Brockhoff  – Easy Peeler

BROCKHOFF announces her debut album Easy Peeler, which will be released on June 5 via [PIAS] Recordings. The singer is also releasing the title track and accompanying video today. The music video was directed by Jake Nokovic (Slow Pulp, Ratboys, etc.), Lucas Anderson (Emily Roberts, Lotte, etc.) and David Hughes Jr. (as Director of Photographys).

One thing humans and clementines — those odd little fruits that can’t decide whether they want to be tangerines or oranges — have in common: you never know what you’ll get. Will their hard shell block you out? Will you have to peel them piece by piece to get closer to their core? Or will they turn out to be an easy peeler — one that opens immediately, lets you in, and doesn’t hide what’s inside? On her long-awaited debut album Easy Peeler, BROCKHOFF proves herself to be the latter.

Arriving on the scene in early 2022, Lina Brockhoff — known as BROCKHOFF — quickly established herself as one of indie rock’s most beloved newcomers. Her debut EP “Sharks”, featuring the anti-party anthem of the same name, introduced her as a songwriter who can fuse introspective storytelling with roaring guitar rock — without compromise. On the 2023 follow-up “I’ve Stopped Getting Chills for a While Now”, BROCKHOFF showcased even more confident production, scoring her life as a twenty-something through expansive indie rock and soft-spoken pop. “Easy Peeler” is the ambitious culmination of BROCKHOFF’s musical coming-of-age journey — one she has shared openly with her audience over the past few years.

Written between 2020 and 2023 and recorded over two weeks last year, the album presents itself as a slow-grown, carefully crafted project that blends ’90s guitar rock with exuberant pop arrangements. It also addresses the insecurities that accompanied its creation. While working on “Easy Peeler”, BROCKHOFF wrestled with the idea of putting herself out there as an artist — feeling uncomfortable in her own skin and within the fast-paced, often unforgiving music industry. She even considered giving up the childhood dream she had spent years chasing, just when it seemed closer than ever. Ultimately, BROCKHOFF did what distinguishes her as a storyteller: she found comfort in her own sensitivity, transforming it into the confident songs that would become her debut album. 

The grand opening track arrives with heavy guitars and symphonic strings, setting the tone for BROCKHOFF’s very own bittersweet symphony that unfolds on “Easy Peeler”: “You don’t know what’s it’s like to be an easy peeler / What it means to crawl out of your skin”. “Easy Peeler is the opening song and the title of the album and one of my favorite songs on it. I could immediately identify with the term because at the time I wrote this song I wasn’t feeling very comfortable neither in my own skin nor in the environment and industry I worked in. I lost my sense of self and I didn’t have faith and confidence in what I was doing, in my art. I was thinking a lot about quitting and figuring out why I was feeling so unhappy with things I’d actually wanted for such a long time. A lot of songs are about falling out of love with things. I struggled with depression and anxiety and I literally felt like someone is constantly peeling off my skin which, also in a musical way, makes sense, because by expressing yourself in songs, then posting them on the internet (more than you would normally do) and singing them on stage you turn a lot of your inner personal thoughts outwards and that makes yourself vulnerable in a way. Thinking more about the term Easy Peeler, it helped me visualize sensibility and emotionality in a good and beautiful way.”

Growing up taking piano lessons, BROCKHOFF taught herself guitar and began writing songs as a teenager. Encouraged by the strong female leads who dominated TV screens in the late 2000s — Hannah Montana, Camp Rock — her younger self began to believe that these things were possible: being a girl with a band, turning her inside out through songs. She started playing small gigs at local bars. Later, she discovered female alternative-rock artists such as Soccer Mommy, Snail Mail, and Phoebe Bridgers, who inspired her to lean into the guitar-driven sound that would define her signature BROCKHOFF style.

Throughout her early career, BROCKHOFF has played multiple support tours in Europe for artists such as Giant Rooks, Alice Merton, Von Wegen Lisbeth, and Paolo Nutini — the latter being her biggest shows to date. She’s performed at Brighton’s The Great Escape, Berlin’s Tempelhof Sounds, and other prestigious festivals including Reeperbahn, Eurosonic, Southside, Haldern Pop and Dockville. Her songs have received radio play in Germany as well as in the UK, US and Canada. Over just a few years, BROCKHOFF has evolved into a commanding live performer, fronting a full-scale rock band and drawing international crowds. To date, she has played more than 120 live shows. BROCKHOFF has found her place on the main stage — and there’s no doubt this is exactly where she belongs. After all, who else could have written these songs if not an easy peeler, just like her?

With “The Carpet Song” which was released in October, Brockhoff already gave us a first taste of the album in the form of an indie anthem that captures the chaotic contradictions of first love.

#brockiiiiiii