Trip To Sanity
Oliver Koletzki: “I want to surprise my listeners”
Fresh pop and joy of celebration – Oliver Koletzki’s new sound journey. photo
© Katinka Bester/Check your head/dpa
The Berlin DJ and producer Oliver Koletzki worked with many other artists on his tenth album “Trip To Sanity”. The result is a complex work that contains many surprises.
Get in and buckle up! With his new album “Trip To Sanity”, the Berlin house producer Oliver Koletzki literally invites you on a “journey to sanity”. Along the way he hits a few musical hooks, branching off into disco, trance, indie, hip-hop or straight onto the dance floor of a techno club. Celebrating and being sensible – that’s not mutually exclusive for Koletzki, who turns 50 next year.
“I want to surprise my listeners, that’s important to me,” he says Artist on the vision for his tenth album. After his previous work “Made of Wood” had a clearly defined, organic and calm sound direction, “Trip to Sanity” is more like a carousel of tones and feelings. The head of the Stil vor Talent label, on which the album is also released, wanted above all to use poppier sounds and real instruments such as guitars again, he says.
Greats of the electronic dance music scene
Koletzki creates a housey pop track with “Stay Until The Light”, to which singer Talmirage lends his voice. The two musicians met by chance at the US festival Burning Man. Koletzki’s label colleague Niko Schwind is also involved in the production – alongside Fritz Kalkbrenner, Andhim and Hidden Empire, he is not the only well-known figure from the electronic dance music scene on the record.
The light, groovy and poppy sounds are replaced by driving techno towards the middle of the album, such as “Mind Games” or “Space Papi”. What’s new for Koletzki is the trip to Goa, which he uses for “Mantra For Bora”. The wild ride comes to rest with cool spoken vocals on “Sonne rises”, deconstructed reggae sounds on “Midnight Reggae” and the bittersweet, floating “Don’t Ever Wake Me Up”, sung by Marlena Dae.
Koletzki, who was born in Braunschweig and has lived in Berlin for many years, also worked on the album with young, lesser-known artists such as Natascha Polké and Malou. “I’ve always been a fan of discovering new artists and featuring new artists that I think have talent,” he explains.
It is important to him to have a likeable personality, which is why he also checks how someone presents themselves on social media. “I don’t want to make tracks with someone who sprays champagne bottles around in Ibiza,” is his comment.
Real life
The DJ himself no longer drinks alcohol. “The “Trip To Sanity” from the album actually reflects my real life,” he explains and pleads for people to pay more attention to their own health: “I love life. And even though it took me a long time to behave accordingly, I want to do that now.”
With the new album, Koletzki is going on a live tour from November, which he is almost euphorically looking forward to. “I’m really looking forward to the tour,” he says. He will play the electric piano and be on stage with his sound engineer, who plays the guitar. “Normally I go to the club, open a Coke, insert the USB stick and after two hours I’m back in the hotel bed. It’s all much more complicated now.”