After his first five releases which have been played on radios stations, various broadcasts, podcasts and YouTube channels all over the world, Berlin-based composer Rettward von Doernberg has just released his sixth single, “Follow the Money”. Again, he devotes himself to a political topic.
“As I started working on ‘Follow the Money’.” von Doernberg recalls “I thought that the Ukrainian war would certainly be over by the time I released it. Now, years later, in summer 2024, it seems more likely that this proxy war between the USA and Russia will continue to affect European citizens for many years to come. The continued warmongering I’ve observed in other European countries suggests that there are plans that intend to soon waste the lives of more European citizens besides Ukrainians and Russians.”
Von Doernberg continues: “Whenever human actions make no sense, I ask myself who benefits from it? Following the money trail back to its source often reveals surprising things. In a broader sense, this piece is about corruption – i.e., those who benefit and those who pay. And in a narrower sense, it’s about the big business of war.”
The COVID-19 crisis provided the impetus, just like it did for the previous release “A Military Base.” When people talk about corruption, they usually think first of politicians. However, the COVID-19 crisis has shown that vast corruption can only function if many people profit from it – and thus also become corrupted themselves.”
By von Doernberg: “The catastrophic politics of the COVID-19 crisis would never have been tolerated for so long if not almost every citizen had gotten something out of it. For example, I remember how everyone tried to grab as much money from the state as possible. It was a mad dash to see who quickly could get their hands on the most. Where all that money came from didn’t seem to concern anyone. Ultimately, taking the step into corruption is just a small one, and few can resist its temptation.”
THE MUSIC
Initially everything came easily but Von Doernberg soon encountered difficulties during the process of creating the music: “90% of this piece was created during a train ride. After that, I then lost my project folder. Luckily, I still had an audio file of the draft. With that, I rebuilt the track. Unfortunately, I was missing the rather unusual synthesizer patches from this track (all come from “Absynth”). By pure luck, I found these after searching for a long time as part of a template file from my old music software.”
As with the previous release, von Doernberg had backup on bass: “I was able to bring back bassiste extraordinaire Helge Marx again for this project. Besides an incredibly groovy bass track, he sent me two additional bass ideas which I used both and they gave the song another interesting direction.”
And in a first for Von Doernberg and his music, the sound of “Follow the Money” moved towards pop and mainstream. “Overall, working on ‘Follow the Money’ was very fulfilling and went quickly forward. The mix and master are relatively bright and dense compared to my other tracks, but I think it fits well with this one.”
THE VIDEO
There is also a video for ‘Follow the Money’. “It’s actually turned out just as I had imagined beforehand. The visual aspect has become incredibly important for me lately, especially in combination with music. There is hardly a more direct way to reach someone.”
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