Lilabungalow

Allgemeine Informationen

A Pleasant Disappointment

Anyone who values loyalty and stylistic consistency will be disappointed with this band in the most pleasant way. LILABUNGALOW is musical self-indulgence. Multi-instrumentalist Patrick Föllmer is the center of a loose cluster of talented musicians, cruising around with LILABUNGALOW, living in it and building on it.

The lightness of a weekend house in the countryside (“lila” is German for purple) is indeed the inspiration for the joint work of the band. No obligations, no master plan, always in search of a common architectural vision for their LILABUNGALOW. Song-sketches are changing hands, ripening a while until their musicality is understood and they can be finished. During this process the band resembles more a caravan in motion than a standing bungalow. Patrick Föllmer doesn’t pussyfoot around with his musical concept: the songs belong on stages and the music demands to happen in front of crowds. To handle an instrument in a professional way is one thing, simultaneously delivering slinky dance moves are entirely another.

Not only the lineup changes, but the whole band concept for LILABUNGALOW: Whether as Big Band, quintet or just with laptop, drums and vocals – Föllmer’s voice with its incredible range pulls together adaptions, which are inspired by nothing else than the naive desire to create music. This passion for entertainment is palpable, when Föllmer wearing a muscle shirt sings and starts playing trumpet or guitar right between verse and chorus – being the band in the band.

The result is pop with a false bottom. Conventional stereotypes and listening habits are cited, accelerated, reversed and reanimated. Of course you can call that Electro Indie, or more poetically, a bouquet of flowers, but in the end there will be someone saying: “Only Goulash tastes the best!” What really happens: Somewhere from shimmering electropop, driving funk pearls and a demanding electric guitar Föllmer is performing texts about the great universals of life: men, women, to live and let live.

Without ironic distance he admits that making music is just about having a stage for conversations about life in general and it’s specific – and sometimes also explicit – issues. Föllmer exercises the power of musicians: Being allowed to do on stage nearly everything, but leaving the audience in doubt as to what is proposed and what is improvised. Depending on his mood announcements become games with the audience, with idioms and his split personalities – Who dutifully disappear, when the studied music teacher (!) appears changed and charming at the merch booth.

In September 2012, the big failure of the assembled German music industry – to finally come along with an official LILABUNGALOW release – will be corrected. The self-titled debut album features 12 songs and is not a lifeless model, but a projection at a scale of 1:1. The musicians and the producing studio Zodiaque (Berlin) succeeded in preserving the face muscle twitching, dynamism and sometimes anarchic potential of LILABUNGALOW so that the songs are not inferior to the live impression.