Jim Kroft
Jim Kroft releases his debut album ‘Between The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea’ on May 3rd, the record features more tracks of folk tinged country with the likes of Johnny Cash bubbling around the edges.
Raised in the highlands of Scotland and immigrating to Berlin for inspiration, Jim Kroft, with nowhere to stay on arrival, was given shelter in an abandoned building by the Tacheles Arts Community - a cabal of artists and squatters stationed in the heart of the East Side.
There in the freezing cold, and feeling like an Übermensch fallen from grace `Between the Devil & the Deep Blue Sea´ was written, inspired by a young man’s effort to grow up sane in a bonkers world.
After making friends with fellow Berliner Gordon Raphael (The Strokes), Gordon offered Jim the use of his East London Urchin Studios (Fyfe Dangerfield) to work with Adam Ficek producers Matt Ingram and Dan Cox.
Inspired by Berlin’s creative vitality and ‘anything can happen’ vibe, the album became a reflection of his new life - of endless nights, strange bohemian characters and the quizzical bemusement of a Brit in Berlin.
Ingram´s production lent a Beatles hint to Jim´s chord changes (as seen in ‘Tales of the Dark Arts’) while ‘Guess That´s What the Gods Say’ is a young songwriters attempt to modernize the stomping rhythms of Johnny Cash.
The songs touch upon many themes. Finding himself living like the protagonists in Colin Wilson´s 1956 book The Outsider, Jim went to stay with the old luminary whose insight inspired the song ‘Falling Apart’
On the other hand Ragdoll deals with the experience of relocation and physically moving somewhere new, while ‘The Great Doomsday Story’ was written after meeting the father of the Green Movement James Lovelock (Gaia Theory) in his Devon home.
The record was picked up by London label Sidewalk 7. The life-affirming optimism of Jim´s album can be heard in first single ‘One Sees the Sun’ (released April 4th), which has already been play listed in the USA and Germany.
Still living in Berlin Jim says: ‘There is an acceptance of all types of people here. It is a cultural hub of artistic creativity, which harks back to its heyday in the 1920´s, and this spirit is reflected in the songs’.