Stefanie Schrank »Forma« | View from space

It's well known that commercial success has always been in a perceptible disproportion to artistic relevance. And yet, such an incongruity as in the case of pioneering artist Stefanie Schrank is sometimes puzzling, as she is often overlooked in public discourse. Yet a sensitive sense of sound aesthetics and outstanding songwriting rarely coincide as closely as in her music.

But perhaps everything will change now: With "Forma," the singer and bassist of the Cologne indie-pop group Locas in Love delivers her second album after her outstanding solo debut "Unter der Haut eine überhitzte Fabrik" (2019) – and once again gives the public a good reason to finally listen to her music. Like its predecessor, she recorded "Forma" herself in her studio – a place that can easily be imagined as a kind of laboratory in which, in an endless experimental loop of preparation, execution, observation, and analysis, that rare artifact that one usually calls a good pop song emerges piece by piece. And there are ten of them on the album.

The opener, "Forma," with its tense, multi-layered synth intro, already makes it clear that Schrank understands dramaturgy. Much like the opening pages of a good book, the song's opening leaves you with no choice: you listen, spellbound. After just under three minutes, her voice finally makes its way from offstage to the foreground: "Form, formation, transformation, sometimes we miss where we are from," she sings. The poetry of such lines isn't limited to their genuine content, but only grows to true greatness through Schrank's inimitable delivery.

The remaining nine songs also move in predominantly quiet sonic realms. As was the case five years ago, Schrank oscillates somewhere between Kraftwerk and Ulla Meinecke, retro-futuristic sound elements, and touching introspection. The fact that the press release published alongside the album cites French electro chanteuse Saho De Sagazan—who has since risen to international pop stardom—as a reference is therefore far more than just a marketing ploy.

Because, similar to Sagazan's, the music on "Forma" is stripped down to the essentials, not a single note superfluous. Songs like "Crossfade," "La Boum," or the synth-pop hit "Shapeshifter" exude an almost ghostly calm—as if Schrank were floating somewhere up in space, looking down on us little earthlings. From up there, she sings lines like, "No, we don't fear the night / No, we don't fear the morning." For the duration of the album, you begin to wonder: Why should you?

And who knows: Perhaps the serenity inherent in their music will also transform, in microscopic doses, into their sometimes turbulent everyday lives—but that's speculation. What is certain, however, is that "Forma" is already a candidate for Album of the Year 2025.

Stefanie Schrank: »Forma« (State Act)