Forgotten Stars the bottomline

• 1 Stones 06:34
• 2 Hades 06:18
• 3 Iris Luminaris 06:23
• 4 Father 03:11
• 5 Uranus 05:34
• 6 Forgotten Stars 05:32
• 7 Borders 04:42
• 8 Eclipse 02:52
• 9 Farce 05:39
• 10 Wicked 07:36
• Total Runtime 54:21

Info for Forgotten Stars

In 2016 Franzis Lating founded the band "the bottomline", consisting of drummer and sound developer Johannes Elia Nuß and Franzis Lating herself; pianist, singer, composer and lyricist. Influenced by very different genres, they found a common love in jazz and in the desire to create something new that does not have to measure itself against the existing.

"Forgotten Stars" is an album that musically meanders between jazz, classical, blues and the electronic influence of trip-hop. Spherical carpets of synthesizers lie beneath the melancholic to effervescent piano, which, however, always knows how to dissolve harmonically into yearning optimism and leave the beat in serenity. The drumming playfully envelops the sound-intensive adventures, but also knows how to control and break them again and again in a targeted manner. The voice sings in a bluesy yet powerful timbre about the absurdities of the human psyche and its forms of expression. What moves us humans, what is our drive in life? What holds the world together at its core and where do we go when we die? Why are we almost addicted to being able to clearly identify ourselves and why is it so tempting to ignore unpleasant circumstances? Where does all that we forget go?

"Forgotten Stars" critically examines geopolitical world events and expressions of power and addresses the longing for solutions.

"With the flair of a time in the 70s when people thought they could establish their own trend-setting musical style out of neo-classical, jazz, artpop and prog rock, but largely unable to be concretely categorised, the duo The Bottom Line, consisting of Franzis Lating and Johannes Elia Nuß, work their way through a collection of epically elaborated musical dramas with this collaboration, in which the cosmic, the mythological and the earthly (according to the bio) are condensed into an esoterically tinged mixture. Just because Franzis as singer and keyboarder and Johannes as drummer don't get musically involved in a clear mixture and everything is open to one's own interpretation in terms of content anyway, the album remains inconcrete in a positive sense. On the other hand, it says in the bio that the music should help to find orientation and support. This may apply more to the two protagonists, for whom the joint production of the album must have been a kind of voyage of discovery. For the listener, this orientation is not necessarily obvious, because the tenor of the album ranges atmospherically from the angry to the desolate. Nevertheless, it has become a fascinating soundtrack that somehow reflects the unsteadiness of our times". (Ullrich Maurer)

Franzis Lating, piano, vocals, Fender Rhodes, synthesizers, percussion
Johannes Elia Nuss, drums, synthesizers, percussion, programming

the bottomline
founded in 2017, is a multi-genre music project known for its captivating "melancholic-sweet-karthatic" sound. Franzis Lating (p, voc, synth) and Johannes Elia Nuß (dr, synth) draw on supposedly opposing musical traditions and combine them with great experimentation to create a "highly individual, novel" and "cinematic" experience that morphs somewhere between jazz, classical and electronic music. Lyrical figures, polyrhythmic overlays, unusual song structures and the artistic expression of Franzis' voice form the essence of their distinctive compositions. The content is about liberation, about the self-empowerment of the outcast - it is about bringing the themes into the resonating space of society, giving a musical voice to the unheard.

Booklet for Forgotten Stars