Arsine Tibé to release ‘The Lounge Noire Sessions (Episode II)’ on June 19
Arsine Tibé, the solo project of !Distain’s Manfred Thomaser, releases the three-track “The Lounge Noire Sessions (Episode II)” on June 19, 2026.

German project Arsine Tibé will release “The Lounge Noire Sessions (Episode II)” on June 19, 2026. The band is the solo project of Manfred Thomaser, known from the German synthpop duo !Distain, and the new release continues a 2026 series that opened with “The Lounge Noire Sessions (Episode I)”.
‘The Lounge Noire Sessions (Episode II)’: tracklist and series
The release runs to three tracks: “Hope II”, “The Second Coming of Time” and “The Pretentiousness of Pop”. It follows “The Lounge Noire Sessions (Episode I)”, which appeared earlier in 2026 as a three-song single. You can pre-order the release on the artist’s Bandcamp page.
About Arsine Tibé
Arsine Tibé is the Lounge Noire and electronic pop solo project of Manfred Thomaser, based in Munich, Germany. Thomaser describes the project’s sound as drawing on lounge, soundtrack, ambient, new wave, electro and pop elements. He is best known as one half of !Distain, the German synthpop duo, and has also worked on the projects Demokratie and The Independent Seasons.
Side-Line first covered the project in 2016, when Thomaser launched a mini-album under the Arsine Tibé name. His main band was profiled in the 2019 Click Interview with !Distain. The Arsine Tibé discography has since grown through releases such as “We Came To Fail”, “Good Evening, The Mountain Said” and “The Copy”, issued through the area db imprint. “The Lounge Noire Sessions (Episode II)”, out June 19, 2026, is the second instalment in the project’s Lounge Noire Sessions series.
Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!
Since you’re here …
… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading Side-Line Magazine than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can - and we refuse to add annoying advertising. So you can see why we need to ask for your help.
Side-Line’s independent journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we want to push the artists we like and who are equally fighting to survive.
If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure. For as little as 5 US$, you can support Side-Line Magazine – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.
The donations are safely powered by Paypal.
