Nashville-based musician, engineer, and producer Paul Kintzing has been releasing music under the name German Error Message since 2008. With his first full length, To Carry Alongside, in 2010, Kintzing began what would become a varied and ambitious engagement with a number of styles, the German Error Message project traversing a whole host of folk, ambient and experimental sounds.
We first covered the act back in 2014, a split with Lung Cycles via Lily Tapes & Discs, followed by the fourth full-length album, Haunts, on Furious Hooves later that year. The releases highlighted both the diversity of the German Error Message sound and the intrinsic spirit that bound this together—the stripped back simplicity of ‘Everything is Scary’ and the hypnotic, densely layered ‘Slow Thickening’ united by Kintzing’s uncanny ability to breathe human authenticity into everything he does, not matter how modest, weird or abstract.
After a hiatus with only the hauntingly relevant single ‘2017’, German Error Message returned earlier this year with a brand new album, Mend. Building upon the stylistic evolution suggested by ‘2017’, the record drew from increasingly ambient and experiment influences and found Kintzing developing as a songwriter, crafting songs from the unease of our times and framing them in an empathetic manner. “[The album] exists within a state of tension,” we wrote, “delivered from a deceptive calm, the eye of a personal storm, acting as a soothing balm for our own worries and woes.” There is no comfort in the low-level dread of these days, but togetherness, some common humanity, can be found within its ubiquitous grip.
With the quiet period very much over, Kintzing has been busy since Mend. Earlier this summer he released Not Songs under the name Other Nothing, a collection of instrumental fragments stemming from a period of compulsive recording in 2017-18 as he worked on new sound processes, and there has also been a collaboration with the fellow Nashville-based artist Bedroom, such as the single, ‘Count to Five‘.
And that’s not all. Today, we’re delighted to unveil a brand new standalone German Error Message single, ‘Fine’. With recording by George Pauley and featuring vocals from Noah Kittinger (of Bedroom) and drums by Matthew Sigur, the song is a newly collaborative endeavour that highlights a brighter side to the German Error Message sound. With an optimistic piano line and warm strings, the track is something of a wider palette to previous releases, possessing a colourfulness that verges on joy.
Kintzing’s lyrics are not exactly a counterpoint to this new positivity, but they are not fully on board either. Rather, he seems to be asking permission to release himself into the sensation, or wishing it were true. “Does it feel right?” he asks, “Can I be filled with light too?”