“I felt it like a family photo album that keeps beautiful memories and times. I really like, how it ended up being a journey.” Jorge da Rocha

Come on, let's get lost! In the most beautiful of all worlds. Sailing through space on a surfboard and surviving all adversity. With our gang by our side, nothing can happen to us.

Aha. Ok. Let's Surf The Planet. - the new album by Puder aka Catharina Boutari, is an acoustic road movie that effortlessly takes you from her home in Hamburg, behind dreams and fears, across Europe, from the deep forest to the Future Echoes Festival in Sweden. Five songs, which are combined with 6 soundscapes to form a large whole, illuminate the cosmos of friendship and connection

The sound of the album is dark, warm and big. Sparsely instrumented, the songs are carried by dreamy melodies and polyphonic vocals. Double bass soundscapes meet sparkling beats and tastefully placed electronics. Longer instrumental passages reinforce the cinematoscopic factor of Gregor Hennig's mix. The music has earth and air at the same time. It is full of hope, sometimes even danceable. Sailing in your own universe. Inner insights. Catharsis.

Aha. Ok. Let's Surf The Planet. is a classic solo work by one artist, but too the teamwork of four European musicians. Puder's guests for the seventh round of her Session Tapes series are Dutch alternative singer and performer Eliën, Spanish-based Portuguese jazz double bassist Jorge da Rocha and Portuguese electronic musician and beatmaker St.James Park. Boutari met the three in 2022 at the artist residency of the Westway Lab Festival in Portugal. The group formed a collective that has kept in touch and realized joint musical projects ever since. When they received an invitation from the Future Echoes Showcase Festival in Sweden to make the live recordings for the next Session Tapes as part of the festival at the end of 2022, there was no question as to who Puder wanted to embark on this adventure with.

Aha. Okay. Let's Surf The Planet. begins with audience noises and the request from Sound Engineer Jan Rubach 'Tapes running'. Followed by the first vocal loop by Eliën. On my Sofa, the album's focus track, is Boutari's answer to this. After all, the red sofa in her living room has often been Eliën’s self-chosen home base in Hamburg. "And when you're sad, come closer. Cut all ropes and move over. There's a home, when you don't have one. On my sofa."

Sometimes we have to get lost before we can be found. Including heartbeat bass drum and bass delay.

Eliën responds to this invitation with the song Dreamer's Disease. Her "I like to visit places, only dreamers go" sails on the hypnotically repetitive bass riff of da Rocha and the restrained beats of St. James Park. A trip to deep dream levels. Just get away and don't face your own thoughts.

The very next soundscape finds the answer: Let's see. Departure. Redemption. Particles comes from the deepest depths, only to immediately swing into higher spheres. "And my worries they drift away into particles into space" sing da Rocha, Eliën and Puder in perfect three-part harmony. Space, space, space. The stroke of liberation. Everything is possible.

You can't go any higher, so back on the road. Because everyday life is not always ideal and we often get stuck in entanglements that are not good for us. "Repetition is the father of sadness and the mother of losses". Phone Calls reflects the struggle with our own inadequacy in an urban way. The desire to get lost in order to escape sadness. And everyone sings along: "I ain't gonna do this shit anymore".

With Howl, a beautiful campfire song with a three-part chorus, the album's finale, the ghosts are only howling in the distance. We are already too far away for anything to happen to us. Catharina sums up: "When Howl appeared on the scene during songwriting, I immediately thought of Nancy Sinatra's Bang Bang, he shot me. Howl is just as pure, longing, sad, but what's new is that it makes you dream of a better future at the same time.

Aha. Okay. Let's Surf The Planet. was recorded live on February 18, 2023, is accompanied by a video documentary by Hamburg videographer Marie Krahl and will of course celebrate its premiere at the Future Echoes Showcase Festival 24 on the day of release.