Point No Point is the project of Berlin-based artist Jana Sotzko, who makes jazz-inflected indie pop songs that explore the strange landscapes of the human mind. Following 2019 debut full-length Drift, Point No Point return this Spring with a brand new record, Bad Vibes in Mushroom Forest, on Katuktu Collective and Späti Palace. Sotzko wrote and recorded the majority of the record in Berlin and Geneva, before travelling to Pristina, Kosovo to finish it up with Dritero Nikqi, working in a Kosovar mountain hut to expand on the pair’s shared affection for what they call “herbaceous synth jams, jazz rhythms, and small-scale cinematic soundscapes.”
After unveiling penultimate track ‘The Sky Was Orange’ back in February, a flittering song that fused everything from sparse Dear Nora-style left-field pop to hyperactive electro, Sotzko recently released the album’s second single, ‘Are You OK?’ It sounds something like the weird, trippy post-punk cousin of an Au Revoir Simone song, airy vocals floating over wiry guitar lines and a persistent drumbeat.
Like much of the record, the track combines natural imagery with elements more personal and fantastic. “While on its surface [Bad Vibes in Mushroom Forest expresses] a connection with nature,” explains the press release, “[it] is interspersed throughout with traces of memory and remnants of technology that in its density is more soothing than repulsive.”
wonders the dirt, ask the trees
you like to see your friends fail sometimes
observes the sun, asks the sea
Bad Vibes in Mushroom Forest will be released on 1st April via Katuktu Records (cassette) and Späti Palace (LP).
Photo by Tanno Pippi