“hypnotized culture”   arose completely “accidentally”, reports Wolfram. “One day, two archive tracks from different projects that had absolutely nothing to do with each other ran unintentionally at the same time. I suddenly heard a strange mixture of beat, bass and Alisa’s voice, which didn’t fit the rhythm at first, but created an exciting atmosphere. Thus the basic idea for Hypnotized Culture was born.”

The lyrics of the song were penned by Alan Watts in 1966, a British philosopher.

Thematically, Alisa summarizes the text as follows:

“Our western society has descended into a kind of ‘hypnosis’. By that I mean that we are so strongly defined by systems and thought constructs that we miss the only existing reality, namely the present moment, and live more or less exclusively in the future/past and thus in our thoughts, without really being present.

With the help of words, numbers and ideas we try to understand what life is, but the mind, due to its limitations, is not able to do this.

Alan Watts describes this phenomenon incredibly well in his lyrics and makes it tangible without accusing. I find that fascinating.”

The music video was created shortly afterwards in cooperation with the FilmYardArt film team and the dancers Geraldine Rosteius and Eric Jäger.

Let yourself be carried away into a world full of magic, sensuality and presence.

Alisa Berlin:

Growing up in a small village on the edge of the Black Forest, Alisa has been on stage since she was a child, along with her sister and her two cousins.

“At any family gathering, our performances – a mix of music, acrobatics and little theatrical sketches – were always the highlight and people loved it.”

Already here Alisa felt an indescribable freedom in artistic expression and a direct connection to the audience on a deep, honest level.

“The love of music was also strongly influenced by my parents. Pink Floyd and the Stones played on dad’s turntable while my mom danced to Goran Bregovic or rhythmic world music. I can still remember that I was always recording my own compositions with an old tape recorder or reciting some lyrics.” like Alisa.

The young actress describes the music as a boundless and at the same time deeply secure space, outside of judgement, pressure or expectation, in which she feels completely free.

Wolfram Burgtorf:

When I was about 6 years old I had the old piano that my mother and her twobrothers had already learned, discovered in my grandfather’s room.I could sometimes retire there for a period of time andbegan, on this hopelessly out of tune but euphonious instrument,to create my own musical world.

I listened and played sequences, intervals, chords and kept repeating.I created a musical space in which I felt security and joy.That didn’t let go of me for the rest of my life and I kept looking for the feeling.

This is how I would describe my approach to music and composition.

I learned guitar, trumpet and bass, learned tabla and finally discovered film music. The starting point was always the old piano, but now it has become the bass and computer with which I create this musical space again and again.

Paco Saval

‘Hypnotized Culture’ is the result of a new form of composing that I discovered through my years of collaboration with Wolfram. As a songwriter, I have long learned, arranged and written music in a conventional way. I am very happy to have gained a well-founded insight into the classical architecture of music.

The improvisations that we have developed in the studio in recent years have opened up new ways of making music for me, which I now appreciate just as much as the traditional ones. That’s how I got a completely new feeling for music that doesn’t need prefabricated structures.

I’ve been playing the piano since an early age, and I’m very grateful for the many experiences I’ve had as a musician, producer and composer on stage and in the studio; Experiences that help me today, with my fellow musicians in the studio, to create songs and musical collages from spontaneous improvisations and jams that did not exist minutes before.