"Oben" LP by Hi! Spencer

Appearing on colored, limited Vinyl (Blue - Curacao, 500 Units)

Hi! Spencer, suddenly light as a cloud? The album cover and title suggest so. But don't worry! 'We still make terribly melancholic songs,' says the band, which traditionally doesn't fit into any category but can be found somewhere between indie, pop, rock, and punk. And yet, there's a twist in 'upstairs' that is new for the people of Osnabrück: The songs don't stay where they begin, they don't dig deeper into the feeling - instead, they show solutions and outlooks. And so 'upstairs' seamlessly follows the last album 'memori', because as it said so beautifully there, 'But it can work, if you start twisting the perspective.' Taking a different view, accepting a situation as it is - that is a central theme in the new Hi! Spencer songs.

The interplay of being up, staying up, and occasionally falling down again is powerfully expressed by lead singer Sven Bensmann. And the knowledge that there is no universally good time, there is only accepting the fact that at some point, you find a way to deal with your issues. And by doing so, you stay on top. It's not the circumstances that change - it's the perspective: 'It hurts differently because now I understand...' ('Vermissen'). In 'upstairs', it's also about preserving the good and the certainty that you can and will drift away from it from time to time. And, as in songs like 'Nebel' or 'Juno', that others can also lift you out of a low point - and therefore, it's always worth celebrating the good!

In line with this, the artwork of the record features a group photo of the five band members for the first time. The central element on the cover, as well as on the merchandise and more, is the cloud - because hardly anything is higher 'upstairs'. Clouds are light. They float. They are bright, often transparent. And yet, they can obscure our view and hang heavy with rain in the sky. They disappear, reform. They drift away. They dissolve. They can be anything.