AMEN

“The sixth album…?” Konstantin Gropper mulls over the words carefully as he contemplates the imminent release of AMEN, his latest full-length release as GET WELL SOON. “It’s the pandemic album, of course!” His isn’t the first, and it won’t be the last, but AMEN – much of it written and recorded since the world was forced to shut down in his private basement and an isolated holiday home among the vineyards of Germany’s Rhineland-Palatinate region –– takes its responsibilities seriously. Many artists, of course, used the time to adopt new musical approaches or dig deep into themselves, but Gropper found this self-analysis also led him to pondering the bigger social questions that the last two years – and the accompanying isolation – have provoked: the pros and cons of individualism, the good and bad that binds and divides us, the pursuit of happiness and the purpose of hope, and the wisdom of Chinese fortune cookies. He emerged with a crucial realisation, one that’s as surprising to him as it will be to others: he’s actually an optimist.

Matters like these dominate this magnificent record, but naturally in true Gropper style. AMEN crowbars in references to philosophers, novelists and therapists alongside quotes from self-help books, a treatise on tech-billionaires and allusions to some of the more extreme doctrines doing the rounds. That all of this is overseen by an imperious, anonymous AI assistant is indicative of his wry nature – “OK,” she demands at the conclusion of the album’s grandiose overture, ‘A Song For Myself’, “this needs to stop right now” – and its extravagant musical nature will delight those already familiar with the 39-year-old’s inspired work as much as his perennially witty, literate take on his themes. “I called my musical project Get Well Soon,” he reminds us drily. “You mustn’t forget the service aspect of the whole thing.”

AMEN is, nonetheless, constantly surprising: ‘This Is Your Life’ applies krautrock rhythms to sleek synthpop, ‘My Home Is My Heart’ develops into a Hi-NRG masterpiece which would give Pet Shop Boys’ ‘It’s A Sin’ a run for its money, and ‘Mantra’ concludes with luxurious dream-pop; ‘I Love Humans’ is an increasingly luxuriously orchestrated epic, ‘One For Your Workout’ offers shimmering up-tempo pop whose drums will delight those who recall Pat Benatar’s ‘Love Is A Battlefield’, and both ‘Chant And Disenchantment’ and ‘Golden Days’ pay loving tribute to the great producers of the 1960s and 1970s, among them Serge Gainsbourg and David Axelrod. The icing on the cake, though, remains one of the great voices of our time, a lavish croon imbued with a world-weary sense of bitter-sweet compassion, as comforting as an arm around the shoulder. For many of us, after the last couple of years, nothing could be more welcome.

“If there’s anything positive to be gained from this global tragedy,” Gropper says, “it’s that it’s brought truths to light. Mostly in a painful way, unfortunately, but this pandemic has nevertheless been instructive. Even in their wildest dreams, sociologists, psychologists, political scientists and ethicists could never have imagined such a case study, such an experimental set-up, for their papers, and they’ll certainly be drawing on these textbook months for a very long time to come. Questions have arisen that, in normal circumstances, would be far too melodramatic.”

What makes his songs so gripping is their multiple perspectives as they explore both others’ mindsets and his own, questioning and interrogating their rights and wrongs (or otherwise). This is particularly evident on the dramatic ‘Us Vs. Evil’, in which he comes to face with conspiracy theorists, a chorus of voices united in their varied beliefs at his side: “I call BS / You call BS / You see things that I don’t see / I can’t agree to disagree”. He addresses similar issues on ‘One For Your Workout’, which probes concepts of self-improvement, and ‘Chant And Disenchantment’, which examines the benefits of mindfulness, while ‘My Home Is My Heart’ queries the validity of currently fashionable ideas about prioritising self-identity: “Just be yourself and love yourself,” he memorably advises. “That should do the trick / Except when you’re a prick”. Even on the mournful ‘Richard, Jeff And Elon’, whose gossamer arrangement and startlingly beautiful vocals recall Damon Albarn’s finest achievements, he exhibits almost as much empathy for the titular super-wealthy moguls’ utopian dreams as, in its ambiguous final lines, contempt: “I swear by all shares I hold, every dime I earned / That we won’t return”.

There’s nothing misanthropic about AMEN, however, as ‘I Love Humans’, which addresses ideas of ‘other’, confirms, and nor has Gropper spent the last years purely gazing at his – and other people’s – navels. He’s also the composer and producer behind three seasons of the hugely successful Netflix show How To Sell Drugs Online (Fast)’s fully scored music – he’s currently working on another Netflix series, too – and provided the score for renowned German director Detlev Buck’s Christmas Crossfire (2020). Perhaps that’s why this contemplation has led him to a surprising conclusion. “After all those years of admiring the great doomsayers, from Bernhard to Cobain,” he admits,” I’ve been forced to admit I can’t help but believe in a ‘happy ending’. ‘In a crisis,’ someone clever once said, ‘man shows his true colours,’ and there you have it! I’d never have thought so, and I’m thus a little ashamed, but maybe this album represents the processing of this traumatic experience: the discovery that inside me dwells probably the most uncool impulse of all… Hope.”

AMEN finishes with ‘Accept Cookies’, a song Gropper calls “a shower of hope” into which he slips a number of familiar aphorisms. “Sometimes it’s nice to see how simple we are,” he grins. “Sometimes very little is enough for a good moment. For this reason, I have – as a gesture of family support –- eaten a few dozen Chinese fortune biscuits and processed their contents. As it happens, fortune biscuits are far better than their reputation!” Can we get an AMEN…?!