Two years after the last album "Stadt der Angst" and 16 years after the foundation of Turbostaat, "Abalonia", the sixth album of the Husum-based band, was released on January 29, 2016.
Like all big plans, this record started with a loose hunch.
It was around January 2014, when the social and political development in the Federal Republic caused Turbostaat guitarist and songwriter Marten Ebsen a bit more concern than in the years before. Pegida didn't exist yet, but boats were capsizing on the Mediterranean and many other things pointed to the current situation in this country. In any case, Ebsen was preoccupied with a variety of seemingly singular events that eventually coalesced into one strand. So
Marten talked to his Turbostaat colleagues Jan (vocals), Rollo Santos (guitar), Tobert (bass) as well as Peter (drums), and together they developed the need to describe the increasing xenophobia, other societal aberrations and the distortions of capitalism as an overall picture.
This is how the idea for the fictional story of the woman Semona, who leaves her familiar surroundings behind and sets off in search of Abalonia, was born. An imaginary place of destiny somewhere between "Game Of Thrones" and Homer's "Odyssey" and Kerouac's "On The Road". So Turbostaat design with "Abalonia" a kind of deeply rooted in the Husum mudflats, üsterlackiertes punk rock "Born To Run".
Now, of course, the five have already blown up the classic punk genre in the past. Run times over five minutes are not uncommon with them. But the consistency with which narrative and music come together on "Abalonia" is a first for the band.
After a year and a half of preparation, "Abalonia" was recorded in just five days at a historic location: Turbostaat's regular producer Moses Schneider booked Berlin's Hansa Studio, where Pult legend Peter Schmidt mixed, the spirit of David Bowie resonated and Depeche Mode also recorded their music.
Text source and more information on the event at:
https://batschkapp.tickets.de/de/events/8251-TURBOSTAAT
