MAIKA - this is the name of the new band around singer Maika Küster, who impresses with her catchy and sophisticated songs. Maika Küster is known for the formation "Der weise Panda" as well as various solo, duo and trio projects. Her pieces always form a continuous flow, nestle ballad-like, sometimes come up rocky and always remain intuitive and unstrained even in many surprising melodic turns.
Maika Küster's voice is at times fragile and melancholic, but at other times energetic and powerful, always right in the middle of the emotional states that the respective piece depicts. In the band, attention is paid to equal band chemistry. That is also noticeable. The lyrics, which partly unfold in spoken word aesthetics, do the rest with their sometimes enigmatic metaphors. The lyrics are often about death and transience. But also about lust and sensuality.
MAIKA is not spiritual. She is too left-wing for that and too close to Rosa Luxemburg... And yet, the concerts are always a search for moments that want to counter the inevitability of the end with something. Moments in which the players and listeners may feel briefly confirmed that life was and is worth the effort again and again.
A friend of Maika's once said after a concert that she could bring loved ones back from the world of the dead with her music. The epic arc that the songs span invites you to take an all-embracing bath in pure sound, which tends to charge itself to bursting point and then gives you air to breathe again and propels you forward like a breath of fresh air. A bit obscure and threatening, but still so warm that you don't want it to stop.
Line Up: Maika Küster - vocals/synth | Anthony Greminger - drums | Jan Krause - guitar | Yannik Tiemann - double bass | Benedikt Ter Braak - piano/synth
Maika Küster – vocals, synth
Anthony Greminger – drums
Jan Krause – guitar
Yannik Tiemann – double bass
Benedikt Ter Braak – piano, synth