Dub innovator and visionary master of reggae Lee “Scratch” Perry is set to have his final work released.
King Perry will be released February 2024
Beatportal Cover Story: Kollektiv Turmstrasse
Music means a lot of things to a lot of people. It’s escapism, it’s comfort, it’s joy. For Nico Plagemann, it’s even more than that. “Music truly saved my life,” he says as a warm, bright sun dazzles our view of him. He is sitting outside, sunglasses on, as the sound of his daughter playing in the background drifts in and out of earshot. He has recently moved to Southern Spain though will not join the family full-time until after his current run of album tour dates.
“My whole life makes sense right now,” he explains. “I’m so thankful that music gives me the chance to use the strength of this condition I have to make art. I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t find this way to be creative. Maybe I’d have lost everything and would be living under the bridge.”
Over the next few minutes, this veteran German producer and live act talks of a lifelong sense of dissatisfaction with himself, of “never feeling good enough” and not being able to handle “simple things like being on time, being organised.” He is recalling the darkest days of the last few years and, as was the case for so many people, describes how the Covid pandemic intensified his troubles. “I got crazy and depressed. What the fuck happened?”
