OVAL SUN PATCH, Karaoke Kalk, 2023
As Golden Diskó Ship, the Berlin-based multi-instrumentalist Theresa Stroetges moves through the fringes of experimental music, but also explores the possibilities of tried and tested formulas. Her upcoming fifth album »Oval Sun Patch« is perhaps her catchiest to date. Drawing on influences from club culture and advanced electronic music, her unconventional pop sound is beat-driven, playful, atmospheric, and at times thoroughly anthemic. As an album about change, it concisely captures the multi-instrumentalist’s own artistic transformation.
ARACEAE, Karaoke Kalk, 2020
Theresa Stroetges has and always will be a traveler. Under the name Golden Diskó Ship or as a member of bands like Soft Grid or the improv collective Epiphany Now!, the Berlin-based multi-instrumentalist has continuously been moving through the fringes of experimental music, but also extensively explored the possibilities of tried and tested formulas – whether folk, rock, techno or pop. With her fourth solo album, her first for the Karaoke Kalk label, the Golden Diskó Ship is yet again venturing into unknown territory. »Araceae« is inspired by environmental changes and the eerie feelings that arise when faced with natural beauty – when everything seems perfect on the surface but something feels off underneath it all. As a whole, it is notably more focused on electronic grooves that provide the foundation for Stroetges’s poetic long-form storytelling.
IMAGINARY BOYS, Karlrecords, 2017
On her 3rd album Berlin’s GOLDEN DISKÓ SHIP enlargens her pop / experimental sound cosmos for a new component: BASS. In consequence, “Imaginary Boys” was mixed by SCHNEIDER TM and RASHAD BECKER took care of mastering and the vinyl cut.
“Imaginary Boys” sets a new landmark in the work of THERESA STROETGES alias GOLDEN DISKÓ SHIP. The album was conceived during her stay in Lisbon in the summer of 2015 where the multi-instrumentalist found plenty of inspiration in traditional and experimental music. These elements left their traces not only as field recordings but also led the classically trained musician to re-consider the use of her former main instrument viola which is more present than before. One dominant compositional element of “Imaginary Boys” is a deliberate use of time, influenced by the perception of electronic music and techno. While songs like the euphoric “Pacific Trash Vortex” or “Swarm Of Bees” come to the point without any deviation, tracks like “Sundrunk” and “Lifelike Showdown” take their time to develop tense atmospheres of psychedelic intensity. A second characteristic that is accentuated more than on her previous albums “Prehistoric Ghost Party” (Klangbad, 2012) and “Invisible Bonfire” (Spezialmaterial, 2014) is BASS as an aesthetic constant that connects the individual songs / tracks. This way GOLDEN DISKÓ SHIP’s sound cosmos, right from the beginning an open and broadly framed matter ignoring boundaries between pop and experimentation, gains a clearly audible additional depth. The choice of electronic artist SCHNEIDER TM for mixing and D&M’s studio wizard RASHAD BECKER for mastering / vinyl cut is not only a highly coherent and consequent decision but gives the seven tracks on “Imaginary Boys” the best possible finishing.
INVISIBLE BONFIRE, Spezialmaterial, 2014
Golden Diskó Ship is Theresa Stroetges, a young Berlin-based multi-instrumentalist and video artist who performs live as a one-girl orchestra.
Her music is a bewitching concoction of ethereal vocals, simple acoustic performance showing superb instrumental skill, complex layers of concrète electronics – and above all a convincing, restless experimentalism, grounded in catchy pop/indie riffs and showing a keen ear for exquisite harmonies and the organic evolution of songs.
Invisible Bonfire as a whole revels in arresting shifts, despite the strong internal coherence, with thematic and musical links between songs that present a suite of tracks, where – unusually – these tracks at times feel like conceptual suites within themselves. ‘Ninth Wave’-era Kate Bush would be embarrassed at the wealth of ideas on show here. If any comparisons are possible at all, one might imagine Ma- rumari played live by The Boredoms via The Hototogisu after a session with Sonic Youth and Felix Kubin. But this would be completely reductive and unfair.
PREHISTORIC GHOST PARTY, Klangbad, 2012
«Prehistoric Ghost Party» is the debut solo album of the young and brilliant multi-instrumentalist and video artist
golden diskó ship. After Hans-Joachim Irmler acknowledged her talent, the album was produced at the legendary Faust
studio, home of the Klangbad label. Gudrun Gut is also a golden diskó ship fan, having released a split LP/CD with
golden disko ship and Jasmina Maschina in 2010. golden diskó ship set sail in 2007 navigating through a number of self-
made releases which brought her attention from the press, including comparisons to Coco Rosie and Fourtet. She has
toured in Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, the UK, Italy, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, the USA and Australia. In
spring, golden diskó ship will present her new album by the Spree river, at the berliner Kater Holzig.
golden diskó ship a.k.a Theresa Stroetges is a Berlin composer and classically trained viola player firmly rooted in the DIY
tradition. As a one girl orchestra, she creates her live shows with various instruments and a mix of electronic and analogue
sonic layers. She is renowned for her imaginative songscapes, crunchy distortion and squealing sounds whose dark and
noisy elements suggest eccentric drum machine abuse. In combination with her self-made video projections, her unique
version of sonic anarchy transports you into a world of intense chaos where fun and beauty meet. A subtle combination
of dark and soft atmospheres sends you into fantastic dimensions, perhaps even right back to prehistorical times!
In the poetic words of Falko Teichmann from Goldmund Berlin:«The girl and her golden pleasure cruiser have returned from a long journey. In the sea chest of memory she has brought
back a great work, and it’s been written in the many dialects of DIY. In the now published travelogue we find images
hiding behind noises, words and sounds performing exotic dances, and melodies that rhyme with meaning.
Resembling a publicly shown slide show documenting a private existence, her snapshots are a trail of images overtaken by
its soundtrack. And when the stories turn into songs the viola gets lost in an undergrowth of effect pedals, while the
guitars drag each other through a river of found sounds. And on the shore they find a house built from samples where they
pass the time with toy instruments. And from the centre of the room we can hear voices that are not in each other’s way
and yet never simply turn into a choir. They whisper into the megaphone, they scream into contact microphones, they
hold each other scratching and caressing the ear. The rest is the sound of analogue footsteps on digital sand. And in all of
it one can feel a smile … » (Silver Seeds)
City Splits #1 Berlin: Golden Diskó Ship | Jasmina Maschina, Monika Enterprise, 2010
Golden Diskó Ship aka Theresa Stroetges started playing songs live on her laptop since the moment she first arrived in berlin in 2007 and at the same time commenced 3 years of touring, hand made CDs, and music video production to accompany the live shows. The 27 year old sound sculptress has quickly become renowned for her imaginative blend of fragile balladry, novel use of found objects, crunchy distortion, quirky visuals and squealing bits that suggest horrific drum machine abuse. Firmly rooted in the DIY tradition, Golden Diskó Ship has to date had a number of self-releases, the Bumblebee Behind A Tree EP (2007) & Lonesome Cowboy/Christmas Tree EP (2008). She has already gained considerable attention from the press with comparisons to d_rradio and FOURTET. The “organically cluttered singer-songwriter” lists her influences as including restlessness, chocolate, first takes, peaceful hangovers, lakes, trees, streets, bad weather, swimming pools, mistuned guitars and iceland – where she lived for 1 year. Indeed the name Golden Disko Ship comes from a rotting former party ship in the harbour of Rekyavik. Her uniquely chaotic and original music with its fragile layers of magnificently swirling sounds has fast made Golden Diskó Ship a favourite of the Berlin underground-indie scene.