Who: Florian Sczesny
Florian Sczesny is an artist & songwriter. And yet, he is not. For twenty years, he has answered the same question over and over again: “Can one make a living from it?” The questioners look at him with quiet pity, as if awaiting a confession, and he, in turn, responds dutifully, “Yes, but…” Always this but. An insurmountable obstacle, following him like a shadow, restraining him and yet driving him forward.
His music—what is it?
A trembling between freedom and inertia, between the urge to move and the fear of stepping into the void. It is the pounding of the heart, the murmur of static, an unbearable waiting for something that may come—or may not. He preserves moments that mean everything—and others that mean nothing, yet must still be endured.
His path?
An incomplete ledger, a table in which every row is filled, yet nothing is explained. A composer for BMG Rights Management. Studies in economics. A teacher—because, as they say, it provides security. But what is security? The pandemic arrives and takes it from him. Then a flood, as if loss were not already complete. Why me? he might ask, but he does not. He submits. And continues.
He plays concerts, many, more than 500.
The borders blur—Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, China. With Lake Cisco, EMMA6, and other projects, he steps onto stages, sometimes foreign, sometimes familiar. WDR Rockpalast? He was there. Freya Ridings, Giant Rooks, Meg Mac, Petal, Gloria, The Franklin Electric? Shared stages, fleeting moments. But what remains? The applause fades.
Beyond music, there is order, structure.
He loves tables. Perhaps the only musician who would admit such a thing. In columns and numbers, he seeks the control that life denies him. He is drawn to technology, but not as a market, not as capital. He wants to understand, not to exploit. He resists dependencies, fights systems that remain unseen—until one can no longer exist without them.
And yet: He establishes an event agency.
Why? Perhaps to impose structure upon himself. Perhaps because another attempt is always preferable to final failure. Perhaps simply because he must go on. An anti-addiction project. Another system to catch him before he falls. But the music remains. Unaltered, unguarded, without protection.
His new album: Songs to Record Before I Die.
The title is not an allusion but a statement of fact. Eight self-produced, acoustic guitar-driven songs about dementia, divorce, loneliness. About the attempt to shape life into a form that does not break. And yet he knows: There is no form that truly holds life.