Dota - ZMF Freiburg

Dota is back with new songs - a new chapter that fits naturally into her existing catalogue, yet sounds fresh, as if an unknown ingredient had turned up in the song lab.

What's striking: it could just as well be the very first DOTA record. Nothing you love about Dota is missing, but the music is even more minimalist, bouncier - the grown-ups would say: more contrastive. The lyrics cut even more directly to the heart of the darkness, searching with even greater devotion, clearer even in the unclear. Perhaps it's also a product of her deep engagement with the poetry of Mascha Kaléko, to whose musical realisation she dedicated two albums over the past three years.

DOTA - in capitals for a reason, because the name stands for more than just the lyrical self of Dota Kehr. It also names the community around her, in which the music has been taking shape for several years now: guitarist Jan Rohrbach, drummer Janis Görlich, keyboardist Patrick Reising and bassist Alexander Binder. Together with this band, Dota Kehr arranges and records the songs. Together they write the DOTA formula on the board: every word means at least its opposite too, question marks everywhere, barely an exclamation mark in sight.

The first single Einfach zu abgelenkt plays the DOTA game to perfection. The guitar sits by a summer lake, the synth shimmers. The drums dance stop-and-go, Dota sings as if she has to leave any moment - about not being able to commit, and neither can anyone else. ADHD as a social diagnosis.

In Kettenkarussell, one of those songs only DOTA can pull off - relaxed and tense at the same time, like a pensive rubber ball - she sings: "Time to spin around something else / That's fine, I can't stand the everyday." And the band grooves along, driving the singer as if to say: "One more round."

Question: what should songwriters sing about in times like these?
Next question: what even are "times like these"?

Dota has an answer.