The album here now at hand has been in work for more than a year. Just enough time for Sebastian Damerius aka ComixXx to bring in fourteen tracks which complete in its build up his long-awaited solo album. For this cause he invited several guests to his Berlin based studio. Maybe first and foremost Alex Barck, who has been backing him up throughout all of the production process with his enormous experience and his beyond any doubt reliable sense of style. It has been Barck, too, how discovered the 15-year old singer Mirna in the school choir of his daughter and brought her to ComixXx’ studio to record her self-penned “Can U Feel?”. That’s also already the album’s first hit. More than just a brief feature on the album enjoys Knixx. The long lasting friendship between the Berlin based singer and ComixXx resulted already in several mutual productions over the last few years. This time half of all the songs on “The Great Escape” are contributed by Dominik “Knixx” Wirth. For instance the ballad “Love Is Overrated”, the sinister, badass beats-driven “Up In The Shell”, the Berlin homage “BLN” and of course the title track “The Great Escape”. All of them perfect shaped pop gems which should, no, have to get airplay on every decent radio station in this world. Also “Miss You” with its Spoken Words by Babet Mader the album’s guiding theme comes into effect: “The Great Escape” tells the story of the melancholic farewell of a great love, the emergence into a new stage of life and the confidence in the things to come. “Spread Your Love” is a comforter in this field: Peter Folk’s marvellous voice smoothens across the bone-dry polyrhythmic drum programming until the track uprises to stunning heights with its acid-like synth chords. A further sure-shot off this album. The very same Peter Folk can also be heard on the closing track of the album, “Rock Bottom Riser”, a brilliant cover version off Bill Callahan’s 2005 album “A River Ain’t Too Much To Love”. The two instrumentals “Dark Spring Break” and “Short Memories” act as short intermezzos between all these guest appearances without being less thrilling or even being shy of getting accused of acting as mere fillers. Quite the contrary so. ComixXx’ gift for restrained, beatific, atrabilious productions are displayed on these two tracks to the fullest. The best example for his craft though is “Broken Connection” with British singer and Sonar Kollektiv associate Pete Josef. His fragile voice baths in a sea full of tears, fights pitifully against memories and let-downs to eventually put a new complexion on all future aspects yet again. This is plainly and simply just masterfully designed and narrated. This is pop music of 2015. This is one of the albums of the year.
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