TeaForTwo

The story of Tea for Two began in 1985 when Michael Schumpelt (piano, recorder) and Oliver soerup (guitar) founded the band as a blues-folk-jazz duo. After a couple of gigs Schumpelt and Soerup recruited a bass player and finally, in 1987 with the addition of a drummer and singer Stephan Weber the classic 5-piece line up was complete. Following the release of their first album "Dream or Reality" in 1993 Tea for Two played a huge number of concerts (highlights of which were support shows for Fish and Arena). The atmosphere of those concerts was captured in the live album "Snapshots" that was released in 1996. One year later the band called it a day, as there was a shift in the member's priorities due to marriage, children, graduation and the start of professional carreers.



Very soon, however Stephan Weber, Michael Schumpelt and Oliver Soerup came together again to record the album 101 that was released in 2001.



In the following years Tea for Two played some rare but excellently received accoustic concerts, aptly named as "Tea for Two – light". Obviously the instrumentation of piano, flute, guitar and vocals set limits to the creation of interesting sounds and powerful rhythms. The songs themselves had to create tension and variation to keep up the audience's attention. So the songs had to be rewritten and stripped down to their essence. It was only a small step from that work on old material to the writing of new songs, which have now been recorded for the new Tea for Two album "Twisted".



The new album shows some very new sides of Tea for Two, little tribut has been paid to traditions and expectations. Never before the band has followed influences in so many diverse directions so consequently. None of the tracks is like the next: the album is like a journey through an ever changing landscape that starts with solo-flute, and then travels via flamenco, soundtrack-like passages, folk, piano solo, rock, blues and prog to the final ballad that – after a quite heavy part – closes the album with some moody e-bow and cello. It is all a little "twisted", but it definitely still is Tea for Two.