Entertainment For The Braindead

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‘Eftb prepares for return’ is what you can read on her official website. Her voice is fragile and captivating, her songs tell stories of friendship and failure, of discovering the world… You will find yourself humming her melodies days after hearing them.
Her name is Julia Kotowski and she is Entertainment For The Braindead. This creative singer-songwriter from Germany is currently on tour so make sure to catch her live. I hope you will like her as much as I do.

Which ice cream flavor(s) do you like the most?

Nothing beats the classics: Chocolate and/or vanilla on the milk side. Lemon on the fruit side.

What is your last or upcoming project about?

Actually there are several upcoming projects…The one I’m currently working on most is once again born from a love to a newly discovered instrument: the bandola. Which is a funny pear-shaped Venezuelan folk instrument with four strings and a wonderfully mellow sound.
After a depressingly uninspired winter a friend gave me this weird instrument as a gift and all of a sudden my muse was back and I could write songs again. Thematically it’s mostly my inner monologues of the last few weeks, things that had to be digested. As always.

How do you make music? Any specific workflow or methods?

That varies a lot.. or rather it changed drastically since I recently switched from pure homerecording to using a studio for large parts of the recording process. I still do everything by myself, but whereas writing, recording and arranging used to be one whole, integrated process for a long time, it is now more stretched and separated.
Also, I try different approaches, writing songs with one specific instrument, writing songs while recording, writing songs in some kind of live-setup with the loop-sampler…The only thing that remains constant is that always the musical idea comes first and then the words that have to fit it. Somehow.

How do you make a living?

Well… I’m an aspiring visual media whore. I study media arts and do some freelance work in that field on the side. Need a storyboarder? A Photoshop geek? A procrastination coach? Call me!

How do you feel about people sharing your music?

It doesn’t cease to amaze me, actually. When everything started back in 2008 it totally hit me by surprise that there were people actually willingly listening to what I did. It’s funny to suddenly find yourself having an audience. And the fact that it’s even being passed on to others…
Not only that it’s flattering in itself, it also brought me some amazing journeys and even some most wonderful new friends. So I guess if I’d have to sum up my feelings in one word it would be something like gratitude.

Who was your musical hero[in]s when you were a kid?

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi. (Seen from my peers’ point of view, I was a very uncool kid.)

What musical genre do you love but would never make yourself?

Actually if I had the neccessary skills there’d be nothing I wouldn’t at least wanna try. One thing though that I currently love a lot but have absolutely no knowlegde in is cool electronic music for example. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t wanna dabble with it if I could.
Or the kind of weird experimental rock shit that the Liars do, for example. I dig it, but my musical ideas are never sick enough to even get close to it. Generally, all that is immensely loud and energetic and involves a lot of screaming and heavy distortion…post-hardcore stuff…as a teenager I always dreamt of having a band like that but honestly it’s very very unlikely to ever happen.

Which artists are you following at the moment?

I’m not actively ‘following’ anyone at the moment in any way that goes beyond knowing when my all-time favourites come up with something new. It is weird, when I think of it… a few years back I was listening to music 24/7… these days I like silence. A lot. Space to think and to hear my own thoughts.
The upside to that is that while I used to live my life within the songs of others, I managed to find my own language instead of only quoting. The downside to that is that I don’t dive as much into things as I used to and sometimes I really miss that. So.. yeah, I’m not really following anyone. But I try to keep my ears and eyes open.



download track Wastelands