Entertainment for the Braindead is the stage name of Julia Kotowski, an independent musician from Cologne, Germany. She plays folk music, some of it lo-fi Three Chords and the Truth music, and some of it more ornate stuff featuring guitar, ukelele, recorder, concertina, and vocal harmonies—Julia refers to it all by the joking title "acoustic dilettante post-something".
All her music has been released under a Creative Commons license. As a result, between the fan-run site
, Bandcamp, Aaahh-records, the Free Music Archive, and the Internet Archive, all the music can be downloaded for free.
Discography:
- Hypersomnia (2007)
- Hydrophobia (2008)
- Raw Timber EP (2009)
- Seven (+1) EP (2009)
- Cross Mountain EP (2010) Released under her instrumental side project, The Smallest Bones.
- Roadkill (2010)
- Trivialities EP (2010)
- Berlin Kitchen Sessions (2011)
- Postcard #1 - Songs for the Apocalypse EP (2012)
- Postcard #2 - Songs for the Homesick EP (2012)
- Postcard #3 - Songs for the Breathless EP (2012)
- Postcard #4 - Songs for a Soft Heart EP (2012)
- Postcard #5 - Songs for the Sleepless EP (2013)
- Songs for the Sleepless // Mountain Session (2013)
- Postcard #6 - Deconstruction Site EP (2013)
- Postcard #7 - Songs from the Dust EP (2013)
Provides examples of:
- Everything Is an Instrument: Household objects like salt shakers, kitchen utensils, and drawers get pressed into service as percussion.
- Hikikomori: In "Resolution", the speaker has to promise to "leave the house at least once a day". By the end of "Relapse", the speaker "[doesn't] plan on leaving the house this year / if by then you need me, you'll find me here".
- I Am the Band: With a few exceptions, such as the ocean drum played by Magpie Malcolm on "The Earth", all the instruments and all the vocals are done by Julia.
- Minimalism: On Roadkill, Julia uses a banjo as her sole instrument. However, she averts Three Chords and the Truth here by overdubbing and coaxing an entire band's worth of sound out of that instrument.
- Spoken Word in Music: "Prologue" off of ''Hydrophobia" opens with a spoken monologue before other monologues start playing over it, until none of the words can be made out anymore.
- Three Chords and the Truth: Raw Timber is a collection of simple guitar songs, recorded in the middle of a forest. Berlin Kitchen Sessions was similar, just recorded in friends' kitchens.
