We first covered Hamburg-based synth pop duo Kraków Loves Adana back in 2018 with the release of band’s full-length record, Songs After the Blue. The record’s sparse, evocative synths conjured “ominous romance,” we wrote in a preview, “as though working emotions loose from the past, exploring the strange spaces and film-grain footage of sun-bleached tapes.” The result was a sound “at once dark and neon-lit,” where “love and heartbreak entwined into cinematic spectacle.”
Kraków Loves Adana used this style to explore the gap between the human and the digital, from the loneliness of life among jpeg images and collected memories to the failure of the internet to fulfil its promise of utopian democracy. Deniz Çiçek and Robert Heitmann have released another album in the meantime, though again they channelled their distinctive sound into explorations of contemporary living. A space in which the boundaries between physical reality, virtual reality and dreams began to merge and blur.
This autumn sees Kraków Loves Adana return with a brand new record, Follow the Voice, and the lead singles suggest a further dive into such themes. Take the title track, a stark and shimmered song that walks a line between cold and heartfelt. The sound is as dramatic as ever, at times almost sinister in its tone, but Çiçek’s vocals harness the track’s rhythm to emerge above this. A human voice searching for meaning amongst shadows and shining lights.
Haven’t seen you for ages
How are you
Still burning with the pages
But how are you
I fall asleep mid-sentence
At unexpected meetings
I’m a pale phantom of myself
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The track comes complete with a video directed by the band themselves in collaboration with director of photography Philip Jestädt, and with additional art design by Hannes & Johannes.
Follow the Voice is out on the 12th November and you can pre-order it now from the Kraków Loves Adana Bandcamp page.
