Recently I’ve had a dear cousin staying with my family and I all the way from Cologne, Germany. She has been in Canada for a few weeks now and it has honestly been such an incredible experience for all of us. Luckily, the two of us have very similar tastes in music so when she was showing me a few of her favourite bands from Germany I knew I needed to write about at least one of them.
AnnenMayKantereit is an indie rock band based out of Cologne, Germany. Their name, although a bit hard to pronounce at first, comes from the surnames of each of the founding members: Christopher Annen, Henning May and Severin Kantereit. The trio formed AnnenMayKantereit while they were in school back in 2011 and later on after performing as street musicians in Cologne they eventually met their bass player, Malte Huck in 2014. Since then they have been selling out tours, playing massive festivals and making really beautiful music all over Europe. Their most recent album, Alles nix konkretes, roughly translated to, Everything But Concrete, showcases an array of upbeat yet thoughtful tracks that feel simple and weightless but still have this biting sense of power behind them.
Most of AnnenMayKantereit’s music, aside from their covers, is in German and I know many of you may not know how to speak German (I am 100% one of those people) However when you are listening their music, the understanding of words are simply not necessary. Within every note and every chord there is an outpouring of power and emotion coming from Henning May’s vocals alone which is universal in its own way. His voice is unlike anything I have ever heard before and to be honest, it gives me chills. A song that shows this in the best way is “Barfuß am Klavier” or “Barefoot on Piano” – the song itself is so raw it feels so vulnerable and beautiful at the same time; it’s one of my favourites without a doubt.
Check out the video for “Barfuß am Klavier” as well as a few of my other favourites down below:
I am just discovering AnnenMayKantereit. It would be insane to get a chance to work with them. I have been creating instrumental music for the past several years and Henning’s baritone voice is incredible. I know it’s never easy to connect with such a band but I would love for them to just hear my track. I’m on SoundTrack.