Dota - "Fountain" - Tour

"Spring Fountain" Tour 2026

Dota is back, with new songs, a new chapter that fits perfectly into the series of their previous albums, yet feels fresh, as if an unknown ingredient has emerged in the song laboratory. What’s nice is: It could just as well be the very first DOTA album ever. There’s nothing missing that you love about Dota, but the music is even more minimalist, bouncier – adults would say: more contrasting. The lyrics go even more directly to the heart of darkness, are even more devotedly searching, and even in ambiguity, they are clearer. Perhaps this is also a product of their engagement with the poetry of Mascha Kaléko, to whose musical interpretation they have dedicated two albums over the past three years.

DOTA – not without reason in capital letters, because the name represents more than just the lyrical self of Dota Kehr; it also embodies the community around her, where the music has been created for several years: guitarist Jan Rohrbach, drummer Janis Görlich, keyboardist Patrick Reising, and bassist Alexander Binder. Together with this band, Dota Kehr arranges and records the songs. Together they write the DOTA formula on the board: Every word means at least its opposite, everywhere question marks, hardly any exclamation points.

The first single "Einfach zu abgelenkt" plays the DOTA game to perfection. The guitar sits by the lake in summer, the synth shimmers. The drums dance in a stop-and-go rhythm, and Dota sings as if she has to leave at any moment – about her inability to commit and how no one else can either. So ADHD as a societal diagnosis.

In "Kettenkarussell," one of those songs that only DOTA can pull off – relaxed and tense at the same time, like a thoughtful bouncy ball – she sings: "Time to turn to something else / That’s fine, I can’t stand everyday life." And the band grooves along, pushing the singer as if to say: "One more round."

Question: What should songwriters sing about in these times?
Next question: What exactly are "these times"?
Dota has also asked herself these questions in preparation for her new album. The answers lie on her path like signs on the road, as soon as she begins to work seriously. It has always taken only awake eyes, a voice that is one’s own, and a heart that can hold more than just one’s own retirement plan. Dota knows who she is and sees the things that connect her with the world she lives in and separate her from it. Things that give her hope and those that repel her – which she encounters in her songs with honesty (Das wogende Meer) or biting irony (Milliardäre).