Limpe Fuchs - Amor
LP, Play Loud! Limited Edition, Germany 2024 Genre: Jazz Style: Avant-garde Jazz
Die Liebe - Something- Haiku - Trommeln - Verliebte Autos Im Wald (Text von Augusta Laar) - Amor 5:24
Gesang zu textimprovisationen von Hilde Domin, Gertrude Stein, Ulrike Stoltz, H.C. Artmann, Augusta Laar, Giordano Bruno.
Limited to 300 copies.

When asked about the title of her new record, “Amor”, Limpe bluntly responded, “because it’s everything”. Being a Beatles fan from the very beginning, she’s well aware that “all you need is love”, but there’s more to her sentiment than a corny pun. On the one hand, she’s more than half a century into her musical career, and describes the relationship towards her instruments in terms of an ongoing and deepening love affair. “Be it my piano, my viola or my percussion instruments, they’re all far more than just wooden caskets, they’re living entities, they need to be tended and cared for, they’re resonating with me and when engaging with them while playing I respond to their momentary being – and they alter my body and soul all the same.”

So, it’s about time for a love letter to her percussion instruments and the act of drumming and listening to her drums, which can be heard as “Trommeln” on the second to last track on “Amor”. We also get to learn about “Verliebte Autos im Wald” – a poem by Augusta Laar, Limpe recites during the closing track to “Amor”. What may come across as a goofy nursery rhyme at first is indeed testament to Limpe’s longstanding animistic beliefs, her imagination towards everything around her. “It may sound wonky, but it’s as simple as it’s true and it’s important to love yourself and everything around you – at least I try to do so the best I can, and sometimes I fail, sure.”

And, again, if you think about it, it’s not much of a surprise, she’s singing about cars, the vehicles that since decades get her and her instruments from gig to gig, all across Europe. But it’s not all just about the material world around her, of course. So, on the other hand and for the most part, “Amor” reflects on love as an interpersonal and spiritual experience. Drawing inspiration from such different authors as Giordano Bruno, Hilde Domin and Serge Kahili King, “Amor” is a record of compositions one could almost call “songs” although they’re far from being performed in a conventional way.

It is also Limpe Fuchs’ most openly insightful and vulnerable record to date. As curious as ever, in her light-hearted yet thoughtful manner she explores the upsides and downsides of what it means to be loved or not loved: “At times it’s also sad, that love is the only way, but it is – at least it’s what I experienced and experience to this day.”
Holger Adam