Of journeys and other longings (2019)

Yunger

Folk, Singer-Songwriter

“I got something for y’all faithful out there.” Those words at the start of “Someday I’ll be Saturday night” would perfectly apply to this folk record by Yunger, loaded with positivity.

Felix Junger comes from the Jazz scene and found this musical direction for his solo project. Like his tourbuddy The Boy I Used To Be he recorded and mixed all instruments on his own in his room. Only for the trumpet and the flugelhorn he had help from Count Minus, with whom he plays in Stellaccord. As producer he worked with Lukas Mantsch and the Mastering did Konstantin Davy at Downfall Studio.

The eleven song strong disc comes with a cover playing with forms, squares with pictures of streets, beaches and sunsets and a diamond in the middle with an illustration. The first title “Run away with me” is a great entrance and delivers the first reference with the opening riff to “Breaking The Girl”. It also contains the main topics travelling, freedom and love, accompanied by tambourine and accordion. The same instruments can be heard in the next travel story, that got more of the famous Eddie Vedder and Ice Age Soundtrack, while number three reminds of 2Pac songs of Better Dayz.

“Pocket Poetry” features Stella on second vocals and comes with a beautiful solo while both voices can be heard in the back. Not about the wonderwall nor the wonderworld but the wonderland is “Chocolate Beer And Roses”, speaking of exchange and gratitude. It also shows the fingerpicking quality of Yunger as well as the following instrumental, a Ratzenbeck tune with Punk touch. The attitude comes down in “Every Step” too, a fast driven political statement featuring the trumpet and talking straight.

Right after, it is perplexing how soft the voice can be again, singing the wonderful line “So put a dagger through my heart to kill the agony inside.” – “Farewell” is a personal highlight. It gets even softer before the first single goes bit into the Irish Punk direction again but with the backing melody also even reminding of Elvis’ “In The Ghetto”. As final, another hopeful song with mandolin and wind instruments leave the listener with positive feelings.

Yunger presents a collection of catchy songs in a coherent order going fast and slow and loud and quiet but always in a good mood. He positions himself in the young generation of Viennese folk artists like Blinded By Stardust and Amber Road, and can be seen next time at the Gürtel Connection in the Weberknecht.