Nina Hagen, the most beautiful, and most strident, hellraiser to toe the line between punk and pop, East and West and outta space that Germany has ever produced is finally back. Her new album, ‘Unity’, is released on Grönland Records. It is her first album since ‘Volksbeat’ in 2011.

The 12 songs on ‘Unity’ take us on a wild journey through a densely woven musical jungle full of chirruping, buzzing and chittering. Country twang sung over spacey synth grooves and rock pop playing over dub and sexy slow funk. Some songs tell of biblical miracles, others are feisty political tirades, and then there are covers: a country classic, a Sheryl Crow hit and even a Bob Dylan song with German lyrics (‘Die Antwort Weiss Ganz Allein Der Wind’) – really something that only a larger-than-life songstress can dare to do.

‘Unity’ plays with a multifaceted mélange of textures, samples and everyday sounds. Amidst this rich foliage of sounds and themes there is, of course, that voice; in the wink of an eye it transitions from operatic to demonic, hitting insane high notes then plummeting to awe-inspiring deep bellows, as if she is trying to interfuse the sexes.

Nina Hagen screams and hisses, belts out lyrics and performs recitatives, rasps and reverberates in electronic distortions. She launches into musical dialogues and soliloquys. It is as if her voice is echoing into our time from another world.

In short, ‘Unity’ is a piercing, warm-hearted and varied Nina Hagen spectacle. She is as prolific at 67 as she has ever been.

Title track ‘Unity’ is a collaboration with funk visionary George Clinton. It is a wonderfully lightly flowing and cosmically glistening dub number that pays homage to the Black Lives Matter movement. The two of them wrote the song as an immediate response to the death of George Floyd. The synthesizer melodies swing like gentle waves to stuttering hi-hats while Nina and George sing against hate: “Positive vibrations surround the world’s nations!”

‘Atomwaffensperrvertrag’ is explicitly political. In it, Nina Hagen remixes two sampled excerpts from speeches (one she gave in 2009 at the United Nation Freedom Festival at Brandenburg Gate, and a UN speech from US politician Dennis Kucinich), creating a pulsing tour de force with country guitars, jumbled voices and frantic percussions.

One thing has not changed since the beginning of her career. Nina Hagen is radical. She tries new things. She speaks her mind. She knows no limits, whether artistic or ideological. Entertainment and very earnestly meant messages still go hand in hand for her.