love's Coming 02:34
• 6 When It's All Gone 03:57
• 7 Is This the World We're Living in? 04:18
• 8 The Day She Came By 03:51
• 9 All Your Demons 03:26
• 10 Tears Don't Dry in Rainy Season 03:09
• 11 You 02:08
• 12 Pictures 04:42
• Total Runtime 43:27

Info for Retirement

Kenneth Minor must be playing to their humor when they talk of Retirement. As a collection, Retirement reveals Kenneth Minor’s dynamic range. The 12 tracks pull directly from the band’s deep reservoir of influences for the thrill of the ride.

The new record features twangy guitar riffs, pop refrains, entertaining guitar solos wrapped in soundscapes, distorted picking, snotty banging with a honky-tonk piano or some kind of blues-punk attitude with a wink (Down My Spine, Tears Don't Dry in Rainy Season, Always, When It's All Gone). There are also swampy-mystical, hypnotic songs dipped in buckets of psychedelic paint. Songs with supporting cello lines and the use of a flugelhorn, which, after pleasant melodies, might just as well end in a completely surprising noise inferno of an evil fuzz guitar dueling with an atonally beautiful saxophone. Mystical tremolo guitar alternating with a punk-like chorus and dizzying drum rolls. Or clapping along for two minutes to an ascetically designed “mini anthem”. (Down in Our Hearts, Pictures, Crew Love’s Coming, You). In addition, there are songs whose narrative thread is clearly in the foreground and the extent of the musical accompaniment varies in each case. From a light-footed, strumming guitar accompaniment placed in a warm mellotron bed, to picturesque bass lines paired with dreamy guitar picking and Caribbean-like Beguine rhythms to a certain microcosmic majesty. (Is This the World We’re Living in, All Your Demons, From What We Know, The Day She Came By).

Anyone looking for lyrical triviality will not find it. Personal stories are told in a humorous, profound but also serious way, text and music deliberately run counter to each other or harmoniously hand in hand. Optimistic melancholy hovers over the music. Similar to the music, there is also a certain variety of topics such as the volatility of interpersonal relationships, the impartiality of the childhood perspective, criticism of capitalism, death and farewell, but also the beautiful moments in life.

There’s an organic feel to the whole record and just like they did it holed up in the same room for days, it’s not their musicianship alone which keeps them producing with refined, famliar clarity. Doubling down on the family in-house vibe, on Retirement, Kenneth Minor drummer Florian Helleken takes on the production role.

Bird Christiani, vocals, guitars, lap-steel guitar
Andreas Lüttke, bass
Florian Helleken, drums, percussion, keyboards

Kenneth Minor
In partnership with the Initiative Musik/Neustart Kultur, in 2020, Kenneth Minor entered the studio developing the freshly pressed 12-track-LP they have titled "Retirement". To be released on vinyl & CD in the summer of 2022 by Unique Records/The Orchard.

With two 4-track-EPs released in the interim and three fully produced music videos available on various channels, Kenneth Minor must be playing to their humor when they talk of Retirement.

Four new titles and two more videos to come, as a collection, Retirement reveals Kenneth Minor’s dynamic range. They pull directly from their deep reservoir of influences for the thrill of the ride. There’s an organic feel to the whole record and just like they did it holed up in the same room for days, it’s not their musicianship alone which keeps them producing with refined, famliar clarity.

Doubling down on the family in-house vibe, on Retirement, Kenneth Minor drummer Florian Helleken takes on the production role.

Recorded in its entirety in his Hersbrooklyn Recordings Studios in Hersbruck. Retirement was mixed by Hannes Plattmeier at Ashfield Street Studios, London and finally mastered by Hans Wagner, SolidArt Mastering, Vienna.

This album contains no booklet.