»I am a classical piano pensioner,« explains Marie Klock in an interview on a park bench in the garden of Berlin’s Silent Greens. Her musical socialisation began in her childhood, but not by her own choice. It took years for her to realise that the classical world was too small for her. Marie Klock knew she had to let her hair down. She hasn’t touched a piano for years.
Damien Est Vivant
While studying in Berlin, she played in a synth-pop band. But it wasn’t until she switched from teaching piano to literature that she began to enjoy playing music again. Not only did she discover her passion for synthesizers, but also something much more important: her own voice. During a performance at the Schokoladen, she spontaneously tried to sing one of her own songs and realised: »Singing my own lyrics in front of people—that’s really cool«. This powerful experience was the catalyst for her own songs and the albums that followed.
»There he suddenly stood with his round belly and his rugged face, like the statues on Easter Island, and shouted lyrics.«
Marie Klock
Her latest and very emotional release is called »Damien Est Vivant«. The album is a tribute to the late poet Damien Schultz. Meeting Damien—whom she describes as an artistic soul mate and a very close friend—marked another turning point in her life. They met for the first time at a noise concert. Klock had had no previous contact with noise. So she was all the more surprised when Damien appeared on stage: »There he suddenly stood with his round belly and his rugged face, like the statues on Easter Island, and shouted lyrics.«
Grotesque, dirty poetry
When asked what exactly it was that captivated her, she explains with great admiration: »Damien leads you into a kind of trance through repetition. You have the feeling that you have a person in front of you who uses language as a tool to scratch something open inside you. It’s a psychoanalytical experience. It’s like magic, like a magic formula. And somehow this person is suddenly in your soul, rummaging around, and you feel emotions you didn’t know you had«. His use of the French language matched her understanding of poetry.
»It feels so good to scream. Normal life never gives me the chance to do that.« Marie Klock
Marie Klock
Their shared dream of creating an album remained alive despite his sudden death, and she decided to keep his spirit alive with the album »Damien Est Vivant«. Within a week, in a mixture of grief and determination, she began to assemble Damien’s poetry and her recordings into an album that would reflect not only Damien’s legacy but also her own artistic journey. Marie Klock has a special relationship with the third track on the album, »Boule Et Bill«. She explains that it is the only song that she and Damien composed and recorded together three years ago.
The album, which she affectionately refers to several times as the »Damien Thing«, is an interplay of violent, grotesque and dirty French lyrics. She describes the feeling she gets when playing the album live as one of liberation. It is an expression of emotions she has suppressed all her life: »It feels so good to scream. Normal life never gives me the chance to do that. I’m a very polite person and by nature rather reserved, quiet and docile. That’s how I was brought up—don’t talk, don’t speak your mind. Now it feels good to trust in my own voice and feelings, even if it is uncomfortable.«
