The Strange Encounters

“An adventurous mixture of jangly folk, blues and rock’n‘roll from the psychedelic heart of Berlin.” Based on the compositions and close harmony vocals of singer-songwriters Guido Kreutzmüller and Joe Armstrong, THE STRANGE ENCOUNTERS take you on a trip with songs shining with pure beauty and craftsmanship. Founded in 2018, the band played numerous gigs around Germany until the pandemic ground everything to a halt. Everything? Not really. During gaps in the lockdown the band dug down in their own attic studio in Berlin together with producer Thomas Wosnitza to record ALL IN THE MIND, their first full-length album. Released on April 26, 2024 on the French label PORTS OF CALL MUSIC and the South African label SUBJANGLE, this record squares the circle. THE STRANGE ENCOUNTERS succeed in a seemingly effortless way in combining jangly folk-pop and bluesy rock’n’roll with psychedelic soundscapes and experimental improvisations. This is an album for the big screen: cohesive, surprising, multilayered. Kreutzmüller and Armstrong are excellent observers, each with his own angle and background. In their lyrics they paint complex pictures, full of desire, sensitivity and self-awareness. Their stories come from a place of love as well as from the fascination for everyday life and its characters. They tell of the big and small delusions and confusions in human relationships, as well as describing the social dislocations happening next door, looking right into the abyss of the human soul in these changing times. If the album seems to fall out of time, then it‘s perfectly placed in the early 21st century. It‘s all in the mind.