The Ascent Of Women

My second album The Ascent Of Women is my celebration of beauty, creation, melancholy and optimism — the discovery of the creative principle. // Meine Feier von Schönheit, Schöpfung, Melancholie und Optimismus — die Entdeckung des schöpferischen Prinzips.

02 May 202620 min read

Pop pearls with dynamite. Sophisticated pop with depth.

The Ascent Of Women is my celebration of beauty, creation, melancholy and optimism — the discovery of the creative principle.

Does an artist explain his own work? Never! But there are a few things I'd like to point to — because they may not be obvious, and because the fun is in finding them …

In the Tarot, this album corresponds to the Queen of Swords, the Knight of Cups, The Fool, or The Magician with the infinity sign above his head — and the album is built along those cards and the idea of infinity as Long Play. Each song echoes one of the four elements — earth, fire, water, air. Have fun discovering them in the songs.

The album is composed in two cycles: four songs with a male singer — followed by four songs with a female singer. Both cycles move through the same four elements, each time interpreted differently. That's the architecture.

The title, by the way, refers to the book Ascent of Woman (1963) by Elisabeth Mann Borgese — the youngest daughter of Thomas and Katia Mann, later a political scientist and pioneer of international maritime law. I chose the plural because the feminine principle finds expression in many emanations — not in a single one. C.G. Jung will hopefully approve.

The album consists of my own compositions. All songs are mine — and in the demos, I sang them myself, but not on the final recordings. It's sophisticated pop with depth. Six decades of pop culture in one album. With a Yacht Rock DNA — references to Steely Dan, Michael McDonald, Toto.

In the songcraft: Burt Bacharach, Hal David and Donald Fagen. In the contemporary production: Daft Punk and The Weeknd. In the soul-funk breath: Earth, Wind & Fire. In the pop tradition: Elvis Presley and Olivia Newton John. Mixed with the intimate warmth of Kings of Convenience, Beth Orton, and Feist.

All songs go back to my own demos, written and recorded over many years in Logic with my voice, my guitar, my bass, and my piano. The production was made with AI support. AI was, in a way, my Quincy Jones — my working tool, my co-producer. But the production is entirely my work, built in what was sometimes weeks of effort on each single song.

These songs are fed by my own personal ups and downs in life — some are very recent, others go back to my school days.

I was particularly happy to play the album publicly for the first time in Tokyo, in July/August 2025 — a first, quiet premiere at Hotel Groove and at the bar Jam17 in Shinjuku.

—

This album was brought to life with the help of AI — and with deep gratitude to all the artists whose music helped shape these tools. Without your work, none of this would exist. Thank you for letting me share these songs with you. And thank you for listening.

— Christopher Quente

Hamburg / Tokyo / 2026

The Ascent Of Women — All Songs

1. What's The Character Of Earth?

Follow me back to the golden age of space travel. And feel the quiet attraction between all things human: sometimes pulling us close, sometimes apart.

“What’s the Character of Earth” is the opening track of my album The Ascent of Women. The title question was borrowed from a philosophy seminar at Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf — a question that has stayed with me ever since. The bridge — “Don’t go to industry / Come to Huntsville” — echoes a real telegram Wernher von Braun sent to his colleague Jesco von Puttkammer, inviting him to join the Apollo programme. Von Puttkammer was also a technical advisor on Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). Both men had been inspired, years earlier, by Fritz Lang’s visionary film Frau im Mond (1929).

Lyrics

Sputnik, I’ve been dreaming of that garden again,
at the edge of the world, past the orbit and silver rain,
beyond the wars, beyond the stars.

Sweetheart, I know you live your life again,
smiling at your coffee, waiting for the morning train,
in a world of jets and cars.

Don’t go to industry
Come to Huntsville
We’re going to the moon
We’re going to mars
We’re going to the stars

Come, pack your things,
we’ll glide through Saturn’s rings,
together we’ll observe:
What’s the character of earth?

Sputnik, I know we live on different planets,
but I still tune into your fading signals,
waiting for a fleeting chance to realign.

Honey, you haunt me like a flirting comet,
circling the moon like a lonely Michael Collins,
waiting for the rendezvous that was promised.

Don’t go to industry
Come to Huntsville
We’re going to the moon
We’re going to mars
We’re going to the stars

Come, pack your things,
we’ll glide through Saturn’s rings,
together we’ll observe:
What’s the character of earth?

Come, fly with me,
we’ll leave behind the saddest things,
together or apart —
that’s the gravity of hearts.

What’s the character of earth?
That’s the gravity of hearts.
What’s the character of earth?
That’s the gravity of hearts.
What’s the character of earth?
That’s the gravity of hearts.
What’s the character of earth?
That’s the gravity of hearts.

Production

“What’s The Character of Earth” was originally written by me in 2010 and reworked in 2025.

2. Firegirl

Are there songs that just suddenly appear? The critics say: no, it's all planned. I say: you have to live through it once to believe it. This one was simply there. After a shower. The melody, the chorus, the whole idea. I went straight to the microphone and my guitar to capture the idea in a first take.

A man who keeps stumbling — stuntman-style — into the worst kinds of trouble, pushed past his own limits in a kind of self-punishment that has long since become routine. He asks himself: when something burns, the fire brigade comes. Preferably in the shape of Firegirl. The vivid scenes in the verses arrived the same way — in another sudden flash. The red sun. The demon screaming inside my head. The hands clinging to the wheels of an airplane in flight. There's no question about it: the stuntman is me, of course. A man who's always diving headfirst into trouble — but this time, he just can't save the day anymore. He doesn't want to be the hero. He wants to be rescued. But who is Firegirl? She's a figure I'll return to in another art form. If I had to think of a film for the tone here — definitely something with Tom Cruise.

Lyrics

Beneath a red sun, all hopes are dying,
I'm clinging to an airplane in flight.
Inside my head, a dark demon is crying,
I've been called from an infinite height.

Strapped to a chair with a ticking device,
one heartbeat away before the drama declines.
She tells me to breathe — such pleasant advice.
I whisper her name as I cut the blue lines.

Firegirl!
Could you please rescue me
a little bit earlier next time
Please!

Help me, I'm falling in love
Help me, I'm falling in love
Help me, I'm falling in love
Help me, I'm falling in love

You trigger the button,
I hit the wall.
You pull the thread,
I take the fall.
You name the game,
I drop the ball.
You raise the stakes,
I lose it all.

Help me, I'm falling in love
Help me, I'm falling in love
Help me, I'm falling in love
Help me, I'm falling in love

Production

“Firegirl” was originally released as a first demo by me on SoundCloud in 2021.

3. Big Sur

Have you ever been to Big Sur? Have you found the beach? No? Me neither. And I have been searching — I have been there twice.

Big Sur is a place of longing. It sits along Highway 1 in California, somewhere between San Francisco and Los Angeles, where the redwoods meet the Pacific. It is also one of the places where our modern idea of self-analysis and self-optimization was born — through the Esalen Institute and the Human Potential Movement that took root here in the 1960s. The hippies came. The therapists came. Henry Miller had already been here for years, writing his books in a wooden house on a cliff.

The first time, as a student, we reached Big Sur deep in the night, looking for a place to sleep. We stumbled into the Fernwood Motel in the woods — a little magical, a little weathered, a little uncertain. I think it was Indigenous-run, but I’m not sure. My friend refused to stay there. (In case the listener should ask.) What I did find was the name plate of Henry Miller on his old house. Originally there was another verse in the song about him — it didn’t make the final cut, probably one layer of meaning too many.

What the song definitely is: a goodbye dressed as a surf song. A man with his dog on a board, drifting toward the islands unexplored, waving at people he has never seen before. Sweet enough not to feel like a goodbye.

Two years ago on Madeira, I saw a man returning every day with his dog and his wife to swim in the Atlantic. I wanted to be that man. And because this song is about dying, that Madeira man became the figure on the board — drifting out calmly, completely at home in the water, leaving the people on the shore to wave at someone they have never seen before.

Lyrics

Sweet California breeze
Sweet California freeze
Sweet California nights
Sweet California tides
Sweet California dreams
Sweet California streams
Sweet California girls
Sweet California swirls

In Big Sur, on the beach,
The sign “Whale Watching”
is meant for the creatures of the sea,
not for the people catching
a glimpse of someone like me.

I’m the man with the dog on a board,
drifting towards the islands unexplored,
floating away from the crowd on the shore,
waving goodbye to people never seen before.

Sweet California breeze
Sweet California freeze
Sweet California dreams
Sweet California streams
Sweet California sun
Sweet California fun
Sweet California girls
Sweet California swirls

It’s time
to say goodbye
It’s time
the credits started scrolling
It’s time
the end is nigh

In Big Sur, in the woods,
The sign “Fernwood Motel”
promises some tacky bungalows
and flowers whispering farewell
to the one who quietly goes … away.

I’m the man with the dog on a board,
drifting towards the islands unexplored,
floating away from the crowd on the shore,
waving goodbye to people never seen before.

Sweet California breeze
Sweet California freeze
Sweet California nights
Sweet California tides
Sweet California dreams
Sweet California streams
Sweet California girls
Sweet California swirls

It’s time
to say goodbye
It’s time
the credits started scrolling
It’s time
the end is nigh

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama
Rama Rama, Hare Hare

4. Men FM

The original working title of this song was Ken FM — named after a German podcaster. He was the kind of voice that tells you the world you see is not the world you live in. After a major event reshaped the political map of Europe, he had gone strangely quiet.

I started writing this song in anger. It was a satire — a portrait of a particular brand of male certainty, of conspiracy, of incel-adjacent grievance. I wrote it sharply and dismissively.

Then I read it back and didn’t like what I had become as the writer. I didn’t want to be an artist who writes songs against people. I didn’t want to use my craft to feel superior. The song needed to be about something more honest than my contempt. So I rewrote it from the inside.

The narrator became a sad man broadcasting his pain from the basement of a nation, looking for love and not knowing how to receive it. A fellow human being. Once the figure had my empathy, the song started working. Empathy is the foundation of any good story.

What I am left with is a song that quietly insists on the opposite of conspiracy: what you see is what you love. Celebrate what you have. Whatever it is.

Later echoed by Women FM — the women, listening from somewhere else, hearing the broadcast. Maybe, in the end, men and women align — in love. That would be the quintessence of this album.

Lyrics

I still remember the day
when all women went away,
they turned off the lights
and left us cold sheets,
they took all the laughter
and left only static thereafter.

You’re listening to Men FM
It’s your primal radio station
Broadcasting pain
from the basement of our nation

I still remember the air
when fragrance lingered in hair,
they turned on the heat
we melted like sweets,
they packed all their cases
and left us all places, no traces.

You’re listening to Men FM
It’s your primal radio station
Broadcasting pain
from the basement of our nation

We still remember the day
when all women went away,
we circled the fires
shared tales and desires,
rinsed lipstick from glasses
and chanted old phrases with basses.

You’re listening to Men FM
It’s your primal radio station
Broadcasting pain
from the basement of our nation

Good night, white knights
here in Camelot at midnight,
we sing Arthur’s theme
in shining armor, one last dream.

You’re listening to Men FM
It’s your primal radio station
Broadcasting pain
from the basement of our nation

You’re listening to Men FM
We’re your final destination
Sending out an SOS
in heavy rotation

5. The Transition Of Venus

The Transit of Venus is a rare cosmic event: Venus passes between Earth and the Sun, appearing as a small black disk gliding across the Sun’s face. It happens in pairs separated by eight years, with each pair separated by more than a century. The next will be in 2117.

In 1769, the transit was witnessed by James Cook in Tahiti — a voyage funded by the Royal Society for the explicit purpose of measuring the distance between the Earth and the Sun. It became one of the first internationally coordinated scientific events in history. Once Cook’s observations were combined with measurements from elsewhere on Earth, humanity finally knew the true scale of its own solar system.

I witnessed the transit myself, in Germany, in 2012, with Johannes and Giselle. We watched it through a self-built telescope with a sun filter. (You cannot look at the sun — obviously.) Venus passed across the Sun, and we held our breath. It was the second of a pair, eight years after 2004. I will not see another.

For Venus, the transit means nothing. For us, it carried scientific wonder and poetic weight. But that weight is ours alone. Venus does not notice us watching.

I thought of The Girl from Ipanema — that moment when an unspeakably beautiful girl walks past on the beach in Rio and the world holds its breath. Awwww. A moment of genius. She doesn’t notice either.

This instrumental track is for that moment. When something walks past us that does not know we are watching — when there are no words, only music.

6. I'm Very Good At Losing Things

Dedicated to Elizabeth Bishop

It is one of the hardest, saddest realizations of your life: you lose people. You lose them from sight, like in childhood hide-and-seek. They go their own ways. You forget some of them. Some die. Sometimes you have to separate from them. Sometimes they separate from you, or you from yourself.

Imagine you were a magician who could make people disappear. Or imagine your losses as magical acts — sleights of hand performed by you, leaving you holding nothing but the hat where you put people (or things) in, and from which no rabbit ever comes out.

I wrote this song under the original working title People Disappear. Halfway through, I discovered one of the most beautiful poems I have ever read: One Art by Elizabeth Bishop. Her opening line is „The art of losing isn’t hard to master.“ In the poem she trains herself: keys, hours, names, cities, continents. By the end, the training meets the thing it cannot master:

„—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.“

That cracking open — mastery dissolving into disaster, in parentheses — is what this song is reaching for too.

Lyrics

I’m very good at losing things,
I’m very good at losing things,
I’m very good at losing things,
and very bad at losing you

It began with a pen,
a key, a bag, a cigarette.
A sock I left in a launderette —
then I lost more than I could get.

A childhood dream,
a name that slipped.
A friend who ran like water through my grip,
and sank like secrets in a ship.

I closed my eyes and counted to ten,
behind my hands they laughed and ran,
it’s the oldest trick in my hat:
to remove someone instead of add.

I’m very good at losing things,
I’m very good at losing things,
I’m very good at losing things,
and very bad at losing you

Some were falling from the tree,
some were swallowed by the sea.
Some were falling like a leaf,
some were stolen by a thief.

Some got eaten by the Roc,
some dissolved into the fog.
Some fell silent off the cliff,
some got captured by a myth.

I’m very good at losing things,
I’m very good at losing things,
I’m very good at losing things,
and very bad at losing you

Hello, my dear —
What can I make disappear?
A thought, a fear,
a name you don’t want to hear?

The one thing I do not know
is how to end this magic show.
I’ve mastered mirrors, smoke and flow —
except the art of letting go.

I closed my eyes and counted to ten,
behind my hands they laughed and ran,
it’s the oldest trick in my hat:
to remove someone instead of add.

I’m very good at losing things,
I’m very good at losing things,
I’m very good at losing things,
and very bad at losing you

Production

The first demo of this song was recorded by me in November 2005 and it was completely reworked in 2025.

7. You Only Love Twice

Dedicated to Olivia Newton-John

Lyrics

You only love twice — or so they say,
once when it blooms, and once when it fades.
The first time it hurts, the second it heals,
but both leave a mark that outlives the tears.

You only live once
You only love twice
You only love once
You only love twice

You only love twice — or so they say,
once when it blooms, and once when it fades.
The first time it hurts, the second it heals,
but both leave a mark that outlives the tears.

You only live once
You only love twice
You only live once
You only love twice

They say you only live twice.
The first is for others, to follow the script.
The second is yours, no need to impress,
just love and soul, and time to undress.

You only live once
You only love twice
You only live once
You only love twice

You only live once
You only love twice

8. Cheerleader Of The Devil

This song began as my own version of the Faust story, sketched somewhere in my student years. By 2025, it had become something else. I switched the point of view — and bodies. After that, it worked much better.

Who is The Cheerleader Of The Devil, you might ask? Like Firegirl, she’s a figure I’ll return to in another art form, if I can in the future.

Lyrics

I love the smell of betrayal in the morning.
I caught the hint of sulfur early on.
I kissed you first without any warning,
and vanished with the breaking dawn.

Cheers to the storm
that sank the Spanish Armada,
Cheers to my shadow —
the one who always dances harder.

Cheers to myself —
that looks like an eaten enchilada.
Cheers to my evil twin,
the one who always stirs the drama.

Cheerleader of the devil
Cheerleader of the devil
Cheerleader of the devil
Cheerleader of the devil

All hell loves love.
When roses bloom in deepest muds,
it feels like a force from high above,
but I die the death of thousand cuts.

I love the smell of betrayal in the morning.
I caught the hint of sulfur early on.
I kissed you first without any warning,
and vanished with the breaking dawn.

Cheers to the storm
that sank the Spanish Armada,
Cheers to my shadow —
the one who always dances harder.

Cheers to myself —
that looks like an eaten enchilada.
Cheers to my evil twin,
the one who always stirs the drama.

Cheerleader of the devil
Cheerleader of the devil
Cheerleader of the devil
Cheerleader of the devil

All hell loves love.
When roses bloom in deepest muds,
it feels like a force from high above,
but I die the death of thousand cuts.

Give me a C
Give me an H
Give me an E
Another E
Give me an R
Give me an S
What does it spell?

Cheerleader of the devil
Cheerleader of the devil
Cheerleader of the devil
Cheerleader of the devil

All hell loves love.
When roses bloom in deepest muds,
it feels like a force from high above,
but I die the death of thousand cuts.

Cheerleader of the devil
Cheerleader of the devil
Cheerleader of the devil
Cheerleader of the devil

9. The Atomized Elvis

Some of my earliest childhood memories are of listening to Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, Johnny Cash, the Glenn Miller Orchestra — and yes, Johann Sebastian Bach. I still remember dancing wildly with a tennis racket to Blue Suede Shoes and Hound Dog, to great applause. I also remember the news reaching us at the coffee table during our summer vacation in Denmark, in 1977: Elvis had died.

I wrote this song much later, out of a fantasy: with the help of gene technology, the dead could come back. What if we could resurrect them, or loop them in eternal repetition? In a way, that is what fans have always done. They turn themselves into Elvis. They keep him alive by being him.

The original draft was a male country song about a mad scientist who brings Elvis back in flesh and blood. From that thought came the twist: if you bring someone back, you become their mother. The mad scientist became Elvis’ mother.

In the age of AI — which I used to produce this album — the resurrection theme has another layer. We bring icons back. We loop voices. „The eternal recurrence of the same“ — „die ewige Wiederkunft des Gleichen“ — as Nietzsche put it in Also sprach Zarathustra. Whether we know it or not, this is already what we are doing.

Endless repetition and remixing is the enemy of art. We stop producing original content ourselves. It is a sign of the times. That is a huge challenge — Alan Moore once said this in an interview. But on the other hand: as artists, we stand on the shoulders of giants, evolving from what they originally started. So we have to keep both in mind for any further artistic enterprise.

The narrator now stands at the Memphis cemetery, hears someone weeping, discovering that it might be himself. Mourning the way we repeat what might have been allowed to stay uniquely beautiful — just once, forever.

For this album, the song flipped voices entirely: the woman became the voice, the mother, the source. She buries the devil so the king can return. From the essential atoms. Born from a bone in his pelvis.

I can only hope this doesn’t sound too crazy — and that Elvis would have carried the irony with me.

(But isn’t that what making music is? You allow yourself to be crazy for a period of time. To hear voices inside your head. This is not normal!)

Lyrics

I buried the devil.
I buried the devil.
I buried the devil.
Too deep

Dusty boots under Memphis sky,
where the heroes never cry.
Someone’s weeping at the cemetery —
to my surprise, it was me.

All the King’s men staring down my gun,
saving mankind by the setting sun.
The crowd cries out to take its toll,
they scream for blood — but not the soul.

Here rests the “Rock-and-Roll” disease,
for God’s sake — but not in peace.

The atomized Elvis,
born from a bone in his pelvis,
more than the sum of all broken hearts —
I will make something greater than arts.

I buried the devil.
I buried the devil.
I buried the devil.
The king is back

Walking past rows of mobile homes,
I stumble on some Elvis clones.
They dance like kings, in rhinestone suits.
I’m not a tribute — I change the rules.

Why wait for the end of all days?
They sing, but I don’t need their praise.
They call me mad — I say I’m other.
Not just a fan — but Elvis’ mother.

Here rests the “Rock-and-Roll” disease,
for God’s sake — but not in peace.

The atomized Elvis,
born from a bone in his pelvis,
more than the sum of all broken hearts —
I will make something greater than arts.

I buried the devil.
I buried the devil.
I buried the devil.
The king is back

10. The Transition Of Venus Recycled

When the album’s cycle officially closes, Venus passes again — recycled, this time with minimalistic words. Two lines, repeated many times. R&B-leaning, almost empty, almost a chant.

I wrote this as the most minimal song I know how to write. It surprised me by being the song that landed first with listeners. Something about its emptiness held them.

And as for what „a moment of genius“ might mean for you — well, that’s up to you. As always.

Lyrics

(Awwwwwwwww)
The transition of Venus
A moment of genius.

11. Women FM

While men cry in a cellar broadcasting their pain, why should women not listen to it? This is the melancholic echo of Men FM. Will they ever come back?

Lyrics

I still remember the day
when all women went away,
we turned off the lights
and left them cold sheets,
we took all the laughter
and left only static thereafter.

We’re listening to Men FM
It’s their primal radio station
Broadcasting pain
from the basement of their nation

I still remember the air
when fragrance lingered in their hair,
we turned on the heat
they melted like sweets,
we packed all our cases
and left them, all places, no traces.

We’re listening to Men FM
It’s their primal radio station
Broadcasting pain
from the basement of their nation

Good night, white knights
there in Camelot at midnight,
they sing Arthur’s theme
in shining armor, one last dream.

We’re listening to Men FM
It’s their primal radio station
Broadcasting pain
from the basement of their nation

We still remember the day
when all women went away,
they circled the fires
shared tales and desires,
rinsed lipstick from glasses
and chanted old phrases with basses.

We’re listening to Men FM
It’s their primal radio station
Broadcasting pain
from the basement of their nation

We’re listening to Men FM
It’s their primal radio station
sending out an SOS
in heavy rotation

12. The Ascent Of Women

The title track. Instrumental.

I originally wrote this as an intro or an outro to Big Sur — the Hare Krishna chant needed something to lift it, or to land it. In the end, I moved it here, near the end of the album, as a farewell.

It hurt to make this album. It made me very happy. Both at once. A musical-poetic dream I never thought I would actually finish. Mysterious, mythical, sad, and happy.

The Ascent of Women.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

13. Firegirl Acoustic

It is one of my musical convictions: if a song works in an acoustic version — especially as a Bossa Nova — you can transform it into any mood or any style. That is why almost every song of mine begins life as a Bossa Nova, or as a version Kings of Convenience could sing.

This is Firegirl in that form. Voice and guitar. Almost nothing else.

See you, Firegirl — and I hope for a wonderful reunion, in another literary form.

Lyrics

See Track 2.

Sound-Track

Sound-Track · Playlist — Work In Progress

The Ascent Of Women

The Ascent Of Women — All Songs

1. What's The Character Of Earth?

Lyrics

Production

2. Firegirl

Lyrics

Production

3. Big Sur

Lyrics

4. Men FM

5. The Transition Of Venus

6. I'm Very Good At Losing Things

Lyrics

Production

7. You Only Love Twice

Lyrics

8. Cheerleader Of The Devil

Lyrics

9. The Atomized Elvis

Lyrics

10. The Transition Of Venus Recycled

Lyrics

11. Women FM

Lyrics

12. The Ascent Of Women

13. Firegirl Acoustic

Lyrics

Sound-Track

Frio / Quente

Live From Japan

Tourist, Terrorist, Theorist