Miranda Cartel is the electronic project of Polish artist Emmanuella Robak, who released the 14-track album “Amethyst” on 21 March 2026. In this Miranda Cartel interview for Side-Line Magazine, Robak speaks with Karo Kratochwil about the decade between her 2015 debut “Divert” and “Amethyst”, the crystal that gives the album its name, the voice training and literary study she pursued during a long recording gap, the Polish dark alternative scene, and her return to live performance.

Robak writes, produces and sings the material herself, and also fronts the Polish darkwave band Lily of the Valley. She holds a PhD in literature and a master’s degree in English with a translation specialisation, and worked through academia, dubbing, acting and the Warsaw music scene during the years between records. Kratochwil photographed her in Dresden in 2025. The album followed the 2025 single “Andromeda”, which reopened the project after a long pause.

Miranda Cartel interview

Karo: Miranda Cartel returned after a long silence connected with academic and literary work. Did that break change the way you understand electronic music itself, or mainly the way you understand your own reasons for making it?

Miranda Cartel: That break from releasing music ultimately confirmed one thing for me: I really did want to keep making music. It also gave me time to understand which direction I wanted to take and how I wanted to continue telling my musical story.

During that period, I moved to Warsaw and immersed myself in the music scene. I went to countless concerts, discovered new genres, and had the chance to observe how different artists create and work with music. I also became involved in various musical, vocal and acting-related projects. I took dubbing classes at Katarzyna Łaska’s dubbing academy, studied vocal performance with Magdalena Hamer, performed in karaoke competitions, and played in the band Emmanacje at Akademia Rocka.

So I never really left music behind. I simply explored it from a different perspective for a while. Looking back, it was an incredibly valuable experience. Everything I learned during those years has found its way into the music I am making today, and I am sure it will also shape my live performances.

Karo: “Divert” came out in 2015, while “Amethyst” arrives more than a decade later as a full 14-track album. What changed most between those two versions of Miranda Cartel: the sound, the discipline, the emotional temperature, or your relationship with visibility?

Miranda Cartel: During that time, my whole approach to making music definitely changed. I am much more intentional now when choosing samples, paying attention to the sound itself, its quality, and the rhythmic foundation of a track. I approach melody differently, and I work with sounds in a completely different way. I now have a much clearer vision of what I want to create, but I also have a deeper understanding of music itself. Over the years, I have worked with and met many musicians who introduced me to new ideas and new possibilities. I also started taking vocal lessons, and that made a huge difference. Now I am able to sing the melodic lines I actually imagine, instead of being limited by technique. Singing lessons removed many of the limitations I had ten years ago and gave me much more confidence as a vocalist.

Karo: The title “Amethyst” immediately suggests colour, mineral depth, protection, perhaps even a kind of inner alchemy. Was it chosen for its visual and symbolic qualities, or did the album already have that violet, crystalline character before the title appeared?

Miranda Cartel: I have always loved amethysts. I am almost addicted to the energy I feel from this stone. It gives me strength, comfort and reassurance, and it makes me feel capable of overcoming whatever challenges come my way. I believe in the energy of crystals, and for me the amethyst is a talisman. It is a source of strength and positive energy that I rely on in everyday life. That is where the album title comes from. I wanted it to suggest that this record can also become a kind of talisman for different moments in life. The album explores a wide range of emotions and experiences, both joyful and difficult, but I believe every song carries its own strength and can help someone through a particular moment. I chose the title with that symbolism in mind, and it actually came to me only after the recording process was finished. Interestingly, the album also includes a track called “Amethyst”, one of its most experimental songs. But when I decided to name the album “Amethyst”, I was not thinking about that individual track. I was thinking about the album as a whole, what it represents, and, as you said, its violet, crystalline character.

Karo: Miranda Cartel has appeared on compilations connected with Alfa Matrix, Side-Line, Orkus and Electrozombies, which means the project has existed partly inside an international dark electronic network, even while remaining rooted in Poland. Did that outside recognition give you confidence, or did it create pressure to define the project more clearly?

Miranda Cartel: Every time one of my songs was selected for a compilation, it felt like real confirmation that my music resonates with people. It is one thing for me to believe my songs are good. That is obvious. But when industry professionals who understand the music market choose your tracks for their flagship compilations, it is an incredible honour. I am genuinely happy that my music has been included on those releases, and I hope it will not be the last time. I would love for my songs to appear on more compilations like that in the future.

Karo: “Andromeda” marked the return of Miranda Cartel with both sound and image. Why was that particular track the right signal after the break? Did it feel like a new beginning, or like a message sent from a place you had never fully left?

Miranda Cartel: This song, and the vision for its music video, had been in my head for a very long time. I have always loved ballads, and I think writing them is one of my strengths. So when I decided to return to music after such a long break, I knew I wanted to do it with a ballad. Not long after recording the song, we started working on the music video. It was an incredible experience, but also a real challenge, because I had to step into an acting role and express a wide range of emotions, even though I have no formal acting training. Still, I think I managed to pull it off, and the video captures exactly what I wanted to express through the song.

Karo: Polish electronic and dark alternative music has often operated outside the main European centres of scene visibility. Does working from Kielce give Miranda Cartel a sense of distance, freedom, isolation, or a sharper need to build its own language?

Miranda Cartel: Kielce has always had a vibrant music scene. When I first started making music, there were plenty of opportunities to perform live, record cover songs, and take part in music and poetry events, for example those held at Czerwony Fortepian. Working on my music there gave me a great deal of creative freedom, but it also encouraged me to develop my own artistic voice. I needed to build my own language. Now I have been living in Warsaw for the past few years, and this is where I create my music. The city offers incredible opportunities to experience live music, from concerts by international artists to performances by alternative bands, from commercial club events such as Boiler Room to underground nights in Warsaw’s independent venues. Every concert, DJ set or live performance I attend becomes a source of inspiration. Experiencing music from so many different perspectives constantly fuels my creativity and influences the way I approach my own work.

Karo: Your background includes music, academic activity and literature. How do these forms interfere with each other in your work? Does language shape the music first, or does the sound usually reveal what the text has been trying to say?

Miranda Cartel: Without a doubt, the time I dedicated to academic development completely changed the way I think about music, interpretation and storytelling. The literary sensitivity I developed through my studies, I have a PhD in literature, allows me to write songs that are meant to carry and communicate emotion. At the same time, my background in languages also changed the way I approach lyrics. I earned a master’s degree in English with a specialisation in translation, and that made me much more aware of linguistic nuance and of how subtle word choices can express exactly what I want to say. My academic and literary work gave me much greater confidence as a songwriter and expanded the ways in which I can use language to tell a story and connect with listeners. Most of the time, I write the melody first and only then add the lyrics. There are exceptions, though. “Broken” is one of them. I remember walking to work when I suddenly began quietly reciting these lyrics to myself and humming a melody. The words stuck in my head so strongly that I knew I had to capture them before they disappeared. I immediately sat down to develop the idea. Work could wait that day.

Karo: Performing at Castle Party in 2018 placed Miranda Cartel in one of the most symbolic spaces for the Polish dark scene. Looking back, did that concert feel like confirmation, confrontation, or a threshold you only understood later?

Miranda Cartel: That was not actually my first performance at Castle Party. I had already played there with my first music project, Lily of the Valley. Then, in 2017, I attended the festival in a different role. I worked there as a journalist, covering the event live for Projektor, a cultural magazine from Kielce, where I am still part of the editorial team today. I also wrote a feature article promoting the festival that year.

A year later, I returned to the Castle Party stage as Miranda Cartel, performing alongside my friend Adrianna, who played keyboards. It is always a little less stressful, and much more enjoyable, to share the stage with someone rather than perform alone. Castle Party has always been a very special festival for me. It is where I discovered many of my favourite bands, met incredible people, and learned so much about music and music production. It is also where I had the chance to meet talented musicians, passionate artists and true professionals. Performing at Castle Party was, and still is, one of the most meaningful milestones in my musical journey.

Karo: A solo electronic project often means total control, but also total responsibility. Which part of Miranda Cartel is hardest to carry alone: production decisions, emotional exposure, visual identity, promotion, or the simple persistence needed to keep going?

Miranda Cartel: Self-discipline is the hardest part of working solo, because you know you do not have any deadlines. Nobody is waiting for the track so they can record their part, nobody will say “stop” when it comes to revisions, and nobody is speeding up the process of creating music. With everything I work on, I try to reach the point where I can say to myself: okay, this is good, it is ready to be released. But that takes time and persistence. Is rushing a good idea? Releasing something in a hurry and then not being happy with it at all? At the same time, Miranda Cartel is deeply personal to me. It is my emotions, my experiences and my perspective. I am not sure I could share that creative process with someone else. Being in a band is a completely different way of working and creating together.

Karo: After “Amethyst”, what should Miranda Cartel risk next? More directness, more abstraction, stronger stage presence, deeper literary structures, or something that would disturb even your own idea of what the project is supposed to be?

Miranda Cartel: One of my biggest goals is to perform this new material live. After the holiday period, I will announce some live performances. It has been a long time since I last appeared on stage as Miranda Cartel, and I think it is definitely time to start playing concerts again. I also feel much better prepared now. I have more experience, a stronger foundation and much more confidence as a performer. I am really curious to see how audiences will respond to these songs, so I am looking forward to their feedback. I am also planning more music videos, so there is plenty of creative work ahead. I already have several ideas I would love to bring to life. And I do know one thing for sure: we definitely will not have to wait another ten years for the next album.

About Miranda Cartel

Miranda Cartel is the solo electronic project of Emmanuella Robak, based in Kielce, Poland. Robak writes, produces and sings the material, mixing darkwave and synthpop, and also fronts the Polish darkwave band Lily of the Valley. Her debut EP “Divert” appeared in 2015 on Halotan Records.

In the years that followed, Miranda Cartel tracks circulated through compilations rather than a steady release schedule, including Alfa Matrix’s “Endzeit Bunkertracks” and “Electronic Body Matrix”, Side-Line’s Face The Beat: Session 2 with the track “The Way To Follow”, the Orkus Magazine compilation, and Electrozombies tributes to Apoptygma Berzerk (“Apop We Love You”) and Depeche Mode (“Universe > Spirit”). Robak performed at Castle Party in Bolków in 2018, one of the central festivals for the Polish dark alternative scene.

After a break connected with academic and literary work, including a PhD in literature and a master’s in English translation, Robak returned with the single and video “Andromeda” in 2025. The 14-track album “Amethyst” followed on 21 March 2026 and is available on Spotify, Tidal and Apple Music. As she confirms in this interview, live dates are planned, and she does not intend to leave another decade before the next album.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Swedish-Norwegian artist Karin Park released her EP “EVO” on 8 May 2026, the first part of a three-part cycle she calls “EVO-LUT-ION-(EN)”. In this Karin Park interview for Side-Line Magazine, she speaks with Karo Kratochwil about that record and the ideas behind it: evolution as a costly process, motherhood surfacing in the songs without sentiment, the anger she found inside “Explodera”, the everyday field recordings and pump organ woven through the tracks, her parallel work with the band Årabrot, and the pull of the painter Hilma af Klint.

Kratochwil first saw Park perform as part of Lustmord at the 2024 Wrocław Industrial Festival, the encounter that shaped this conversation. The two spoke over Zoom between family duties, Park waiting outside her daughter’s circus camp, a setting that sits deliberately against the record’s themes of transformation, darkness and spiritual pressure.

Karin Park interview

Karo: Now that “EVO” is out in the world, do you feel more understood, more exposed, or more misunderstood?

Karin: Good question. I really have not thought about that at all. When I think about it, I do feel more understood, because it was a while ago since I released my last thing, and I am very much in that musical place of this EP.

I feel like I get to show where I am right now, which is important, because when I come and play live, I feel people do not know exactly what to expect from me. I have done a lot of different kinds of live shows, but now with this live show I have incorporated my whole musical history in a more danceable way, because that is kind of where I am with myself right now.

More than anything, when I play live now, people get to understand where I am in my life right now. There was a period where I had really small children, I was super tired, and everything I did in the studio was super slow. But now I have a lot more energy and the live show is a lot more energetic. So I do feel, with the EP and the live show combined, that I get to show where I am right now.

Therefore, I feel more understood. But it is not an easy thing to understand me as an artist, because I am so many things, and people want to put you into different boxes: “Oh, she is like that,” or “she is like that.” I play loads of different instruments. I have so many different interests, musically and in art and different things. So I do not think it is an easy task to try to understand. But over a long period of time, when you look back on my career, it is going to be easier to see where it was. When you get it just piece by piece, it is harder.

Karo: Did any reaction surprise you?

Karin: It always surprises me when people who loved my first album also love my last thing, because I have done this for like 20 years now, and my first record was quite different from what I am releasing now. But people still like my records. The same people like my records. And I find that quite amazing, that people kind of grow with me in that sense. That always surprises me a little bit: people who have been following me through my whole journey and have not fallen off at some record.

Maybe it is less different than I would like to think, because I am the same person after all. But other than that, no, I am not too surprised.

Karo: You have spoken about needing a frame for this project. Once that frame becomes public, does it still give freedom, or can it start becoming something like a cage?

Karin: I think that I do not care enough about where people want me to be. I cared a bit more when I was younger. I did a pretty big turn from my first and second album into a more electronic vibe, and I think that was my biggest change. But now, when I make music, I cannot make anything that I do not like. I am very bad at doing things that I do not like doing. So I do not think I could make music just to please someone else. I have tried, because I have tried to please people so many times, but I just do not know how to do it.

For some people, they have always stuck to their guns and chosen to be really different. But for me, ever since school, I moved to Japan when I was a kid, and when I came home from Japan, I was like a different person from everyone else. I tried my hardest to fit in.

I would do anything to fit in, but I realized quickly that I just had no idea how to fit in, so I was going to have to go the other way. It was not really a choice for me. That is kind of what I have done my whole music career. I have no idea how to fit in, so I might as well just do my own thing until I die.

Karo: So what is the drive for you?

Karin: The drive for me is to create. When I create something, it does not matter if it is music, or if it is a little short film, or if it is something I am building in my home. I just love the action of: there is nothing there now, and then suddenly there is something there. The most amazing thing with music is that there is nothing there, and suddenly there is something out of thin air. It does not even take any space.

Where there was silence, there is now music. I think that is such an incredible thing. It amazes me every day when I am in the studio. I made this. How cool is that? And also on stage. I love, love, love being on stage. When I am singing, when I am doing my thing, when I play my synthesizers live in front of people, it is like I am truly the person I want to be. I do not think about anything else. I am totally in the moment. So those are the two things. That is why I get up every day. I love doing that.

Karo: You seem to be working from a very immediate place now. Do you trust your first instincts more now than before as an artist?

Karin: Yes, I think I do. I think I have learned to. When I start something, when I start a song, there is always a mental choir that goes: “Boo, boo, stop doing this.” In my head, it is like a very critical ensemble of mental ghosts that are always criticizing what I do: “Oh no, not that chord again,” “We have heard this before.” Things that you tell yourself. But I have learned that if I can just quiet those mental ghosts for a while and get on with my thing, then suddenly I get sucked into the project. Before, maybe I would stop doing something and listen to those voices.

But now I know that is just a mental thing that a lot of people have, and that I have, and that I just have to deal with it. If I can just quiet those inner critical voices, then I can get to something good. I trust more now that I will get over myself and get sucked into the song.

Karo: Motherhood appears on “EVO”, but not in a soft or decorative way. It feels loving, pressured, exhausted, protective, and sometimes almost violent. Did you want to resist the clean story people often expect around motherhood?

Karin: I did not think that I was even writing about motherhood. I think that I wrote the songs, and then I realized what they were about after I had written them. Sometimes I try: “Oh, I want to write about this.” But then when I make the song, it does not want to be about that. The creative process is put down brick by brick, and then I am like: “Oh, this song became a song about motherhood.” With the song “Explodera,” I did not even know what it was about when it was finished. I was like: “What is this song? I do not even recognize what it is about.”

But then, when I was making the video for it, I was in the process of doing a script for the video, and I was like: “How can I make a script for the video when I do not know what it is about?” Then I saw “Raging Bull” by Martin Scorsese, and I was like: “Oh my God, this song is rage. I am angry.” When I listened to the lyrics with that in mind, it was so obvious, but it is almost like you cannot see the forest for all the trees.

Sometimes I just write the lyrics that I feel should be in the song. When I try to write a lyric to a song and it is not right, sometimes I just scrap it entirely. Or if I want to write about a subject and there is resistance, it just does not happen. Then I am like: “Okay, it does not want to be about this. So what do you want to be about then? Show me.” Then I write word by word.

Sometimes I write it backwards. I write the end part first, and then I go back and feel my way into what the song wants to be about. In the end, it makes more and more sense. By the end of it, it is like: “Okay, there it is.” I always write the melody first, and parts of the music. I almost never start with the lyric.

Maybe just a line or something, but most of the time I let the melody decide what the song is going to be about. Sometimes it is stuff that I do not even want to write about, but I do not have a choice, because this song is about this and there is nothing I can do.

Karo: With “Explodera,” you recognized anger and frustration underneath what first felt like a love song. Do you think anger sometimes tells the truth before the conscious mind does?

Karin: I think the unconscious mind tells the truth all the time, and that is kind of where you dip in when you write lyrics. Does it feel true or not? The unconscious mind is always right.

Karo: The use of your children’s voices is powerful because family enters the record physically, not only lyrically. What was the role of those samples for you?

Karin: I just have a lot of samples that I had recorded on my phone, and there are a lot of different samples. I use samples of my everyday life all the time. It was not like: “Oh, now I am putting my sacred son’s sample in here.” It was more like: “Oh my God, it would sound great if my son was laughing in that little gap,” or: “I heard this thing on the radio and I recorded it, can we just put it in here?” It is more about the use of different sounds.

I actually do not think too much about whether it is my children. It just sounded nice. It is not any more sacred than that, really. Sometimes a horse is neighing, or loads of different things. I have gone through like 700 recordings on my phone of different sounds.

Karo: So there are traces of everyday life, church space, hymns, pump organ, electronics and darker club textures?

Karin: So many things. It is more like: I was at this party, and my uncle and his friends came in and they were playing the violin, and I was like: “This sounds amazing, let us put that into a song.” When my father’s ashes were buried, we sang this hymn in church, and I recorded that. That is also a texture. There are lots of different things that people do not really hear, but they are from my life in different settings. Or if I do the dishes and the glasses touch each other and it sounds cool, then I just record it and use that in the song.

Karo: What about the pump organ? Does it bring memory, faith, architecture, or is it simply one more sound from your life?

Karin: No, they sound really special. They really do. Especially when you mix them with more electronic music, they have a different soul. I also play the flute, and when I play the flute, it sounds so warm and so human. Sometimes in an electronic track, if I use the flute, it is just a texture and you do not hear what it is, but you feel something. It is almost like someone reaches out and touches you, because it is so human. I feel that with the pump organ too. It is such an organic sound. It brings a whole different texture of organic feeling to the sound, which I love.

Karo: Your melodies can be very beautiful, but this beauty rarely feels innocent. Do you trust beauty more when it carries a wound?

Karin: Yes. I think I am very drawn to the darker side of beauty somehow. Always. I do not know why, but it is just the way it is. My first record sounds more innocent, I guess, but I was also the same then, to be honest. It was just that I tried to make a song.

I was not in a grown-up enough state so that I could ask myself: “What do I really like? What kind of melodies?” I was just like: “Can I write the song? Okay. This is a song that I could hear on the radio.” That was kind of just my attempt to write actual songs. But now, when I feel: “How do I get touched?” If I hear a melody and I am going: “Oh, that is so beautiful,” then I can trust that more.

Because I know now that I can write a song. It is no problem. It is just: what kind of song do I want to write? I have developed more, but I have always been drawn to the darker side of the melody. I think that is something that runs in my family too.

I grew up in church, but when I listen to what kind of music my family made, the hymns, and my grandmother’s uncle, who used to write a lot of the stuff and was the organist in the church that I grew up in, his melodies are so melancholic. There is a more folky touch to it because he wrote folk music, but it is still so dark and beautiful in a way. I just think that runs in my DNA somehow.

Karo: You have both the solo work and Årabrot, and they seem separate but connected. Are those worlds still clearly divided, or has the border between them become useful because it leaks?

Karin: I think it has become very useful. The big difference between Årabrot and my solo project is that in Årabrot, Kjetil writes all the music. I do not write anything. He is always 30 songs ahead of me. He writes every day. The creative process in Årabrot for me is to arrange the songs and to produce them. So it has a lot of influence from my production over the years. We obviously work together and talk every day, so we have a lot of influence on each other. We are very different, but we have a lot in common as well.

I was a small part of what I wrote for many years, but when we decided to kind of front the band, both of us, it became more useful, because I could take a bit more space there and find my own personality in the band. Now I feel like it is two different sides of me that I get to show. I feel like they complement each other in a good way. When I am with Årabrot, I get to be the second opinion a bit.

I can look at it from an angle. It is not all about inside of me all the time. I can look at Kjetil’s songs with a bit more distance. It is also nice to be able to rock out when I am in Årabrot. I can crowd surf, I can play bass, and focus more on the production side of things and the live part of things. I do not have to put all my personality in it at all times, which is kind of nice.

Karo: Evolution sounds beautiful as a word, but real evolution usually costs something. What has this current evolution cost you?

Karin: I think I am too close to it now to know that. But I think it cost a lot. It always does. To evolve is my trademark. I feel like my whole life is kind of a quick evolution, and it does cost a lot to do that, but you also gain a lot. I think I will see it more clearly once these three parts are out.

But it takes everything. It takes all the energy out of me to do and release all of this. I do not think people who are not artists can understand how much we put into it. It is everything. Everything. I feel like it costs a lot, but it gives you a lot too. Sometimes I wish I would just not be interested in being an artist anymore, because I think it would be an easier life. It takes so much: the passion, how personal it is. I do not think music is necessarily that personal for everyone, but for me it really is.

I do not know how to describe it, but sometimes it feels like it destroys you. It burns a hole inside of you when you give this much. But on a good day, it feels cathartic also, to be able to do that. And as you said, you mentioned that I create in a very immediate way, and I have not really thought about that.

But I am going to be grateful for that, because I do. I take it for granted sometimes, but I should not, because I am very lucky that way. I can create exactly what I want. I do not have to take any expectations into consideration. I just release exactly the kind of songs that I want to release, and I have the power to do so. That is great. But sometimes to have all of that freedom is also daunting.

Karo: Is this trilogy about becoming someone new, or becoming less afraid of who you already are?

Karin: I think in many ways the journey is to be closer to who you really are. As close to who you really are as possible. I think that is the quest in life: to really allow yourself to become that person that you want to be. I do not want to become someone new, but I want to be closer to the person that I am. Sometimes I am in touch with that person, but not always. That is what I want. Sometimes I want to get closer to myself, and I want to remind other people of who they are as well. I feel like music can do that.

Sometimes you go for a long time and you feel like you have forgotten who you are. Then suddenly you get a glimpse of the real you, and then you remember. Especially when you get older, you can lose yourself. When you are a child, you know who you are, and then you get distracted. There are so many things in life that try to distract us from who we really are. That is the journey that we all are on in a way. And because “EVO” is inspired by Hilma af Klint, she was on a spiritual journey to also reach her higher self, which I can relate to.

About Karin Park

Karin Park was born on 6 September 1978 in Djura, Sweden, and began her career in Bergen, Norway. She works as a singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist whose music moves between synthpop, electronic and darker, industrial-leaning pop. Her early full-lengths “Superworldunknown” (2003), “Change Your Mind” (2006) and “Ashes to Gold” (2009) preceded the shift toward electronics that defined “Highwire Poetry” (2012) and “Apocalypse Pop” (2015), both on State of the Eye Recordings. She also wrote “I Feed You My Love”, Norway’s 2013 Eurovision entry performed by Margaret Berger.

Later work moved toward sparser, more personal settings: “Church of Imagination” (2020) on her own Djura Missionshus, and “Private Collection” (2022) on Pelagic Records, which paired her voice with minimal pump-organ arrangements. In 2021 she released the collaborative album “Alter” with Lustmord, also on Pelagic, and performed the project live, including at the 2024 Wrocław Industrial Festival. Park is married to Kjetil Nernes of the Norwegian band Årabrot, where she plays keyboards and co-produces; as she describes above, Nernes writes the music while she arranges and produces it.

Park last spoke with Side-Line in March 2026, in an earlier interview about touring small and intimate venues. Her EP “EVO” arrived on 8 May 2026, trailed by the singles “Sing Your Sorrow” and “Explodera”, the latter released with a video. “EVO” opens the “EVO-LUT-ION-(EN)” cycle discussed in this interview, a set she describes as three parts still to be completed.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

The summer edition of Hands Label Night Berlin felt like a very different organism from the January one. I do not mean this in the tired festival-review sense where every edition is automatically described as unique, because that usually says almost nothing. I mean that the whole nervous system of the evening seemed altered: the heat, the audience, the way people entered the room, the way bodies moved, the relation between the music and the air around it.

January had carried another kind of severity. Winter in Berlin gives this music a different setting: closed jackets, darker streets, bodies folded inward by cold, a more concentrated kind of listening, the sense that sound has to cut through weather before it reaches the skin. The summer edition worked in another register entirely. Urban Spree was hot, RAW-Gelände was breathing outside with its usual mixture of dust, concrete, posters, walls, bodies and noise, and the audience felt looser, more mixed, more permeable. People seemed to receive the music differently, perhaps because the body had already been pushed into awareness by the temperature before the first proper sonic impact arrived.

That difference does not make one edition better and the other weaker. It says something far more interesting about Hands Label Night itself: the format is able to hold different atmospheres, different audiences and different kinds of intensity without losing its centre. The winter edition had density and inward pressure. The summer edition had exposure, sweat, movement and variety. Both made sense. Both belonged to the same label universe, where rhythm is never just rhythm, but also architecture, instruction, endurance, physical argument and, sometimes, a kind of controlled damage.

The running order on this Hands Label Night moved with its own internal logic: Supersimmetria opened with a DJ set, followed by Sans-Fin, Siamgda, Monya, MS Gentur + Sven Phalanx and Statiqbloom. I did not stay for Mono No Aware, because the heat eventually defeated me, and I would rather say that honestly than pretend to review something I did not experience properly. Even this felt oddly appropriate for the summer edition: January allows you to disappear deeper into the night; June reminds you that the body, however devoted to sound, still negotiates with oxygen, temperature and fatigue.

Supersimmetria

The evening opened with Supersimmetria, and Armando delivered exactly the kind of opening DJ set that does not need to dominate in order to establish authority. I first saw him at Hands Label Night, one of the winter editions, and since then I have had a particular weakness for the way his music seems to develop live in front of the listener, as if construction and perception were happening at the same time.

That quality was present again at Urban Spree. His set did not behave like a practical prelude, the kind of functional DJing used merely to fill the room before the first live act. It felt more like a gradual tuning of the space. Rhythms appeared, settled, shifted their internal weight; textures moved along the edges of the room; details accumulated without becoming decorative; the whole thing thickened with patience and precision.

Supersimmetria understands repetition in a way that is much more interesting than repetition as looped insistence. Bad repetition stays dead. Good repetition changes because the listener changes inside it. Armando’s set had that ability: it slowly altered the room’s temperature, not by force, but by induction. It invited the audience into a state where rhythm could become hypnotic without becoming passive, and where structure could remain strict while still feeling alive.

As an opening, it respected the architecture of the night. It did not throw the audience immediately against a wall. It opened a corridor, adjusted the ears, prepared the body for stronger forms of pressure and reminded everyone that the HANDS language is not only about impact. It is also about patience, control, tension and the very precise pleasure of hearing sound organise space.

Sans-Fin

Sans-Fin followed with a very different kind of intensity, one that worked less through frontal assault and more through persistence, concentration and immersion. In a line-up where later performances would use severity more openly, Sans-Fin created pressure by narrowing the room slowly, almost methodically, until the audience found itself inside the sound rather than simply in front of it. That kind of set can be easy to underestimate if one expects industrial performance to constantly announce its own brutality. Sans-Fin did not do that. The music did not chase impact every few seconds, did not swell in predictable gestures, did not treat heaviness as a requirement to be fulfilled on schedule. It occupied its own space and allowed density to become the main instrument.

There was something procedural in the way the set moved. The sound created a field, and once inside that field, time seemed to stretch slightly. The body adjusted to a different breathing pattern. The mind stopped looking for obvious peaks and began following pressure as a continuous state. This is a difficult form of intensity because it requires trust: from the performer, from the audience, and from the material itself.

In the wider shape of the evening, Sans-Fin played an important role. After Supersimmetria’s hypnotic opening, it pushed the night further inward, making the room more attentive before Siamgda shifted everything into something more violent and ritualised. It was a set of controlled gravity, less spectacular than some of the later explosions, but very effective in the way it prepared the nervous system.

Siamgda

Siamgda changed the state of the room completely. This was a brutal sonic attack, and I mean that as praise, although the word “brutal” is almost too narrow for what the project does, because it suggests force alone, while Siamgda’s music seems to come from a place where rhythm, invocation, bodily endurance and spiritual pressure have not yet been separated into clean categories. My first deeper contact with Siamgda happened in May 2025, when I was preparing an interview around “Resistanz”, and what stayed with me from that conversation was the way the project spoke about drums. Not drums as decoration, not drums as an exotic surface added to industrial music, not drums as tribal colour pasted onto electronics, but drums as the centre: an ancient tool of elevation, calling, possession and transformation. Siamgda’s years of living among and studying different drum traditions in Asia clearly matter here, because the live sound carries that understanding physically. The drum is not there to support the track. The drum is the spine, the pulse, the door.

At Urban Spree, this made the set feel terrifyingly alive. The sound was severe, heavy and physically demanding, but it did not behave like standard industrial aggression. It had ritual gravity. The rhythms seemed to come from a place before genre, before club function, before the safer terms we use to organise music into categories. Electronics, abrasive pressure and vocal shadows gathered around that central percussive force, and the result felt less like a performance in the ordinary sense and more like a controlled ordeal. In that May 2025 conversation, Siamgda also described “Resistanz” as an album that had been almost ready for a long time, yet still lacked something until Marie’s voice gave it the ethereal touch it needed. Marie was not performing here, and I do not want to imply otherwise, but the idea behind that collaboration still helps explain the project’s internal tension. Siamgda is clearly interested in the point where weight and elevation meet, where impact and spirit do not cancel each other, where cruelty and purification can exist in the same sound.

This is where Siamgda becomes more than another harsh industrial act. The brutality is real, but it is not empty. It does not perform darkness as style. It uses darkness as passage. The set was harsh enough to feel almost punitive, yet underneath the violence there was a strange invitation: not to relax, not to be entertained, but to endure long enough for rhythm to change the internal temperature. For me, this was one of the strongest moments of the night because Siamgda refused the easy version of industrial intensity. It did not offer noise as spectacle. It offered percussion as elevation, rhythm as ordeal and brutality as a doorway into something disturbingly alive.

Monya

Monya was one of my absolute highlights of the night, and to be honest, I expected that. She is one of those artists whose sets make the tired distinction between club pleasure and experimental intelligence feel completely useless. She can give the room momentum, heat and drive, but she never reduces energy to a service product. Her sets feel alive because they keep thinking while they move.

There is something queenly in the way Monya handles sound, though not in a distant or decorative sense. It is command, instinct, risk, the ability to read a room and still refuse to become obedient to it. Her improvised sets bring together the best impulses of club music and harsher electronic culture: pulse, surprise, density, brightness, abrasion, acceleration, release. Their power lies in the refusal to settle into one predictable emotional lane.

At Urban Spree, she built a set that felt dynamic, energising and beautifully unstable. It could turn suddenly, sharpen its edge, open into something more luminous, then darken again without losing its internal logic. Complexity did not become a wall between herself and the audience. It became movement. The music remained physical, but the physicality was intelligent; it did not insult the body by assuming it only wants the most obvious beat.

Her set brought the best kind of euphoria into the night: not cheerful, not easy, not sugar poured over machinery, but that more serious excitement that appears when a room realises it is being led somewhere without fully knowing the route. It was invigorating, sensual in its own metallic way, and completely absorbing. For me, Monya was a reminder that electronic music can be generous without being simple, and intense without becoming narrow. She does not merely play for the room. She alters the room’s behaviour.

MS Gentur + Sven Phalanx

MS Gentur + Sven Phalanx were one of the real discoveries of the evening for me, perhaps because it was the first time I saw this configuration live, and perhaps because their energy was simply impossible to resist. Some acts arrive with severity, some with ritual distance, some with technical command; they arrived like a powerhouse with a pulse and a grin, which gave their set a very specific charge.

What struck me first was the stage dialogue. This did not feel like two people standing near each other while the machinery did the main work. It felt like exchange, friction, answer, provocation, acceleration. One impulse would be thrown from one side and immediately transformed from the other. The sound attacked relentlessly from the stage, but the performance itself carried visible pleasure in its own force, especially in Sven Phalanx’s presence, which had that irresistible quality of someone who does not merely operate inside the music, but animates it, pushes it outward and dares the room to keep up.

There was a lot of power in the set, but the power did not become dull or heavy in the wrong way. It stayed mobile. It had momentum, humour, aggression, impact and a very direct relation with the audience. Industrial music sometimes traps itself in seriousness, as if intensity required a permanent refusal of joy. MS Gentur + Sven Phalanx proved the opposite. Their set had mass, but it also had play; it had muscle, but it also had movement. It was relentless without becoming monotonous, loud without becoming stupid, energetic without slipping into simple entertainment. They inhabited the sound fully, and the audience felt that difference.

Statiqbloom

Statiqbloom was my personal favourite, the set that felt as if the whole body had been caught inside sonic barbed wire and then electrified through every loop. This is the image I always return to with this project, because it captures something essential: the sound does not merely hit; it wraps, tightens, cuts, shocks and keeps the listener inside its structure.

There is brutality in Statiqbloom, but it is never crude. That distinction matters very much. Harsh music can be painfully stupid when it mistakes volume for thought or abrasion for meaning. Statiqbloom does neither. The aggression has architecture. The textures scrape and burn, the rhythms apply pressure with a nearly surgical cruelty, and yet beneath the surface there is an emotional intelligence that prevents the whole experience from turning into empty sonic domination.

Every time I hear Statiqbloom, I feel that the project does not treat the ears, body, heart or nervous system kindly, and yet it gives something back that gentler music often cannot. It is invigorating precisely because it refuses comfort. The set at Urban Spree had that quality: damaged metal, dry rhythmic punishment, static, breath, electricity, urban dread, all pressed into a form that felt severe but alive. The sensitivity inside this violence is crucial. Statiqbloom’s soundscape is brutal, yes, but the brutality seems to know about fragility. It feels connected to alienation, exhaustion, fear, systems pressing too close to the body, the strange modern condition of being overstimulated and emotionally underprotected at the same time. The set did not tell that story in any literal way. It made the body understand it. In the context of Hands Label Night, this was perhaps the most precise expression of rhythm as psychological pressure.

Mono No Aware

I did not stay for Mono No Aware. The heat defeated me before the end of the night, and I would rather write that honestly than pretend to review a set I did not experience properly. Still, the project’s presence on the poster mattered, because Mono No Aware is one of the names that carry real weight within the HANDS universe.

Leif Künzel’s long-running project, rooted in German rhythm’n’noise and connected with the HANDS catalogue for years, represents one of the label’s most recognisable approaches to industrial body mechanics: repetition, impact, severity and that particular sense of rhythmic pressure where the body is not so much invited to move as instructed. Even without writing about this specific performance, it is worth acknowledging how the name shaped the expectations of the night. Mono No Aware is not a decorative addition to such a line-up. It is part of the language.

Final thoughts on Hands Label Night

Hands Label Night Berlin worked because it refused to present industrial culture as one uniform mood. The night moved through hypnotic construction, sustained pressure, ritual violence, improvised club intelligence, performance joy and harsh electronic overload, while never losing the basic HANDS premise: rhythm as something serious, bodily and transformative. The summer edition was completely different from the January one, and that difference was valuable. It showed that this label night can stretch. It can hold different audiences, different temperatures, different bodies and different approaches to sound without losing its identity. HANDS remains very clearly HANDS: physical, rhythmic, intelligent, uncompromising. Yet uncompromising does not have to mean narrow.

At Urban Spree, inside RAW-Gelände, with Berlin heat sitting heavily in the air and the audience moving between concrete, noise and sweat, the evening felt alive in a way that cannot be reduced to a line-up. Supersimmetria opened the evening with hypnotic intelligence, Sans-Fin worked through sustained atmosphere, Siamgda brought ritual brutality, Monya ruled through risk and movement, MS Gentur + Sven Phalanx turned force into performance electricity, and Statiqbloom delivered the kind of harsh, precise overload that remains in the nervous system after the sound is gone. And then the Berlin heat finished the job.

About HANDS and the Hands Label Night

HANDS (Hands Productions) is a German label founded in 1992 by Udo Wiessmann, specialising in rhythmic noise, power noise and industrial body music. The label has shaped that strand of the scene for more than three decades through artists such as Mono No Aware, Imminent, Orphx, Tarmvred and many others, and stages its recurring Hands Label Night events as showcases for the roster. The Berlin summer edition reviewed here gathered Supersimmetria, Sans-Fin, Siamgda, Monya, MS Gentur + Sven Phalanx, Statiqbloom and Mono No Aware at Urban Spree.

Words and photos by Karo Kratochwil.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Diary of Dreams have announced a new live format. Adrian Hates and Felix Wunderer will appear on selected international stages as Diary of Dreams – the electronic duet, focusing on the purely electronic side of the project.

As Adrian Hates comments: “the Electronic Duet” concerts are additional to playing live with the normal line up – NOT a replacement! – I was just sick and tired of not touring anymore in so many territories due to generally rising costs. This is my way of dealing with it. of course you still have a point here: after all, concerts are essential to survive as an artist, by slowly more and more unaffordable for so many of us. dead end dreams.”

The explanation is honest enough. Rising costs for flights, hotels, travel, crew and staff have made some international shows difficult, sometimes impossible, to finance in the usual full-band format. According to Hates, the alternative would be fewer concerts, fewer countries, fewer chances to reach people outside the safer touring routes. So the project is being reduced for certain shows, at least physically. Smaller team, lower costs, more mobility.

What I appreciate about the announcement is that it does not dress the problem up too much. This is not presented as a sudden artistic revelation after decades of misunderstanding. It is necessity. And maybe because it is necessity, the phrase “back to the roots” lands in a more complicated way.

In a sense, yes. Diary of Dreams were never far from electronics. The programming was always there, under the voice, under the drama, under that particular DoD sadness. The band’s early identity was already built around atmosphere, pulse, repetition and a very controlled kind of darkness. Nobody can seriously argue that Diary of Dreams are now discovering machines for the first time.

But still, I hesitate.

What the Diary of Dreams electronic duet changes

For me, Diary of Dreams always worked on several levels at once. Adrian Hates’ voice, of course. That voice is almost a genre in itself: severe, elegant, wounded, commanding without ever becoming theatrical in the cheap sense. Then the lyrics, often more intelligent than the usual dark-scene vocabulary allows, full of inner conflict, accusation, distance, self-observation. But the guitars mattered too. They were not decoration. They gave the songs a body, a pressure, a grain. They stopped the music from becoming too smooth.

That is probably why this news produces mixed feelings. Electronic music is not the problem. It would be absurd to complain about electronics in a scene built on synthesizers, programming and machines. The problem is different. There is a difference between choosing electronic reduction because the songs demand it, and accepting electronic reduction because the economics of touring have become brutal.

Adrian Hates has experimented before. Coma Alliance with Torben Wendt of Diorama opened a different shared space, more collaborative, more cross-pollinated. .com/kill with Gaun:A moved into a colder, more direct electronic form. Some experiments worked better than others, which is normal. What they all showed is that Hates is not an artist trapped inside one fixed arrangement. He can strip things down, bend the language, move sideways from Diary of Dreams and still remain recognisable.

But Diary of Dreams is not just another vehicle. It carries history. It carries the weight of rooms, tours, records, line-ups, arrangements, expectations. It carries that strange bond between programmed melancholy and live force. A Diary of Dreams song can survive in a purely electronic version, yes. The question is whether it changes character when the physical band body is reduced.

And it will change. Of course it will. A live guitarist is not just the guitar sound. A drummer is not just the beat. A musician on stage is movement, friction, timing, small mistakes, resistance, heat. A laptop can carry the arrangement. It can do it cleanly, sometimes more reliably than a tired band in a difficult venue. But it cannot look back at the singer. It cannot push against the room. It cannot make the same kind of risk.

This has been happening for years with drums. Many bands in the darker electronic scene no longer tour with live drums. Some never did, some use hybrid setups, some rely on backing tracks, and in many cases it makes sense. Nobody wants to be naive about money. But now one wonders whether guitars are next. Is this where underground touring is going: two people, a laptop, a few controllers, and the ghost of a full band behind them?

That may sound harsh, but it is not meant as an attack on Diary of Dreams. Quite the opposite. Their announcement is interesting because it says aloud what many artists are probably already calculating in private. How many people can we still afford to take on the road? Which parts of the live sound are essential? Which parts can be programmed? Which parts will the audience miss? Which parts will they accept losing because everyone knows how expensive everything has become?

There is sadness in that. Not melodrama, just sadness. Artists who spent decades building entire musical worlds now have to redesign those worlds around hotel prices, flight routes, fuel costs, crew fees and promoter risk. That is the part that hurts. It is not the laptop. It is the reason the laptop becomes the solution.

So yes, “back to the roots” is partly true. Diary of Dreams have an electronic root. Adrian Hates can stand inside that reduced format without betraying the project. Felix Wunderer is not a random technician added to make the files run. If the duet is carefully shaped, it could become something genuinely strong: colder, more intimate, perhaps closer to the skeleton of the songs. Less rock pressure, more nerve. Less full-band drama, more exposed architecture. But if it becomes simply the cheaper version of the full show, people will feel that too.

The important detail is that Diary of Dreams are not announcing the death of the band. Hates makes it clear that the full line-up continues to exist, and that the duet format applies when the show is billed specifically as Diary of Dreams – the electronic duet. That distinction matters. It keeps the door open. It says: this is another form, not the final replacement.

Still, the announcement leaves a question hanging over the scene. What do we lose when live music becomes more portable? What do we gain? More countries, more shows, more chances for people to see artists who might otherwise skip their region completely. That matters. But we may also lose some of the human surplus that made concerts feel different from playback with lights.

Maybe the future of underground music will be more modular: full band where possible, electronic duet where necessary, acoustic or semi-acoustic versions when the setting demands it, festival versions, club versions, survival versions. Maybe that is not entirely bad. Flexibility can be creative. Limitation can produce focus.

But I would rather we name the pressure honestly. This is not only an artistic turn. It is also a financial wound. And Diary of Dreams, by speaking about it so directly, have given us more than a tour-format update. They have given us a small, uncomfortable picture of where live music stands now. Back to the roots? Maybe. But also forward into a future where even established bands have to travel lighter, count harder, and hope that what remains on stage is still enough to carry the dream.

Diary of Dreams 2026 live dates

• July 4, 2026 – Hude, Germany – Burning Pants Festival
• July 17, 2026 – Bolków, Poland – Castle Party 2026
• July 18, 2026 – Königstein, Germany – Festung Königstein
• July 26, 2026 – Köln, Germany – Amphi Festival
• September 6, 2026 – Deutzen, Germany – Nocturnal Culture Night 2026
• September 12, 2026 – Rotterdam, Netherlands – Baroeg Open Air 2026
• November 19, 2026 – Schwerin, Germany – Zenit Schwerin
• November 20, 2026 – Braunschweig, Germany – KufA Haus
• November 21, 2026 – Bielefeld, Germany – Stereo Live Club
• November 22, 2026 – Oberhausen, Germany – Kulttempel
• November 25, 2026 – Karlsruhe, Germany – Die Stadtmitte
• November 26, 2026 – Wiesbaden, Germany – Schlachthof Wiesbaden
• November 27, 2026 – Jena, Germany – F-Haus
• November 28, 2026 – Bremen, Germany – Kulturzentrum Lagerhaus

About Diary of Dreams

Diary of Dreams is the darkwave project of Adrian Hates, formed in Düsseldorf, Germany in 1989. Built around Hates’ voice, programmed rhythms and guitar, the project became one of the central names in German dark-scene music across albums such as “Cholymelan”, “Bird Without Wings”, “Nigredo” and “Nekrolog 43”. Hates has run the project through its own label, Accession Records, and remained its constant creative centre while the live line-up changed over the years.

Recent Diary of Dreams activity includes the orchestral reworking “Under a timeless Spell” and the “Dead End Dreams” series on Accession. The electronic-duet format adds another live configuration alongside the full band, applied to shows billed specifically as Diary of Dreams – the electronic duet, beginning with the project’s announced 2026 dates.

Words by Karo Kratochwil.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Ben Christo is a guitarist who has learned that volume is rarely the most dangerous thing a guitar can do. Sometimes the sharper weapon is restraint: three notes placed with intent, a riff stripped until it stops showing off, a melody dark enough to carry memory without collapsing under its own drama. That sense of control runs through his long tenure with The Sisters of Mercy, where guitar often works as atmosphere, pressure and architecture rather than simple attack. Yet Christo’s musical life is much wider than one band’s mythology.

With Ricky Warwick, he returns to a more instinctive rock language, closer to the teenage thrill of classic guitar energy. With Diamond Black, the emotional centre moves closer to his own life, touching mental health, chronic pain, alcoholism, recovery and the difficult work of making hope sound earned. His phrase for the thread running through it all is “dark, gritty melody”. It is a useful key to this conversation. In this interview for Side-Line Magazine, Ben Christo speaks with us about The Sisters of Mercy, Diamond Black, sobriety, songwriting as narrative movement, Andrew Eldritch’s lessons in restraint, the way new songs change on stage, and what fans may expect from the next tour.

Ben Christo interview

Karo: Ben, thank you for taking the time. We have around 30 minutes, so I will try to stay focused. I wanted to start with your recent tour with Ricky Warwick. It seems like a very different musical environment from The Sisters of Mercy: more direct rock’n’roll energy, more organic movement, and a different relationship with the audience. What does a run like that give you as a player before you move back toward something more controlled like The Sisters?

Ben: Yeah, that’s such a great question. To see that very clear contrast between the two performance styles. As you’ve pointed out with the Ricky Warwick show, it is very much what feels right in the moment. The last show that we played was this fantastic festival called Bonfest, and that was the last show we played. It was a big stage, big audience, and it really gave me a good chance to connect with something very inveterate, I think, in my own playing, which is simply playing three chord rock on a Gibson SG to an excited crowd. And that’s something that I think is very much in the roots of where I’ve come from as a player, where I’ve come from in terms of my influences and my very early influences being things like AC/DC and Def Leppard and these more classic rock bands. So I did feel during those shows a real connection with myself as a teenager and a child again. It was a very joyful feeling and a very different kind of enjoyment than I get from playing The Sisters of Mercy shows, where I feel within that that I’m stepping more into an existing personality of the band’s aesthetic, which does have perhaps more guidelines, even unspoken guidelines, than something like a classic rock, rock and roll show like Ricky Warwick, where the guidelines are kind of: there are no guidelines, just rock. Just have a good time, just enjoy yourself. And so, yeah, it is a very different dynamic. And both are freeing and liberating in different ways.

Karo: Would you say that Ricky Warwick reconnects you more with a more instinctive guitar language?

Ben: Absolutely. That’s a very good way of putting it. That instinctive guitar language is very much where I feel that I am with the Ricky Warwick dynamic. Absolutely.

Karo: What about Diamond Black? It gives you a different kind of exposure, because the songs, the emotional centre and the visual identity sit much closer to you personally. What does Diamond Black allow you to say or risk that would not belong inside, for example, The Sisters?

Ben: Well, it’s very much talking lyrically about the experiences that I’ve had of issues around mental health, alcoholism, chronic pain, and being able to talk very directly to the audience. Not necessarily going into detail about: this happened to me, this was this thing. The songs talk about that in-between. I get to just talk more generally about mental health and give guidance, but without it being, I’d like to think, preachy in any way. It’s just suggestions and it’s just my experience. And one of the things that I was often saying during the last tour before the final song was that “this song is dedicated to anybody who felt quite nervous about coming out tonight. Maybe they felt like they couldn’t face the world, that they didn’t have the confidence, but they still did it and they’re still here tonight. So whoever overcame that demon, this song is dedicated to you.” And it was really, really enriching that many people would come up to me afterwards and say, “I was that person. That was me. I almost didn’t come because I was too nervous. I felt too self-conscious, but I did it. And to be recognised for that, I feel seen.” And that’s such nice feedback to get, particularly as I imagine a lot of people feel like that. I’ve felt like that. I still feel like that, of overcoming that anxiety to come out for a night, come to an event, put yourself out there. So, yeah, things like that, where it’s not specifically talking about, hey, “this is what happened to me.” It’s more like “these are the observations that I’ve made through my experiences, seen through a lens of what I hope are shared experiences that people can connect with and relate to.”

Karo: You have posted very openly about sobriety, and I was following those posts because they were very encouraging. Alcohol is often treated as part of the music scene, or at least part of its mythology. Do you feel that sobriety changed your relationship with performance, recovery, discipline and the emotional rhythm of being on the road? Of course, only if you are comfortable answering.

Ben: Well, firstly, thank you for reading those or watching those so carefully. And that feedback you’ve given me is very encouraging. I definitely think it was a very happy accident that very naturally the necessity for me to move into sobriety then became part of what I wanted to present within my music. What’s really interesting was that in the first bunch of songs that the band released, Diamond Black, we had a song called “If You Kill My Demons”. And the idea about that was, the lyric was written about the idea that “without destructive behaviours, I am not the real me. Those destructive behaviours are the real me.” The voice of the protagonist of the song was saying that “if you take away the demons of alcoholism and self-sabotage, then I stop becoming myself. I need those things in order to be me.” And that was how I felt back then. That was when I was still drinking heavily and engaging in self-sabotaging behaviours. And then I was able to look back at that lyric, still perform the song and go, “this is the way I used to feel. This is a voice of a previous attitude, an incarnation of myself.” But when we entered a newer era of the band, the songs very naturally became about looking at things like alcohol, alcoholism and self-sabotage, and then looking at the positive aspects of overcoming those things in a slightly oblique way, because some of those songs were still written in a time when I was still drinking alcohol. However, what’s great is that the new album that we’re working on is 10 songs that have all been written in sobriety and therefore are able to reflect stories retrospectively regarding alcoholism, chronic pain, self-sabotage, and in a much more progressive way. Because the starting point of the song is one of struggle. But for each of the songs, there is a sense of a journey, that by the end, there is an element of hope, an element of progression that says, “okay, so we started in this place in verse one. By chorus three, we’re somewhere else. We’re still looking at the problem, but we’re looking at some solutions at this point.” And there’s a glimpse of a way out, which is something that previous songs didn’t have. They just existed within the same scene for the entirety of the song. The new songs all have this narrative arc where we go from the initial setup of “this is the status quo at the start – the destructive element. By the end of the song, there’s progression.” And not only do I think that reflects my beliefs well, I think it’s just kind of a cool thing to do with songwriting, to take people on a journey from the start to the end. I never really used to think of it like that. I used to think a song, basically, you start and you end in the same place. Maybe you make some changes to one of the lyrics, or you have an extra guitar at the end or some more vocal harmonies or whatever. That’s the change, not the story. The story isn’t changing. It was pointed out to me by someone who’s very good at lyrics that that was one of the weaknesses in my lyrics: they didn’t have a narrative arc. Anything that’s any piece of art, like a movie or a music video, there’s a journey. Songs are different because they don’t explicitly say, “let us tell you a story.” They say, “let us tell you a feeling.” But you’ve got the opportunity there to observe that feeling from different vantage points from the start to the end. And I find that was a really interesting and fun thing to do with the song, to say: “okay, how can I change this by chorus three so that it still is the same kind of a chorus, but there are little subtle changes in the words that mean that we’ve moved somewhere else?”

Karo: That is a beautiful kind of progress to show. It gives the listener a chance to participate in this journey, even from the outside. Moving to another area of your work: you work across very different contexts, Diamond Black, session work, touring with other artists and The Sisters. When you move between these worlds, what changes first for you as a player?

Ben: That’s a very interesting question. And I wonder if it’s just been something out of necessity, that due to the nature of how my career has developed, I have by necessity had to fulfil different roles. If I was someone like, let’s say, Dave Gahan from Depeche Mode, that’s what I do. I write the songs like that, I sing like that, I perform like that. That’s it. For myself, however, I have a number of different substrata to my brand or my identity as a musician that I can step into, whether that being something that’s more moody or something that’s more energetic or even something that’s a bit heavier and more aggressive. I love all those things. Therefore, I’m able to step authentically into all of those things. I can play in a hardcore metal band. I can play in a dark indie band. I can play in an emotional, acapella vocal band. Because as long as there’s an element within it that I engage with, then I can feel authentic and excited. And that element for me always is: dark, gritty melody. That’s my kind of keystone of: “do I like this music?” It doesn’t matter what genre it is. “Does it have dark, gritty melody?” If it does, I like it. That tends to be my guiding star. And that means that I can like anything from some singer-songwriter folk that is impassioned and dark and moving to something that is a lot heavier, as long as I still feel it’s got melody. I still feel the lyrics mean something. And I’ve got that whole spectrum because, as I said, that same key thing is there. So all of the projects that I’ve been involved in that I’ve really enjoyed the most generally have a sense of dark, gritty melody. Some of the songs that that band has or that project has might not be completely within the Venn diagram of what I like. There might be some stuff on the periphery, but most of it is in the middle. So, say, for example, if I was to play with a punk band, most of their songs are quite dark and quite aggressive. They might have some ska songs as well. Now, I’m not so much into ska, but as long as the lyric and the melody and the general vibe of the band still retains that element, that personality, and doesn’t suddenly just become, “hey, really fun music”, I still feel I can invest in the project in general.

Karo: When I think about The Sisters’ guitar sound, it is often as much about space and absence as it is about riffs. There is a discipline in what you choose not to play. How do you decide what to leave out? Is that something you arrive at in rehearsal, or something you feel in the moment on stage?

Ben: It’s something that certainly had to be taught to me, because when I first came to the band when I was 25, I wanted to play all the time. I felt like every song was an opportunity for me to show everything. It was driven by a kind of fear of, “if I don’t show everything that I can do, people won’t think I’m very good!” So every song is a chance for me to go, “hey, look, I can do this, this and this,” regardless of whether or not the song’s mood and story needed it. So how that then developed over the years was, first of all, Andrew was very good at saying, “okay, look, I think you’ve got a lot of potential. You’re here. Let’s reduce what you’re doing. Let’s really think about these three notes that you’re going to play all the way through this song. You have to play them really well. You have to play them with the right kind of emotion and restraint. Sometimes you have to not play them and just stand there.” And he taught me a lot about that, and he got me to listen to a lot of Atlantic Records, Motown music that he loved when he was growing up and said: “listen to the restraint. Listen to how one instrument just does the same thing all the way through the song, because that’s its part in the machine of the song. Listen to the emotion behind this music because it’s been written and performed in a time of great oppression from the people who are creating it. Think about how that is being imbued into three or four notes.” It’s not just about, “hey, look at this cool thing I can do.” You’re telling a story of a time and a place and a climate. And so that meant that when I got to play riffs like, let’s say “Dominion”, just three, four, five notes throughout the song pretty much, I was able to think, “I’m not just playing three notes. I’m playing something that tells a very important story about the song.” But also, these three or four notes have found their way into the hearts of hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people, and they mean something. I want to play them right. I want people to hear them and think, “oh my God, that takes me back to this. Or that reminds me of that person, or this song feels like me.” And that’s going to work if those notes are played in the right way and if those notes are played with the right kind of sound as well, the right effects, the right guitar, the right kind of velocity that you’re playing the notes. So it’s all really important. And it reminded me, particularly when it’s songs that people really care about, how important it is to have fidelity to what they’ve heard on the record that has been part of their life soundtrack.

Karo: Brutal Assault announced that The Sisters of Mercy pulled out of the 2026 edition because the band had moved up the recording schedule for a new album. That sentence landed like a small explosion in the fan community after so many years of speculation. What was it like watching that public reaction from inside the band?

Ben: That’s something I can’t really comment on, I’m afraid.

Karo: I understand. Then let me ask more generally about the group of newer songs. Many are credited to you, to Andrew Eldritch and to Dylan Smith, with some other credits as well. These songs have already lived on stage and inside the audience before any possible studio version. If material like that enters the recording process, does it arrive already shaped by the live experience?

Ben: I think what happens, generally speaking, with that process in any band is that the song gets written in a rehearsal room initially, and then sometimes you can record a demo of it just because you want a reference as a band to go, “okay, look, how does this go? Oh, look, we’ve done that, to decide how the parts work.” Sometimes songs can be written like that as recordings, people sending recordings back and forth: “I’ve come up with this. Okay, I’ll send it to your house and your computer, you can add something to it, I’ll send something back.” And that can be a process, that the song is written, or certainly some of the song is written. And then, yes, the live performances will shape the song. You’ll realise things that work and things that don’t work. It’s a bit like if you are performing a play and you start to realise which bits get a good laugh, which bits create a lot of tension, and you’re able to then amp those up or show restraint. “Oh, actually, that joke didn’t work very well. Or when we try and do this dramatic scene, it doesn’t land. It doesn’t feel right.” You can’t tell certain things until you actually do them live in front of an audience, both with music and with acting, performance. So, yes, the songs have certainly been shaped by the live performances and the things that we’ve naturally felt either as players or as performers – what does the audience vibe, what do they get from this – that have then shaped the progression of the song’s development.

Karo: Your name appears in the credits of several newer songs, so your role is not only interpretive. When you bring a riff, a structure or an idea to The Sisters, how much of it tends to survive the process? Does the song strip back, mutate, or become something you did not expect?

Ben: All of the above, really. Sometimes I’ll bring a fully fleshed-out song and one part of the main riff will then be changed and be made into the bassline or something, and the song will develop like that. Other times I’ve come with a fairly comprehensive map of the song and then vocals have been added to it, or riffs and ideas have been taken away or developed, often simplified when I’m working with the other guys in the band. And it’s finally found its final destination through that process. Or I’ve got a bit of a riff idea and then that gets built on by everybody else and myself. And then finally the original riff idea will have disappeared entirely. And it was only what came later that was inspired by the original riff that actually becomes the song.

Karo: You joined The Sisters when you were 25, so it is close to two decades of playing with them, which makes you one of the longest-serving members in the band’s history, apart from Andrew, of course. Beyond the mythology, Andrew Eldritch is a bandleader you have been making music with for a very long time. What have you learned from him about how to lead a band, hold a sound together, or simply make decisions inside a project this singular?

Ben: Yeah, definitely. I think the ethos that I’ve taken away with the songwriting is often when I’m writing for my own projects or other people’s projects that I’ve been asked to write for and I’m composing a guitar melody or a vocal melody, I’ll often think: “could this be simpler? Would this make the cut for a Sisters of Mercy song? Could it be simpler? Could it be more interesting?” It’s often about, you’ve got three notes, but instead of putting them in one place in the bar, you move them to an unexpected place in the bar. And those sort of techniques that hitherto I probably wouldn’t have considered. I’d just think, “hey, let’s do as much as possible. If it sounds cool, let’s just do it.” Rather than “actually, how could this be better by doing less and doing less in a more interesting and unique way? And how can we get more out of this piece of music, not by adding more notes, but by considering how we present those notes and when we present those notes?” That is definitely something that I got from working on The Sisters’ material.

Karo: To close our conversation, I wanted to bring it back to the upcoming tour. I will probably be seeing you in Wrocław on 22 October. What can fans expect from this tour, without revealing too much?

Ben: Well, I guess what I can say is that where we left off on the last tour might be a good barometer or a good directional point to say “it will probably have some of these elements.” Where we were when we finished the last tour, we had a pretty fair split of recorded works and unrecorded works in the set list. Things would come and go, so other new songs would come in, other older songs would come in, and there would be some fluctuation there. The show itself, I think, is very visually unique in terms of the way that light and shapes and stage set are used. I think we have developed a really powerful frontline of the band. I think Kai has brought so much to the band that when we last played in certain places in Europe, Kai wouldn’t have been there. So that’s something that some audiences wouldn’t have witnessed before. Kai’s brought something very special, particularly vocally, to the band that was different from what we were doing before. And so for people witnessing the band for the first time since perhaps 2022, there will be key differences. And I think one of those key differences is what Kai brings to the table. It’s a different vibe, it’s a different feel, it highlights a different part of Sisters history than other iterations of the band have highlighted. I’m not saying any particular iteration of the band is better or worse than any other. It’s just I think people who come to this band have some kind of connection and history with it, and they bring that history with them or that connection that they’ve personally made to the band, and then they present that on stage as part of their performance. That’s certainly what I did when I first came to the band. For some reason, I decided it was more of a metal band than it really was, “Vision Thing” being my main album that I’d known as a kid, and therefore I thought, “oh, this must be really heavy guitars all the time.” Not recognising that for many of the fans, the more important part of The Sisters sound was something that was colder and had more restraint and was more spacious and more cinematic, and it took a while to find that nice balance. So, yeah, I think members and players for The Sisters can sometimes bring what they liked as fans or as followers of the band to the band. Even if they weren’t particularly fans of the band before they came to it, everyone pretty much knew something about the band before they came to it, so they bring that something with them. And I think Kai brings a very special something that maybe previous iterations haven’t brought.

Karo: Apart from The Sisters of Mercy, will the time before the tour be preparation for you, or will you be doing some other shows with other bands and focusing on your own project?

Ben: So in July, I’ve got some festival shows with Ricky Warwick again. There’s the Wacken Festival, which is going to be cool. There’s Firevolt Festival in the UK and a few others. And then I’m going to be working on the Diamond Black album. We are in the mixing stage now, so that’s where we’re at. And just trying to get a sound that everybody feels represents what is important to them individually, I think, and as a band. And yeah, that’s kind of the focus for the next part of the year before September.

Karo: Thank you very much, Ben. That was a lovely chat. I really appreciate your time.

Ben: You’re very welcome. And I think your questions were extremely well thought-out and researched. It was a really fun interview for me to do because you’d put the time in and you clearly are passionate about the things we were talking about. So thank you very much.

About Ben Christo

Ben Christo, born Benjamin David Christodoulou on 22 March 1980 in Bristol, England, is a guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and session musician. He began playing as a child and first drew national attention with the punk-metal band AKO, which he co-founded in 1998 and which released the album “Find Yourself” in 2001 before splitting after a 2005 show at South By South West.

In 2006 Ben Christo joined The Sisters of Mercy as lead guitarist and backing vocalist, having been approached by the band in December 2005. He has toured worldwide with the group and co-written newer songs with Andrew Eldritch and guitarist Dylan Smith, several of which were premiered across the 2019-2020 and 2022 tours. Ben Christo is now one of the band’s longest-serving members alongside Eldritch.

Alongside The Sisters, Christo founded the melodic rock band Night By Night in 2008, releasing the album “NxN” in 2014, and established the dark rock band Diamond Black in 2016, whose debut single appeared in 2017. Diamond Black now works as a three-piece with Christo on lead vocals. As a writer and session player Ben Christo has contributed to Lord of the Lost’s number-two German chart album “Judas” (2021), PIG’s “Risen” (2018), records by Esprit D’Air, and Ricky Warwick’s 2025 album “Blood Ties”; he joined Warwick’s touring band in 2022.

In March 2026 The Sisters of Mercy withdrew from that year’s Brutal Assault festival, moving up the recording schedule for a new studio album. In this interview Ben Christo confirms that a new Diamond Black album, written entirely in sobriety, is in the mixing stage, with festival dates alongside Ricky Warwick set for July and a Sisters of Mercy tour that reaches Wrocław on 22 October.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Urban Spree was the right place for this night. Not just because it is a good venue for dark electronic music, although it obviously is, but because the whole area already feels half-staged before anything starts. RAW-Gelände has its own atmosphere: brick walls, graffiti, dust, metal, warm concrete, people moving between bars and club doors as if the evening has already begun before you have even gone inside.

For the Berlin release celebration of Front 242’s “Black Out”, with AD:keY playing live and Machineries Of Joy involved, the venue did not feel like a neutral location. It felt like it belonged to the event.

There was a small but lovely touch at the entrance. Early guests were given the new Alfa Matrix sampler, a 19-track compilation with Alien Vampires, Krystal System, Lovelorn Dolls, Digital Factor, Elektrostaub, First Aid 4 Souls and others. A CD at the door might sound like a minor detail, but in a scene like this it matters. It is physical. A little stubborn, even. It says: take this home, keep it somewhere, remember that music is not only a link, a playlist, or something that disappears from your feed tomorrow.

AD:keY live

When AD:keY came on, the room did not need a long introduction. Their language is direct by design: disciplined sequences, commands, economy, repetition sharpened until it becomes physical rather than merely mechanical. But what makes AD:keY work so well is that they do not treat EBM as a museum object or a costume kept safely behind glass. They know the tradition, but they play it with circulation, appetite and present-tense force.

The set had all the necessary strictness: the pulse, the forward push, the clipped energy, the body logic of classic EBM. Yet it never felt like imitation. There were no frozen poses, no dead reenactment of an older scene, no attempt to prove authenticity by simply sounding harder than everyone else. AD:keY understand that EBM is not only a sound vocabulary. It is also timing, attitude, sweat, discipline and the ability to make a simple command feel alive again.

That distinction matters. The best EBM does not become powerful because it is complicated. It becomes powerful because it knows exactly what to remove, what to repeat, where to strike and how to make the audience answer with the body before the mind has time to negotiate.

René gives the songs their structure. He holds the voltage together, keeps the grid tight, keeps the machinery moving. Andrea does something different. Calling her simply “the singer” feels inadequate, because live she is doing much more than delivering vocals. She works with the beat physically. She pushes into it, pulls away from it, smiles at it, challenges the audience with it. At times it felt like she was asking the room: are you actually here, or are you only watching?

That was one of the reasons the set worked so well. It had life in it. Not just volume, not just force, but life. Nothing felt preserved or over-rehearsed into stiffness. AD:keY played hard, but there was humour in it too, and warmth. Those are easy qualities to underestimate in this kind of music, but without them EBM can quickly become parody. Here, the songs hit because they are built to hit, but also because the two people on stage seemed genuinely present inside them.

When Andrea jumped into the crowd, it did not feel like a planned “frontwoman moment”. It felt like the obvious next move. The gap between stage and floor had already been getting smaller throughout the set. By that point, the room had almost pulled her in. That is what I keep enjoying about AD:keY live. They put the body back into electronic body music, but they also put some heart into it. I have seen them a few times now, and the impression has been consistent: they want to be in the room with people, not above them. The sound is muscular, the delivery is direct, the beats do their job, but the warmth is not decorative. It is part of the energy.

And it was fun. Not “fun” as a lazy word in a review, but actually fun. Sweaty, direct, unpretentious fun. People moved because the music made standing still seem slightly ridiculous. You could see recognition passing through the crowd, not only recognition of songs, but of old habits and reflexes, the kind stored somewhere in the body before the brain has time to explain them.

Front 242’s ‘Black Out’ on the floor

After the live set, the night moved further into the Machineries Of Joy and the link with Front 242’s “Black Out” became clearer. Tracks from the release came into the room during the afterparty: “W.Y.H.I.W.Y.G.”, “Quite Unusual”, “MasterHit”, “Welcome to Paradise”. In the wrong setting, those tracks could easily become heritage objects, brought out for polite appreciation. Here they were not treated like relics. They were used. That makes a difference.

“Black Out”, released by Alfa Matrix on 19 June 2026, documents Front 242’s final live chapter, recorded at Ancienne Belgique in Brussels during the farewell shows in January 2025. It is impossible to write that sentence without feeling some weight behind it. Front 242 are not just a name to drop in EBM. They helped define the grammar: sequenced force, voice as command, abrasion with groove, discipline that somehow still creates release.

But the album does not feel like something sealed and finished. It still has too much physical charge. The songs still work as machinery, not as archive material. “W.Y.H.I.W.Y.G.” does not need an introduction. “Quite Unusual” does not need explaining. “Welcome to Paradise” still has that strange poisoned theatricality, somewhere between warning, seduction and control mechanism.

Hearing those tracks at Urban Spree gave the night another layer, but not a sentimental one. Front 242’s live history may have closed, but the language they helped create is clearly still moving. It moves through labels like Alfa Matrix, through DJs who know the difference between history and decoration, through younger dancers discovering that pressure for the first time, and through older dancers whose bodies react before they have time to think about it.

What made the evening work was that it did not overstate itself. The sampler at the door, AD:keY’s generous and physical performance, the later Machineries Of Joy mood, the Front 242 tracks cutting through the floor after midnight – it all connected without anyone needing to explain it too much. That was the strength of the night. It allowed EBM to be what it is when it is at its best: intelligent but not cold, historical but still alive, severe but not joyless, physical without being stupid. This music does not belong under glass. It belongs in rooms where people answer it. By the time the Front 242 tracks hit the floor, nobody needed a lecture on why they mattered. The room already knew.

About Front 242 ‘Black Out’ and AD:keY

Front 242 are the Belgian group, formed in 1981, who helped define electronic body music with releases such as “Geography”, “Official Version”, “Front by Front” and “Tyranny (For You)”. “Black Out” is their final live album, recorded at Ancienne Belgique in Brussels during their January 2025 farewell shows and issued by Alfa Matrix on 19 June 2026 across multiple formats.

AD:keY are the EBM duo of René and Andrea, also on Alfa Matrix, whose recent releases include the single “Der Böse Gott”. Their live set anchored this Berlin release celebration, held at Urban Spree with DJ support around the Machineries Of Joy nights, and tied the evening to the catalogue Front 242 helped make possible.

Words and photos by Karo Kratochwil.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Martyrmachine are an EBM and electro-industrial duo from Łódź, Poland, whose new album “Efficiency Justifies Everything” arrived on 26 June 2026. The nine-track record pairs Jakub M. Kasiński’s electronics and vocals with Szymon Adamiak’s live drums, and turns capitalist discipline, technological alienation and post-industrial Łódź into rhythm. The project grew out of Kasiński’s earlier solo work as Martyr, started in 2018, was renamed Martyrmachine in December 2022, and gained its second member when Adamiak joined in June 2023.

In this interview for Side-Line Magazine, Martyrmachine speak with us about the album’s title and themes, the shift from Martyr to Martyrmachine, what live drums change in a programmed sound, their use of Polish and English lyrics, the Łódź poetry behind several tracks, their reinterpretation of Sodom’s “Nuclear Winter”, and why they treat a concert as physical confrontation rather than a clean playback.

Martyrmachine interview

Karo: “Efficiency Justifies Everything” sounds like a title that could belong equally to a corporate manual, a political slogan, or a dystopian commandment. Where did this phrase come from, and what does it say about the world you wanted to confront on this Martyrmachine album?

Jakub: The title is basically the sum of all the options you mentioned. For many people, its negative tone probably passes them by completely, and they see it as something entirely normal: efficiency above everything. Mainstream media and society in general are primarily interested in economic growth and climbing higher in global rankings, rather than the human-capital cost that all of this entails.

That is largely what the album is about, although it is not a coherent, linear story. It is more a cross-section of phenomena appearing within galloping capitalism from the end of the nineteenth century up to today.

Szymon: You have put together three possible interpretations of our title quite well. In my view, however, it refers most strongly to the “dystopian commandment”. Of course, most of the work on the album rested on Jakub’s shoulders, but I think its final shape was influenced not only by his internal struggles, but also by direct experience of the system we currently live in, as well as our travels in Poland and abroad. I fully agree with Jakub, and if I were to add something from myself, it would be the permanent feeling of the pressure of success propaganda mixed with collective brainwashing in the context of a collapsing, post-industrial city.

Karo: The press description presents this Martyrmachine album as a manifesto against a world ruled by efficiency, control, and technological alienation. How personal is this critique for you? Is it mostly directed at society and systems, or also at the way individuals internalize these demands and begin to discipline themselves?

Jakub: I do not think it is possible to criticise the system without also touching on the question of the individual people who create that system and function within quiet consent. I address this especially in my own lyrics. In some tracks, we used poems written over the past century that deal with similar subjects. My own texts speak precisely about individuals functioning in the realities of the modern world, whether they live passively inside it or try to influence it somehow.

Szymon: For me, this strike against the system has quite a personal meaning. As a person who has been unwillingly pushed into the gears of the capitalist machine, unfortunately from the lower social layers, working on this album was something like a cold shower after a long, exhausting journey. Even though I am able to move within today’s socio-economic reality, it was a kind of salvation for me. I will not go into the subject of victims internalising the violence inflicted on them, but I can say that such references can also be found in our music.

Karo: Martyrmachine began as Jakub’s solo project Martyr in 2018 and later changed shape, name, and sound. Looking back at “CONCRETE” and “Fabryka Żalu”, what did those earlier releases teach you about the language of the project, and what did you know had to change before “Efficiency Justifies Everything”?

Jakub: The most important change was definitely recording live drums, which already happened during the digital release of the “Fabryka Żalu” EP. In that case, however, it was only a refreshed version of an old track that had already existed and been released earlier. With “Efficiency Justifies Everything”, it was different. Here, the tracks were created and shaped alongside the drums, which certainly influenced their final form and made the whole thing sound more coherent. My recording and mixing skills also improved, which made it possible to express the whole concept more effectively through sound.

Szymon: I do not feel competent to answer this question, so I will leave the stage to Jakub.

Karo: The name change from Martyr to Martyrmachine feels important. It suggests not only transformation, but also a collision between suffering, mechanism, sacrifice, and industrial force. What did the new name allow you to express that the original name could not fully contain?

Jakub: In fact, these two entities should be separated with a very thick line. One ended when the other began. They differ from each other drastically in form and content, to such an extent that I think I will stop mentioning “Martyr” at all as the beginning of Martyrmachine: two separate projects, close only in name. These are my very current thoughts, though, so anything may still happen. The whole transformation is actually a reflection of my own internal maturation, from very personal and emotional dark electro to socially engaged industrial music.

Szymon: As above.

Karo: Szymon joined Martyrmachine in 2023, bringing live drums into a form of music often associated with programming, machines, and strict electronic structures. How did this change the physicality of Martyrmachine? Did it make the music more human, more violent, more unpredictable, or perhaps more machine-like in a different way?

Jakub: I think that, in general, human and machine complement each other perfectly. In fact, one cannot exist without the other. Every machine has to be programmed; for now, nothing can come into being without the human factor. Live drums certainly make it possible to balance more effectively between the rawness of electronics and evenly arranged samples, and the humanism and margin of error that add authenticity to the sound, especially during concerts.

Szymon: I will not replace the machine, but I am forced to cooperate with it. That margin of error is exciting on stage, but also technically demanding. The machine does not slow down, it does not wait. In short, it does not forgive. Is it not far more interesting to watch such a struggle on stage than to allow a drum machine to do its job without any unnecessary fuss?

Karo: You describe the Martyrmachine sound as balancing aggression and melancholy, mechanical rhythm and emotional weight. How do you keep that balance from becoming either too polished or too chaotic? Is there a point in the studio where you know a track has found the right amount of dirt, discipline, and feeling?

Jakub: Here, everything mostly comes out in the wash, as the saying goes. The balance finds its own place during the process. If the demo version really leans too far in one direction, then usually it is no longer considered as a candidate for Martyrmachine and ends up as one of many unfinished projects on my hard drive. Occasionally I may even finish such a project, but it still remains in the “for the drawer” category, at least for now.

Szymon: In this area, Jakub makes the decisions, so I give him the whole floor.

Karo: The album includes Polish titles such as “Przy Pracy”, “Styczeń”, “Redukcja” and “Na Barykady!”, alongside English-language titles like “Modern Man / Modern Times” and “Techniques Of Propaganda”. How do you decide which language belongs to a song? Does Polish give you a different emotional or political charge than English?

Jakub: Three of the four Polish-language tracks were created as part of a special repertoire for a concert in the “Zawieje” series, organised by Łukasz Pawlak, our publisher. Because of the location and circumstances, we could not play our usual concert then, so we prepared a special set consisting mostly of completely new tracks. For the lyrical layer, we used texts from an anthology of poetry about Łódź titled “Kwiaty Łódzkie”, which is where the Polish language came from. As a curiosity, I can add that this was our only, and probably last, performance using a guitar.

Szymon: For me, it is a healthy linguistic balance. As a patriot, I would like to express myself mainly in my native language, but of course English can reach the vast majority of listeners.

Karo: The first Martyrmachine single pairs “Reform Yourself” with a reinterpretation of Sodom’s “Nuclear Winter”. Covering a thrash metal classic within an EBM/electro-industrial context is an interesting gesture. What drew you to that song, and how did you approach translating its energy into the Martyrmachine language without simply imitating the original?

Jakub: “Nuclear Winter” is a great song, and the opening riff is simply iconic. One day it was stuck in my head so persistently that I had to play it on something, and because my guitar was broken, I played it on a keyboard. In my teenage years, I was very deeply into thrash and related things, and out of those biggest legendary bands, Sodom was my favourite. In a way, I am still connected to that environment, because in another band I am a member of, we play thrash.

Privately, as I get older, I am more drawn to new-wave black metal, but I gladly return to things from years ago with a large dose of nostalgia. When I sat down to work on the cover, I knew I would definitely have to slow it down a little. 194 bpm is simply too much for our style; it would have become very unclear and the whole thing would have lost its point of impact. I also cut out the middle section of the original to keep the dynamics and leave only the meat. In my opinion, the balance between the metal roots and the electronic interpretation came out exactly right.

Szymon: The decision was made individually by Jakub. I am not a huge fan of thrash metal, but I have a lot of trust in our vocalist when it comes to choosing songs to cover.

Karo: I saw Martyrmachine live at Wrocław Industrial Festival 2024, and what struck me immediately was how physical Martyrmachine felt on stage. The live percussion and self constructed iron instrumentation did not function as decoration, but as part of the body of the performance. How important is this visual and physical dimension for you? Do you see a Martyrmachine concert as a presentation of songs, or rather as a ritual of pressure, noise, movement, and confrontation?

Jakub: I would lean rather toward the second option. I really like creating an elevated and slightly theatrical atmosphere during concerts. The whole thing can even be treated a bit like a performance, although more improvised than directed. We have a skeleton in the form of the setlist, but everything else can differ greatly between two consecutive shows. Physicality and authenticity live are at the core of what we do. After all, it is electronic BODY music, so something very bodily and tangible. When you come to a concert, you want to feel emotions, almost touch them. That is exactly the kind of experience we want to give the audience, and fortunately it comes to us very naturally.

Szymon: I fully agree with Jakub. For me, a concert should be something more than a played sequence of sounds. I also like acting a bit and I feel good with it. I have the impression that the audience usually buys into it, and because of that it allows for a higher level of immersion.

Karo: “Efficiency Justifies Everything” is described as a new chapter and a clear step forward. Once this album is out in the world, where do you imagine Martyrmachine going next? Do you feel drawn toward making the sound harsher, more melodic, more theatrical, more industrial, or is the future of the project something you prefer to discover through friction rather than planning?

Jakub: For me, everything is born more from impulses than from a strictly arranged plan, or even intentions and visions. Future releases will certainly overlap to a large extent with the previous ones, but I am not yet able to say how they will differ. If someone is very curious about new material, we invite them to the concerts. That is where new creations can be heard first.

Szymon: Difficult question. I have no idea what the future will bring. We are certainly managing to make efficient use of various opportunities; who knows how they will shape us?

About Martyrmachine

Martyrmachine are an EBM and electro-industrial duo based in Łódź, Poland. The project began as Martyr, the solo work of Jakub M. Kasiński, started in 2018, and released early material including “CONCRETE” and the “Fabryka Żalu” EP. In December 2022 Kasiński renamed the project Martyrmachine, marking a turn from personal dark electro toward socially engaged industrial music. In June 2023 drummer Szymon Adamiak joined, adding live percussion to a sound built on electronics, samples and self-constructed iron instrumentation.

The duo mix programmed EBM and electro-industrial structures with live drums, Polish and English lyrics, and themes of capitalist discipline, labour and post-industrial Łódź. They performed at Wrocław Industrial Festival in 2024. On 23 January 2026 they issued the single “Reform Yourself”, paired with a cover of Sodom’s “Nuclear Winter”, as a 7″ through Requiem Records. Several Polish-language songs grew out of a set prepared for the “Zawieje” concert series run by their publisher Łukasz Pawlak, using poems from the Łódź anthology “Kwiaty Łódzkie”.

“Efficiency Justifies Everything”, released digitally on 26 June 2026, runs nine tracks: “Przy Pracy”, “Reform Yourself”, “Styczeń”, “Threads”, “Modern Man/Modern Times”, “Redukcja”, “Na Barykady!”, “The Other Cheek” and “Techniques Of Propaganda”. In this interview, Kasiński and Adamiak from Martyrmachine place the album in that timeline, describing it as a record where live drums and programmed structures meet under pressure rather than resolve into comfort.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Nine years after “Kopfkino”, Kant Kino have returned with “Echoes of The End”, a 24-track album that feels less like a comeback announcement than the result of something slowly refusing to die. The Norwegian duo have never treated EBM as a museum piece or a discipline to be obeyed, and this new record continues that attitude with force, melody, fatigue, humour and a very clear distrust of neat answers. Instead of presenting collapse as spectacle, Kant Kino seem more interested in what happens after people have already adapted to absurdity.

The record moves through anxiety, alienation, hard electronic rhythm and melodic memory, while keeping the dry wit that has always made the project sharper than standard genre seriousness. Lars Henrik Madsen talks about the long road to “Echoes of The End”, why 24 tracks made more sense than a polite short album, how humour can get closer to truth than a manifesto, and why Kant Kino are not interested in preserving EBM under glass.

Kant Kino interview

Karo: “Echoes of The End” arrives nine years after “Kopfkino”. That is a long gap, but it also means the project returns into a very different cultural climate: more noise, more collapse language, more algorithmic distraction, more exhaustion. What had to change in the world, or in Kant Kino, before this album could exist?

Lars: Probably less had to change than simply happen. We started working on this album years ago and assumed it would be finished much sooner. Instead, life got involved. There was a pandemic, health issues, work, family, long periods of creative fatigue and more than a few moments where we seriously considered abandoning the whole thing. The strange thing is that while we were struggling to finish the album, the world slowly started looking more like the album. What began as fragments about anxiety, alienation, absurdity and modern exhaustion gradually became less speculative and more observational. By the time we finished Echoes Of The End, it felt less like a prediction and more like a field recording.

Karo: The album has 24 tracks, which already feels almost provocative now, when music is often pushed toward shorter formats and faster consumption. Did you need that scale because the material kept expanding, or because the subject itself demanded something larger, more crowded and less polite?

Lars: Both, probably. We never sat down and said, “Let’s make a 24-track album and completely ignore modern attention spans.” But once the songs started forming a larger picture, removing pieces felt wrong. The album became a collection of different perspectives on the same landscape. Besides, if the modern world is an endless stream of noise, distraction, contradictions and unfinished thoughts, making a neat, efficient 35-minute statement felt suspiciously polite.

Karo: Kant Kino have always had a strange relationship with seriousness: the music can be hard, sharp and socially alert, but the titles and gestures often carry dry humour or absurdity. Is humour a way to survive the darkness, or a way to make the darkness more accurate?

Lars: Definitely the latter. Reality is rarely purely tragic. Most of the time it’s tragic and ridiculous at the same time. People don’t experience societal decline as dramatic movie scenes. They’re standing in supermarket queues, arguing online, forgetting passwords and trying to make dinner. Humour helps reveal the absurdity already present in the situation. Sometimes a joke gets closer to the truth than a manifesto.

Karo: “Rodney” became the first signal of the new phase. The name itself is oddly specific, almost anti-mythological. Why “Rodney”? Is he a person, a mask, a symptom, a private joke, or simply the wrong kind of name for a song that clearly carries a heavier charge?

Lars: Yes. Part of the appeal of the name is that it refuses to explain itself. In a culture obsessed with symbolism and decoding, it’s refreshing to leave some doors closed. Rodney may be a person, an idea, a warning, a joke, or someone sitting quietly at the end of the bar while the world slowly catches fire. We’re perfectly happy letting people decide for themselves.

Karo: There is a strong sense of systems failing across this album: emotional systems, social systems, perhaps even the small daily systems that allow people to keep functioning. Are Kant Kino interested in collapse as a dramatic event, or more in the quieter moment when people have already adapted to living inside it?

Lars: The latter is much more interesting to us. The dramatic collapse only lasts a moment. The adaptation lasts years. People are remarkably good at normalising things that shouldn’t be normal. They adjust, improvise, develop routines and continue living inside increasingly strange circumstances. That quiet acceptance is often more unsettling than the collapse itself.

Karo: Your music often combines very direct electronic force with melodic memory. It can hit hard, but it also remembers synthpop, old industrial discipline and the strange emotional pull of classic electronic songwriting. How do you keep the songs from becoming either too brutal or too polished?

Lars: We probably fail equally in both directions. We’ve always loved the physical impact of EBM and industrial music, but we’re also hopelessly attached to melody. If a song only hits hard, it tends to become forgettable. If it’s only beautiful, it risks losing tension. The interesting space is somewhere between a punch and a memory.

Karo: Coming from Norway, you work slightly outside the usual Belgian-German axis through which EBM history is often told. Has that distance been useful? Did it give Kant Kino more freedom to treat the genre with affection, irony and disrespect at the same time?

Lars: Being outside the centre probably helps. We’ve always loved the genre, but we’ve never felt particularly obligated to obey it. Norway is far enough away that nobody hands you an official EBM rulebook when you start a band. That distance allowed us to approach the music as fans rather than caretakers. We respect the tradition, but we’re not interested in preserving it under glass.

Karo: “Echoes of The End” feels very current, but it does not sound desperate to be modern. How do you relate to the present electronic scene? Do you feel part of it, irritated by it, entertained by it, or mostly operating in your own stubborn corner?

Lars: A bit of all four. There is a huge amount of great electronic music being made right now, but there is also a tendency for scenes to become trapped in cycles of nostalgia, trend chasing or algorithm friendly repetition. We’ve reached an age where trying to sound modern would probably be the fastest way to sound outdated. We’d rather make music that feels honest and trust that listeners will decide where it belongs.

Karo: Kenneth, you have also worked with mastering, remixes and technical production for other projects. When you return to Kant Kino, does technical control help you sharpen the material, or do you sometimes have to damage the surface deliberately so the music does not become too clean?

Kenneth: Technical knowledge is useful right up until the point where it starts getting in the way. One of the biggest challenges is knowing when to stop improving something. Music can easily become so polished that all the personality gets sanded off. Sometimes the right decision is not adding another layer or fixing another detail. Sometimes it’s leaving the crack in the wall because that’s where the light gets in.

Karo: After such a large album, what would feel like a real risk for Kant Kino now: becoming more minimal, more melodic, more brutal, more personal, or finally allowing the project to  become completely unreasonable?

Lars: The last option sounds dangerously attractive. After spending years finishing something this large, the most interesting direction is probably the one that makes the least sense from a strategic perspective. Fortunately, we’ve never been particularly strategic.

Karo: “Echoes of The End” sounds like an album that closes many doors, but also opens a few uncomfortable ones. After returning with such a large and decisive release, where does Kant Kino go next: further into collapse, toward something more stripped and personal, or into a place that would surprise even people who think they already understand the project?

Lars: We honestly don’t know yet, and that’s probably a good sign. For a long time, finishing Echoes Of The End was the destination. Now that it’s finally out in the world, we’re enjoying not having a map for a while. Whatever comes next will probably still sound like Kant Kino. Beyond that, we’re not making any promises. Some doors have definitely closed. The interesting question is what might crawl through the ones that just opened.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Does Berlin really want to become another Frankfurt?

The news around Cassiopeia and RAW-Gelände does not arrive as a shock. That may be the most depressing part. It lands with the familiar weight of another Berlin story in which culture is praised in speeches, photographed for tourism campaigns, used to sell the city’s mythology, and then asked to step aside once the numbers become interesting.

About Berlin’s RAW-Gelände: In June 2026 the owner of Berlin’s RAW-Gelände in Friedrichshain., Kurth-Gruppe, declared the RAW West planning process failed and issued eviction demands to several cultural operators. Cassiopeia was reportedly given two weeks to leave, with the venue warning that eviction by the end of June would mean immediate insolvency. Negotiations around the area had lasted more than ten years and that protesters were calling for “RAW für alle – Cassiopeia & Co. müssen bleiben.”

Another cultural space under pressure. Another developer. Another office project. Another fragment of Berlin forced to explain its worth in the language of rentable square metres.

According to the current mobilisation around RAW-Gelände, Cassiopeia has been confronted with a short time frame in relation to plans that could push the venue out of its long-standing location. Supporters have already reacted, including the protest around 19 June, drawing attention to the venue itself and to the fragile ecosystem around it. The practical details matter: ownership, contracts, planning law, safety requirements, investment, access, maintenance, the difficult reality of old industrial buildings. Any serious argument about a city has to admit that these questions exist.

Still, behind all those details sits a much colder question.

What exactly is Berlin trying to become?

If the answer is more offices, more hotels, more polished leisure districts, more investment façades and more interchangeable urban neatness, then Berlin should at least be honest about the price. It is losing far more than clubs. It is losing one of the reasons people crossed borders, took night trains, slept badly, stayed too long, fell in love unwisely, discovered music in concrete rooms, and believed, for a few hours at least, that a city could still contain some form of freedom.

Of course Berlin needs development. It needs housing, functioning infrastructure, safer public areas, maintained buildings, places to work and realistic answers to growth. RAW-Gelände is not a holy ruin floating outside money, ownership or planning conflicts. It is a complicated former industrial site shaped by temporary use, private interests, cultural improvisation, public expectation and years of negotiation. Pretending that nothing should ever change would be sentimental and useless.

But a city can change without erasing the very thing that made it matter.

It can build without flattening its own memory. It can repair without sterilising. It can create safer structures and better public access without treating clubs, ateliers, concert halls, flea markets and informal meeting points as decorative remains from a less profitable decade. The question is not whether Berlin should stay frozen in graffiti and nostalgia. The question is whether Berlin still understands that clubs, rehearsal rooms, small stages, courtyards and cheap, imperfect places are part of how a city actually lives.

RAW-Gelände is not just a plot of land near Warschauer Straße. It is one of the places where Berlin still behaves like Berlin: messy, improvised, loud, contradictory, commercially useful and still stubbornly resistant to polish. It holds clubs, concert halls, galleries, painted walls, beer gardens, rehearsal rooms, tired Sunday bodies, night people, artists, tourists, locals, skaters, punks, goths, techno kids, industrial heads, metalheads, bored teenagers, stray romantics and everyone else who arrives in Berlin looking for something less obedient than a shopping street.

And anyone who has actually walked through RAW knows that this is not an abstract idea. It is the crunch of gravel under your shoes, the smell of beer, dust, old paint and fried food, walls layered with posters, tags and stickers, a queue forming somewhere in the half-dark, bass bleeding from one building while another room throws out a different rhythm entirely. You do not enter RAW as you enter a branded leisure quarter. You drift into it. You get slightly lost. You hear the city before you understand where you are going.

This is why the “Berlin ist RAW” campaign hits harder than a slogan should. It could have been another clever line for posters and social media. Instead, it exposes the contradiction at the centre of the whole debate. RAW is not a subcultural logo Berlin can paste onto its self-image while cutting away the rooms, leases and communities behind it. The campaign points to what is actually there: dozens of projects across art, sport, youth work, club culture and social practice; a former industrial site where studios, circus training, skate halls, climbing walls, bars, clubs and workshops still rub against each other instead of being sorted into sterile categories.

Campaign reporting has put annual footfall at more than a million. Even if one treats that number carefully, the point remains obvious: this is not a niche. This is Berlin making rough, half-broken places useful, social, loud and alive again. So yes, Berlin ist RAW. But that sentence only stays true if RAW remains alive, difficult, mixed, loud and materially protected. Otherwise it becomes a neat phrase placed over something that has already been emptied out.

Cassiopeia, Astra Kulturhaus, Urban Spree and the surrounding spaces belong to the same nervous system. Remove one element and the damage will not stay politely contained. These places do not function like office units. They depend on proximity, movement, accidental noise leaking from one courtyard into another, the chance that you leave one room and follow bass, smoke, light, people, bad decisions and sudden beauty somewhere else. RAW’s value cannot be reduced to one stage, one bar, one club or one event. Its value lies in the fact that one courtyard can contain five different versions of the city at once.

That is exactly what property development so often fails to understand, or understands perfectly and destroys anyway.

Cities love selling their mythology after the people who created it have been removed. Berlin is particularly gifted at this. It markets rebellion, club culture, creative freedom and urban roughness while allowing the actual places that produced those things to be priced out, regulated into exhaustion or replaced by developments that look acceptable in aerial renderings and feel dead at street level.

The East Side Gallery area already shows the result of that logic. A place once charged with rupture, border, division, violence and euphoria now competes visually with arenas, malls, hotels, corporate naming rights and the strange smoothness of capital dressing itself up as public life. Around the former Mercedes-Benz Arena, now Uber Arena, Berlin has already shown us the model: history on one side, brand architecture on the other, and somewhere between them the uneasy feeling that the city’s past has been hired as a decorative consultant.

Do we really need RAW-Gelände to follow the same route?

Cities change. Berlin has always changed, often violently, sometimes brilliantly, often stupidly, occasionally beautifully. The problem begins when “change” becomes the polite word for cultural amputation. When every irregular space is treated as underused land. When every courtyard must become monetisable. When every trace of unpredictability becomes a planning problem. When the people who made a district desirable are slowly pushed out by the value they helped create.

Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg are not ordinary districts in Berlin’s self-image. They are part of the city’s grammar. Through them Berlin explains itself to the world as open, alternative, rebellious, queer, loud, migrant, punk, electronic, unfinished, nonconformist. Of course that image is partly mythology. Berlin has never been as free as people wanted it to be, and no scene is innocent. There is tourism, commodification, exploitation, drugs, noise, conflict, exhaustion, rising rents and plenty of romantic nonsense. Still, mythology matters when it remains attached to real rooms, real communities and real risk.

Take the rooms away, and all that remains is the branding: the same old Berlin rebellion, emptied out and sold back as atmosphere.

I do not live in Berlin, and I do not want to speak over the people who do. But I have travelled there for years, often staying in this part of the city, and RAW-Gelände has always been one of the reasons Berlin mattered to me. Not the postcard Berlin. Not Brandenburg Gate, Ku’damm or the monuments one is supposed to admire politely. Those places have their history, of course, but they are not why I return. I return because of Warschauer Straße, Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg, the clubs, the walls, the courtyards, the strange mixture of freedom and exhaustion, and the sense that the city still leaves a door open for people who do not fit neatly anywhere else.

This is why the RAW question reaches beyond nostalgia. It is not about worshipping dirt or pretending that every graffiti-covered wall carries sacred value. It is about understanding that urban culture needs friction. It needs affordable rooms, ugly corners, late hours, imperfect infrastructure and places where people can gather without immediately being turned into customers of a lifestyle concept.

A city made mostly of offices, hotels and polished residential investment may look calmer, cleaner, more adult. It may also feel strangely dead, as if someone solved the noise problem by removing the pulse.

Berlin should be careful. The world does not need Berlin to become Frankfurt with better nightlife branding. Frankfurt already exists and performs its function perfectly well. Berlin’s power came from elsewhere: a historically wounded openness, an ability to absorb outsiders, a talent for turning ruins into rooms, emptiness into sound, damage into culture. Its landmarks are Brandenburg Gate, Museum Island and Ku’damm, yes, but for many people they are also RAW, SO36, Köpi, Berghain, Urban Spree, Cassiopeia, Astra, vanished clubs, cleared squats, bars that survived too long, walls that still speak before someone paints them beige.

For many regular visitors, RAW-Gelände is one of the reasons to go to Berlin. Not as tourists ticking monuments from a list, but as people drawn to the city’s living nervous system. Warschauer Straße, with all its chaos and excess, still feels like an entrance into a Berlin that has not fully surrendered. You arrive there and the city does not behave politely. It sweats, shouts, flickers, stains your shoes, feeds you badly, gives you great nights, and sends you home with too little sleep and too many memories.

That atmosphere cannot be rebuilt once it is gone. Developers can commission murals. They can leave a brick wall standing. They can name a courtyard after culture. They can preserve a façade, install lighting, create a “creative hub”, add food trucks and invite a DJ for the opening weekend. What they cannot manufacture is the cultural legitimacy that grows slowly through risk, use, conflict, failure, noise and belonging.

The irony is obscene. Berlin’s club culture has been recognised as cultural heritage, while the material conditions that allow that culture to exist remain under constant threat. Heritage cannot live in press releases. It needs leases, rooms, soundproofing, political will, protection from speculative pressure and an understanding that cultural value is not always immediately profitable. If Berlin wants to boast about nightlife, alternative culture and creative energy, it cannot keep feeding the spaces that sustain them to the real-estate machine.

Cassiopeia is not the whole story. It is a warning clear enough to be impossible to ignore.

Once these places disappear, the loss will not be counted only in closed venues. It will be counted in fewer accidental meetings, fewer small promoters taking risks, fewer bands finding a stage, fewer young people discovering a scene, fewer travellers returning because the city made them feel strangely at home, fewer nights where music rearranged someone’s life for a few hours.

This is what gentrification often erases first: not buildings, but conditions. Conditions for experimentation. Conditions for disobedience. Conditions for people without money to participate in culture. Conditions for a city to remain porous.

Berlin has to decide whether it wants to protect those conditions, or keep trading them for developments that could stand almost anywhere.

That is the real danger: not new buildings, not change, not the end of some romantic fantasy of eternal ruins. The danger is a Berlin that becomes more efficient, more expensive, more managed, smoother by the year, and less able to produce the culture it still uses as its calling card.

If RAW-Gelände is reduced to another predictable office-and-leisure development, Berlin will lose more than a few venues. It will lose part of its argument for itself.

That would not be urban progress.

That would be the city cutting into its own heart, then wondering why the pulse feels weaker.

Karo Kratochwil

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Editors have announced their eighth studio album, “Surface, Echo & Sound”, set for release on 30 October 2026 through Play It Again Sam. The Birmingham post-punk band confirmed the record on 23 June 2026 alongside the single “The Rush”, which arrives with an official video shot in Tokyo. The eleven-track album follows 2022’s “EBM”.

Guitarist Justin Lockey recorded and produced the album. Frontman Tom Smith wrote it using a stripped-back, acoustic-based approach close to the process behind his 2025 solo debut “There Is Nothing In The Dark…”, then brought the songs to the band to play together. “Surface, Echo & Sound” includes “Call It In”, the single Editors issued in April 2026, and is available to pre-order on CD, cassette, black and coloured vinyl, and digital. The tracklist is “Surface, Echo & Sound,” “Call It In,” “The Rush,” “Rescue,” “Shadow,” “Real,” “Happiness,” “Much Love,” “Butterfly Wings,” “Seriously” and “The Hills We Died Upon.”

Smith tied the album’s character to where it was made: “It was a very productive summer. The sun was out for the most part, we were in greenest Gloucestershire, not far from where I live, on this innocuous little industrial estate – it was pretty much the opposite of being in Berghain!”

The title track “The Rush” arrives with a video directed by Henry Ehara and filmed in Tokyo:

Smith plays mandolin on the track, an instrument Lockey placed at the centre of the record’s sound: “It’s not used in a folky kind of way, but it brings a warm element that can spike through anything in the mix. As a texture, it’s definitely a big character on this record. A lot of the rhythms come from the mandolin and the acoustic as much as they do from the drums.” He described “The Rush” as an imagined bar scene between two people talking about life: “That idea of finding comfort in people close to me, friends and loved ones and family, is a theme that comes up all the time.”

Editors 2027 tour dates

• 18 February 2027 — Amsterdam, Netherlands — Ziggo Dome
• 19 February 2027 — Antwerp, Belgium — AFAS Dome

About Editors

Editors formed in 2002 in Birmingham. The line-up of Tom Smith (vocals, guitar, piano), Russell Leetch (bass) and Ed Lay (drums), with Chris Urbanowicz (guitar), signed to Kitchenware Records and issued the debut album “The Back Room” in 2005, carrying the singles “Munich” and “Blood” and a 2006 Mercury Prize nomination. “An End Has a Start” topped the UK chart in 2007, as did “In This Light and on This Evening” in 2009.

The band released the single “Formaldehyde” in 2013, the year of “The Weight of Your Love”; Urbanowicz left in 2012 and Justin Lockey (guitar) and Elliott Williams (keys) joined. “In Dream” followed in 2015 and “Violence” in 2018, led by “Magazine”, before “EBM” in 2022. The current line-up of Smith, Leetch, Lay, Lockey and Williams now sets “Surface, Echo & Sound” for 30 October 2026.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Belgian ritual industrial act This Morn’ Omina have joined the Dark Dimensions Label Group. The announcement arrives as the project prepares to mark its 30th anniversary in 2026.

To celebrate the occasion, ProNoize / Dark Dimensions will release “Vestiges – 30 Years Of Ritual Sound (1996-2026)”, a compilation collecting known, rare and previously unreleased tracks from the project’s long-running catalogue. The album will be issued as a limited edition digipak CD on 26 June 2026.

About This Morn’ Omina

Formed in 1996, This Morn’ Omina have built one of the more distinctive bodies of work in ritual industrial music. The project’s sound has often moved through ceremonial percussion, hypnotic repetition, martial pressure, EBM structures, Middle Eastern tonal references and darker electronic frameworks. Rather than treating rhythm as a simple club mechanism, This Morn’ Omina use it as a form of invocation, with tracks often built around trance, pressure and transformation.

Across releases such as “7 Years Of Famine”, “Le Serpent Blanc – Le Serpent Rouge” and “Les Passages Jumeaux”, the Belgian act developed a language that sits between industrial aggression and ritual intensity. The early club impact of “One-Eyed Man” helped bring the project to wider attention, but This Morn’ Omina’s identity has always reached beyond dancefloor functionality. Its work is tied to cycles, symbolic systems and a larger sense of sonic continuity.

“Vestiges” is therefore positioned as more than a standard anniversary collection. The title points to traces, remains and surviving marks, which suits a project whose music has repeatedly dealt with memory, transformation and the body as a site of ritual force. The compilation revisits three decades of activity while also underlining the project’s ongoing presence within the current industrial landscape.

The new signing also places This Morn’ Omina within the Dark Dimensions Label Group, whose network includes ProNoize and a wider catalogue of industrial, dark electronic and gothic releases. For a project with such a strong ritual industrial identity, the move connects past work with a new label structure as the 30-year anniversary approaches.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

CUT.RATE.BOX’s G. Wygonik on the redux editions, broken formats, bad futures and the strange discipline of leaving certain scars visible.

After “Maps Of Stone”, CUT.RATE.BOX could have closed the archive and moved on. Instead, G. Wygonik returned to four decisive releases, “Blueiceblack”, “New Religion”, “Dataseed” and “Xenophobe”, treating them less like relics than like unstable rooms that still contain heat, bad wiring and unfinished arguments.

The redux editions revisit a compact but unusually charged period in the project’s history: New Orleans, home recording, guitars used as atmosphere rather than decoration, the first shock of wider recognition, early anxieties around digital life, and the emotional aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The result is not a nostalgic cleanup. It is a controlled act of restoration, carried out by someone who knows that old limitations can hold truth, that technical repair can easily become falsification, and that some mistakes still explain the person who made them.

Wygonik speaks here with rare precision about technology, design, religion, sci-fi pessimism, lost software, overlong intros, listener responsibility and the confidence that can return when older songs prove stronger than memory allowed. The sharpest line arrives during the discussion of “Dataseed”: “I just got lucky and picked the horrible version of the future to write about.” It is funny, bleak and uncomfortably accurate, which makes it very CUT.RATE.BOX.

CUT.RATE.BOX Interview

Karo: After the CUT.RATE.BOX collection “Maps Of Stone”, these redux editions feel like a different kind of return. The compilation showed a map, while these releases seem to reopen particular rooms inside that map. What changes when you stop presenting history as a route and start entering specific periods again in detail?

G.: Keeping with the map metaphor, you could look at each of these releases individually as “points of interest” – places where there are interesting things to explore, to discover, and to understand before moving on to the next place. When you visit a new location for the first time, there’s often a sense of wanting to see all the things listed in your guidebook. When revisiting that location – especially many years later – you remember you’ve done all the tourist stuff and you start to look in the back alleys, down the paths you ignored years earlier.

So I think it will be interesting for people to re-listen to these albums, to have a sense of “I remember that place”, but to also hear new things they missed so long ago. Each of the albums in the redux series happened within a very short period of cut.rate.box’s history, but not only were they some of the most impactful for the band, but also expressed a wildly diverse range of topics and emotions; from bitterness of living in unjust environments to excitement of new computer-enhanced ways of living to the potential horrors of those new technologies to the sadness and loneliness of losing everything.

Karo: Revisiting older work is never neutral. You bring your current ears, current technology and current self into contact with these CUT.RATE.BOX recordings made by someone younger, probably less equipped, but also closer to the original emotional fire. What did your present self recognise in those earlier versions of you, and what did it misunderstand at first?

G.: Most of these albums were released at a major technological shift in the music industry where recording, mixing, and mastering were all able to be done at home on one computer by one person. Up to that point, it was assumed you’d book studio time, hire a producer, and so on. Being technologists, we embraced that new DIY ability, and our youthful naivete allowed us to just try things.

There were definitely good and bad things in that process that I recognized. One of the things that stood out was how we were able to deal with the technological constraints of our cheap computer and still put out albums that were sonically rich and able to express a range of emotions. At the same time, there was the apparent overblown sense of “this song needs an epic 3-minute intro” entitlement that seemed right at the time but in hindsight is total cringe, and something that a real producer would have said “no” to.

Karo: There is a strange moral question in restoration: how much should one repair before the repair becomes a lie? With these CUT.RATE.BOX redux editions, how did you decide which flaws were technical problems and which flaws were part of the emotional truth?

G.: That’s a fascinating question, especially in the world of technology we currently live in, where everything we do is mediated by algorithms. I mean, every photo we take on our phones is just digital information “repaired” through filters and algorithms in an attempt to give us the best representation of what’s been captured through a tiny lens – but those algorithms are based on what someone else thinks is the best representation of reality.

Yet we don’t consider digital photos to be lies because there’s just enough of some version of reality that we can say “I was there, I took that picture, it must be the truth.” In these releases I made one editorial edit where I wasn’t happy with the words I chose at the time, which in today’s world of limited critical thought would be misinterpreted. The other changes were shortening a few intros that were just way too long. lol.

Finally I omitted a few tracks that we weren’t happy with at the time, for various reasons, or where they didn’t really express who cut.rate.box was and is; I considered some of them more remixes of someone else’s songs that made it onto our albums.

Karo: “Blueiceblack” seems to stand at a threshold: a new city, a new collaborator, a rough home studio process, and a sound that carries both machinery and atmosphere. Do you hear that record now as an arrival, a rupture, or a period of learning how to breathe in unfamiliar surroundings?

G.: I think “blueiceblack” is perhaps my favorite of the redux releases. It was much more raw, much more experimental, and more sparse but also more orchestrated than the others. I think this initial time of learning to work together allowed us a freedom to try things without hard curation; we weren’t familiar enough with each other to criticize or say “no”. Clint may have felt cut.rate.box was my thing and didn’t want to step on my toes, and I didn’t want to seem like the perfectionist control-freak I am and just wanted him to do whatever he felt was right. We made some really interesting tracks there.

Karo: The guitar work in CUT.RATE.BOX never feels like a decorative “rock” layer placed on top of electronics. It seems to create weather, distance and friction inside the tracks. Did the presence of guitar change the way you thought about space in your music?

G.: I started my music career as a guitarist in a punk band, so guitars have always played a role in my musical thinking, even if that doesn’t manifest directly in the music. But I’ve always been inspired by guitarists that use the guitar to create atmosphere – Robin Guthrie, Daniel Ash circa Tones on Tail, Robert Fripp…

They showed that you can create musical textures that are difficult to create any other way and that can lend themselves to filling space in interesting ways. Clint having a history in goth bands was also part of our chemistry I think – we had similar frames of reference for how guitars fit with electronics, that they weren’t just the chugga-chugga-chugga barre-chord rhythmic device they’re often used as.

Karo: “New Religion” reached the CUT.RATE.BOX listeners in a more visible way and moved the project into a broader circuit of radio, labels and live attention. Did that outside recognition change the way you understood CUT.RATE.BOX, or did it make you more protective of the private reasons behind the songs?

G.: Heh – “New Religion” was like a hunter chasing his prey across time and space and finally catching it and not knowing what to do with it. Coming out of high school, the only thing that seemed interesting to me was making music, and the end goal of making music at that time (years before self-publishing on streaming services was the norm) was to get a record contract. “New Religion” got me that record contract and got me the exposure that I had been trying to achieve for years, because I thought that was just what a musician was supposed to do.

And while I had been studying the business-side of things and knew what to expect, I hadn’t even considered the psychological and philosophical sides. Receiving mail from all over the world with people letting us know how the music helped them through a tough time, or how it just made them happy, or having questions about the meaning of my lyrics was eye opening; I felt both a connection with them, but also a responsibility to do right by them. So it was validating and encouraging, but also a new weight that I had never considered.

Karo: The word “religion” in your work often feels less like belief and more like structure: systems of obedience, desire, guilt, authority and repetition. When you look back at that era now, were you writing against faith itself, or against the institutions and rituals that teach people how to surrender themselves?

G.: I grew up going to a Catholic school and early on only thought of “religion” as the faith behind the rituals, but grew to understand it was more about power and control than a real sense of doing good. At that same time, Sunday mornings weren’t just about going to church – that was also the day we went to McDonalds for a fancy breakfast, the day that we watched the football game on TV, the day that we used the good dishes at dinner. There were a lot of other rituals in our lives, different forms of religion. And still are.

So I did sing a lot about my disillusionment with the church – how the capacity for doing good was overshadowed by their embracing the very things they preached against – but also that “religion” was/is whatever we want to make it on any given day. At the time of writing “New Religion”, the religion de jour was the nascent internet and rapid advancement in technology in the home. In today’s world, our religions change daily. Today it’s AI – some believe it’s god, some believe it’s the devil – tomorrow will be a new one.

Karo: “Dataseed” now feels unsettling because digital life has stopped being something we enter and has become something we live inside. When you returned to that CUT.RATE.BOX material, did the album still feel political to you, or had it become more psychological?

G.: “Dataseed” was a pessimistic view of what could happen if we didn’t guard against the misuse and over-use of technology. So yes, seeing many of those dystopian possibilities become part of everyday life is troubling. But not unexpected. Throughout my life I’ve seen how the potential for doing good becomes corrupted and turned into something terrible. My most recent employment “in the belly of the beast” was no different, and if anything listening to “Dataseed” again was more of a “yup – told you so” moment.

I do think there’s still a sense of the political to it, in that we can look at it as “if this was a warning and we ignored it, what else are we ignoring about what’s coming and what can we do about it?” Not that I see myself as some sort of future-predicting oracle. lol.

Karo: A lot of early electronic music imagined technology as future, threat or escape. Today technology is habit, dependency, infrastructure and self-image. Does that make the old anxieties behind “Dataseed” feel sharper, or almost too normal to be dramatic anymore?

G.: I think electronic music is often associated with science fiction – the sounds, the themes, and even the lyrics. “Dataseed” is definitely in the sci-fi genre, but like most sci-fi it’s grounded in the present reality. I like to pay attention to what’s going on around me, and try to think through where things could end up. Nothing I wrote in “Dataseed” was made up, it was just observations presented from a particular viewpoint. And because I’m so connected to technology, these observations tend to be in that vein. But things didn’t have to turn out the way I wrote them, I just got lucky and picked the horrible version of the future to write about.

Karo: “Xenophobe” carries a different kind of history because it is tied to displacement and survival after Hurricane Katrina. When you worked on those recordings again, did the music behave like memory, evidence, or something closer to a place you can never fully return to?

G.: I lived with the tracks on “Xenophobe” for almost a whole decade before releasing them in any form, so digging back into them was like visiting old familiar friends. I’ve had enough time to come to grips with what happened with Katrina, and understand how that has shaped my life, so I was able to listen to these tracks without getting too caught up in their emotional weight. I really was able to focus on trying to make them sound better than the first time around, when they were just whatever was laying around on my hard drive sent to release.

Karo: The instrumental pieces connected with that period seem to remove the usual authority of the voice. Without lyrics, there is no explanation, no argument, no direct confession. Did that make them more abstract for you, or more honest?

G.: They are definitely more honest in the sense that the music has to be reckoned with on its own, for what it is: it’s monotonous, brooding, plodding, depressing, and repetitive. But they’re also still experimental, exploratory, and at times inventive – typical cut.rate.box. They are probably harder to connect to without lyrics, but that itself is part of the disconnect and displacement I felt at the time.

I really enjoy the sound design in those tracks because they were some of the most expressive, utilizing instruments – digital and acoustic – that helped evoke the feelings I was having; the sad wailing of a mournful Chinese erhu, or the clicking of old telephone systems dialing a number that could never connect, to the jazz drums reminiscent of the bars throughout New Orleans.

Karo: The bonus tracks, alternate versions and live intro pieces show paths that were not fully taken. Do you think of them as extra material, or as a kind of parallel history where the songs briefly reveal what else they might have become?

G.: I wanted to include these tracks – especially the demos of tracks with different lyrics – because they demonstrate that making any sort of art that is from your heart isn’t perfect from the beginning, and it doesn’t need to be. The process can be messy, discordant, and frustrating.

Where you start isn’t necessarily where you end up, and that is okay; you need to be true to yourself and make the edits and changes you feel are right, no matter how difficult – even to the point of not releasing it. Other tracks, like the live intros, are to better paint a picture of who and what cut.rate.box is and was at that moment in time – if you had been to a live show with one of the intros, it would have set a mood, given you a sign that this wasn’t just going to be what you heard on CD, that there was something deeper to the show.

Karo: You rebuilt the visual identity of the releases as well, which matters because old music rarely returns alone. It comes back with new images, new framing and new context. As a designer, were you trying to protect the original atmosphere, or give the listener permission to hear the material differently?

G.: With the original physical media releases, the packaging played a bigger role and afforded me space to include lyrics – which are important to me – and images and credits…all the old-school liner-note things that were part and parcel of albums at the time. With digital distribution, and breaking albums into individual tracks, some of the cohesion, intricacies, and content of the packaging is removed. But I’m a fan of clean and ordered design with a sense of whimsy (e.g.: Dieter Rams, Philippe Starck).

The design language for these releases makes them feel all the same, part of a singular despite being very different on their own. Each of them had the branding and titles removed from the original artwork, and placed in a somewhat stark (no pun intended), ordered layout. In some ways, a meta-statement about the blandness of digital media. The whimsy comes in via the strip of color to the left side of each release, which is a reference to CD jewel case tray inserts. Also, the cover images are placed a bit off-center which really messes with digital devices that try to place the album artwork in arbitrarily-shaped UI.

Karo: Modern restoration tools can bring old recordings closer to what you once imagined, but they can also smooth away the evidence of limitation, urgency and accident. How did you keep the technology in the role of a witness rather than letting it become an editor of history?

G.: Despite being originally created and recorded digitally, none of the files I had were usable in modern tools; they all were from long-dead software applications in long-dead formats. So “restoration” was the right term here – it was all about restoring and not recreating. Other than the shortening of intros I mentioned earlier, the work was really just trying to make them sound as good as I could, being consistent across releases.

Some of the tracks were victims of the loudness wars of the early 2000s, where everything was squashed to have no dynamic range and to be as loud as possible, so there really wasn’t much room to work other than taming some of the low-end. I think “blueiceblack” was the hardest, and worked on the most, not just because of the original poor recording, but me really wanting those tracks to sound as good as I think they could be.

Karo: These redux editions arrive while CUT.RATE.BOX is active again, so they do not feel like a museum project. Has revisiting these records changed what you want from new CUT.RATE.BOX music? Did the past reopen a method, a wound, a confidence, or a problem you still want to solve?

G.: I recently performed for the first time in 20-some years, and in order to do those shows I did actually have to recreate all of the older tracks I wanted to play – basically any track from the redux editions needed to be rebuilt from scratch. In putting those together I was astounded by how dense and rich the old material was in really interesting, unique parts – some of which I have no idea how we created to begin with.

For the shows, however, I stripped everything back to the more minimal punk aesthetic of “Luxury Anxiety”, only keeping a few of the more defining sounds or riffs of the older tracks, and found that the songs still stood on their own; the core material was really solid, and fans still got excited when they heard them start. It’s great to have the material out there again, sounding as good as it can today, but I’m not nostalgic in the sense of wanting to relive my “glory days” or to try to be someone I once was.

Revisiting them has given me the confidence to keep making and releasing music that I want to make and release, and I’m thrilled that people still want to go on that musical journey with me.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Some projects measure their longevity in years but not Klangstabil. They measure theirs in questions. How does a sound come into being? What does it do once it exists? What can it carry? For more than three decades, Maurizio Blanco and Boris May have built one of the most distinctive bodies of work in European electronic music around exactly those questions, and on 11 July 2026, they bring the answers, provisional as ever, to Markthalle Hamburg.

Klangstabil started in 1994, when Maurizio was already deep inside the electronic underground and Boris was only beginning to find his way into it. What they shared was sharper than a sound: a way of approaching sound itself. Music, for them, wasn’t something to make and release. It was something to understand from the inside out – from the moment of its formation, before it became anything as fixed as a song.

That early period was pure research, recorded without any intention of going public. The work only began circulating after live shows and the encouragement of people around them made release feel necessary. The first vinyl arrived in 1995. More than a dozen records have followed, on vinyl, CD, and in every digital format that has come and gone in the meantime.

The arc since then has been one of patient evolution rather than reinvention. The early Kraftwerk DNA is still audible if you listen for it, but the project has moved through experimental sound collage, abstract electronics, and eventually into the deeply emotional electropop that defines their more recent work, songs that carry weight without theatre, melody without compromise. Their motto sits at the heart of it: one step back, two steps forward. It’s a working method as much as a slogan, and it’s why Klangstabil records don’t sound like anyone else’s.

In 1998, the duo founded their own label, MHz Records – a platform for their own work and for artists across a wider spectrum than most electronic labels would touch, from delicate electronics to grindcore. Top-10 placements in international alternative charts, tours through Europe, Russia, Canada, and the US, and a loyal global audience have followed, but none of it has changed the project’s central instinct: keep asking what sound can do next.

The Hamburg show is a chance to see all of that compressed into a live room – the research, the patience, the melodic warmth, and the quiet refusal to stand still that has kept Klangstabil relevant for over thirty years.

Klangstabil live in Hamburg – Practical details

📍 Markthalle Hamburg · Klosterwall 11, 20095 Hamburg
🗓 11 July 2026
🚪 Doors 20:00 · Show 21:00
🎟 Digital & physical tickets

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Forty years is an absurd lifespan for a project that has never been built for comfort. Suicide Commando began in the Belgian underground of the 1980s, shaped by closed factories, unemployment, Cold War tension, terror and the hard electronic language of bands such as Klinik, Front 242 and The Neon Judgement. In 2026, Johan Van Roy is not polishing that history into a safe anniversary narrative. With “Collective Suicide Vol. 1+2”, he opens the archive, lets the early rough recordings stand next to reworked material and new tracks, and treats four decades of darkness as something still active rather than neatly resolved.

The new retrospective looks back without turning Suicide Commando into a museum piece. It includes demo material, rare versions, reworked classics and the new track “Control & Consent”, while the anniversary concerts, including the WGT 2026 show at Agra Halle and the announced Oberhausen date, place that history back where it has always had its most violent physical charge: in front of an audience.

In this interview for Side-Line Magazine, Johan Van Roy talks about anger, darkness, old tapes, physical formats, AI, injury, the voice as weapon, copycats, WGT, the thin line between good and evil, and the one thing that has remained unchanged since the beginning: passion.

Suicide Commando interview

Karo: Forty years is a strange number for a project built on anger, darkness, speed and confrontation. Many artists soften with time, while Suicide Commando still seems to carry a very hard emotional charge. When you look at the project from 1986 to 2026, do you feel you have changed the sound, or has the world changed enough to make the same darkness sound different?

Johan: I grew up in the eighties with lots of factories closing down, lots of unemployment, but also the rise of terror organisations, even in Belgium, the cold war tensions … so it was a really dark period in history which you also could hear in the music of that decade with bands like Klinik, Front 242, The Neon Judgement … all coming from Belgium.
It definitely also had a big impact on me as a person and on my music.
I guess you’ll never hear happy pop tunes coming from my hand. It’s still the same darkness just wrapped in a different packaging, but the core remains the same, pitch black !

Karo: “Collective Suicide Vol. 1+2” documents a huge part of your history, from early demo material to rare versions, reworked classics and the new track “Control & Consent”. How did it feel to open the archive again after the 30th anniversary collection? Was it more like revisiting old evidence, cleaning old wounds, or finally accepting the full weight of what you have created?

Johan: Opening the gates of my musical hell made me realise how much my sound changed throughout the years. The atmosphere remained the same, but musically my sound did change a lot.

Ofcourse I see my own creations differently, not like a normal listener at home. You also have to see them in their own time period. It’s obvious that a song like “suicide” from 1987 sounds poorly recorded and outdated, but nonetheless I think it was essential to put some of these early recordings on “collective suicide” as well. And even though it sounds poorly recorded it still has a lot of value for myself and I’m still proud of it today.

Karo: A retrospective can easily become a monument, but “Collective Suicide Vol. 2” does not feel frozen because it includes new and reworked material. Why was it important for you to place “Control & Consent” inside an anniversary release, instead of keeping the collection purely historical?

Johan: For me it was essential to have material on both compilations covering the complete 40 years, so it had to include also some new material, even though “control & consent” goes back to my earlier works from the nineties, it also has this old school F242 vibe from the early days.

Karo: Suicide Commando has always dealt with violence, death, control, religion, obsession and human cruelty, yet the songs became club anthems for many people. After four decades, how do you understand that contradiction between brutal subject matter and collective dancefloor release?

Johan: I always liked to walk the line between good and evil, and sometimes it’s a very thin line.

I think we all have a negative side, we all have a yin and a yang … while most people would prefer to write about the birds and the bees, I was always more fascinated by the dark side of life.

Karo: Some of the reworked tracks, like “Come Down With Me”, “Jesus Freak” and “Death Lies Waiting”, return through your current production perspective. When you rebuild an older song now, what are you listening for? The weakness of the original, the energy that survived, or the person you were when you first made it?

Johan: Feel free to call it a professional quirk, but usually I only listen to my own songs searching for things that could be done differently or better, so reworking my old songs usually means trying to get an even better version or result.
But I always try to keep the original vibe of a song alive and intact.

Karo: The WGT 2026 anniversary show at Agra Halle was a symbolic moment, because Leipzig has always carried a special emotional weight for the dark scene. How did that concert feel from your side? Did it feel like a celebration, a confrontation with your own history, or simply another Suicide Commando show that had to hit with full force?

Johan: It certainly felt as a celebration, thinking back at it it still gives me goosebumps. Seeing the Agra Halle completely packed for our show (I was told maximum capacity of the Agra Halle is 10000 people), chanting along to the songs, seeing all those hands in the air … it simply was incredible and unforgettable.

WGT always had a special meaning for us. I think we meanwhile played there about 12 times, including the year the festival (almost) went bankrupt and we decided to play in total chaos.

Karo: After WGT, one more German anniversary show was announced for Oberhausen rather than turning the 40th anniversary into a large nostalgia tour. Was that selectiveness important to you? Do you prefer these anniversary shows to remain rare, almost ritual events, instead of becoming a routine celebration?

Johan: We’ll do a couple more anniversary shows, but mainly abroad (like the Netherlands, Spain …) but I explicitly wanted to keep these 40 years of Suicide Commando shows rare and special. So the one in Oberhausen will be the last special anniversary show, the other planned shows will be different.

Karo: Suicide Commando started with self released tapes in a very different underground, before streaming, social media, instant visibility and permanent digital noise. What do you miss from that earlier scene, and what do you definitely not want to romanticise about it?

Johan: What I certainly miss from those early times is the creativity you had to have to make music. Nowadays it became way too easy to make music, get yourself a decent pc and some software and next week you can have your first songs ready, and with the rise of AI it even became worse. So I certainly lack the innovation you had to have back in the old days, you had to be way more creative to make music, instruments costed a fortune and were extremely limited in their possibilities, so you basically were obliged to be innovative and creative. The music was definitely more experimental in those days.

What I don’t want to romanticise about it ? Well, buying a sampler that costed a fortune and just be able to sample 3 seconds of sound … 🙂

Karo: You had a serious knee injury and surgery years ago, and there was even a moment when pain forced you to stop a show. Yet Suicide Commando live performances still demand physical intensity, control and aggression. Has your relationship with your body on stage changed with age, injury and experience?

Johan: Of course I feel that age takes its toll, I’m not 25 anymore … and sure my live shows demanded concessions from my health, the knee injury and surgery was probably the biggest one, but I also remember ending up in hospital with bruised ribs during a tour which made it almost impossible to breath, or with a bruised foot or leg as I always prone to doing stupid things on stage …

But nonetheless it was all worth the sacrifices.

Karo: Your voice has always been one of the most recognisable weapons in Suicide Commando: harsh, venomous, direct, almost disciplinary. After forty years, do you still experience the voice as a weapon, or has it become something more complex, maybe a mask, a confession, or a survival mechanism?

Johan: To be honest, I never really saw myself as a “real” singer. I know my limitations as a singer, so I had to find ways to turn this disadvantage into an advantage and make it a weapon, with using an old pitch shifter (many people still think I’m using distortion or whatever) it perfectly worked out for me and my sound.

Karo: The new anniversary box set also treats Suicide Commando as a visual and physical archive, with vinyl, CD, photo book and certificate. In a digital era, why does the object still matter? Is it mainly for collectors, or does physical format preserve a kind of seriousness that streaming cannot carry?

Johan: I still think it’s important to myself to be able to hold something physically in your hands, and whether that is a tape, a vinyl or a CD doesn’t really matter, they all have/had their own flair. For me it’s not only about the music, also the package, the artwork, the lyrics … are part of the whole.

Karo: Many younger dark electro and aggrotech acts grew up with Suicide Commando as part of their musical DNA. Do you hear your influence in the current scene with pride, discomfort, distance, or surprise? Are there moments when you feel the genre has understood your legacy, and moments when it has misunderstood it?

Johan: I’ve always been proud of the legacy that Suicide Commando left behind. It started to get a bit annoying when this style became immensely popular after the success of the “mindstrip” and “axis of evil” albums in the early 2000’s. All of a sudden you got a lot of copycats and in a way Suicide Commando got the blame. But trends come and go, so I’m happy things calmed down again. Nothing against copycats, but I still prefer bands with an own identity, doing the thing they like, not because it is popular at that time or not.

Karo: Looking back across four decades, which part of Suicide Commando has remained most stubbornly unchanged: the anger, the discipline, the fascination with death, the need for control, or the refusal to become safe?

Johan: For sure the passion ! Music is my passion, music is my therapy, always been, always will!

Karo: If “Collective Suicide Vol. 1+2” gives listeners a near complete map of where Suicide Commando has been, what should remain unmapped? What part of the project still has to stay dangerous, private or unresolved for you to continue?

Johan: I’m in a luxury position where I can do whatever I want with Suicide Commando. My label gives me total freedom in what I do, so I’m a happy (old) man !

The passion will never die, so I simply can’t imagine a life without doing (my) music.

Side-Line also covered Suicide Commando’s ‘Collective Suicide Vol. 1+2’.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

DeVision Redux‘s Steffen Keth and Daniel Myer on “Echoes We Keep”, the Redux sound and why old songs sometimes need a different room

DeVision Redux starts with a simple idea, then immediately complicates it: familiar De/Vision songs, rebuilt with a more modern electronic body, carried by a singer whose voice already belongs to the material, and shaped by Daniel Myer, an artist who has rarely treated electronic music as a comfort zone. That combination could have produced a neat update of catalogue favourites. Instead, “Echoes We Keep” feels like a test of how much memory a song can hold before it needs another form.

The project also has a practical side, which Steffen Keth addresses directly. De/Vision Redux gives him more flexibility, a second live format and a way to play more often, while the original De/Vision remains active in a more limited capacity. Around that pragmatic decision, however, another question appears: what happens when songs that already belong to many listeners are placed under new pressure?

In this interview, Steffen Keth and Daniel Myer discuss the beginning of De/Vision Redux, the choice of “Synchronize” as the first recorded step, the title “Echoes We Keep”, the role of Daniel’s production, the live energy of the project, audience reactions and the balance between respect and risk.

DeVision Redux interview

Karo: DeVision Redux is described as a new format of De/Vision, not as the end of the original band. That distinction matters, but it also raises a deeper question: what did you need this second space for? Was there something in the De/Vision catalogue that could no longer be fully expressed through the familiar band format?

Steffen: I’d had the idea for a while. I just felt that I wanted to present various De/Vision songs with a more modern sound. I’d quit my job in the summer of 2024 and met Daniel at a party in Hamburg. He thought the idea was exciting, and in October we agreed to work together. This has allowed me to build up a second source of income alongside De/Vision, so I’m much more flexible and can simply play a lot more gigs. Thomas isn’t as flexible anymore because of his job, so with DE/VISION we’re focusing on just a few gigs a year.

Karo: Before “Echoes We Keep” became an album, De/Vision Redux already existed as a live idea. When did you realise that this was not only a different way of performing old songs, but a project with its own artistic logic?

Steffen: At first, we just had the idea of establishing DeVision Redux as a live act. After the first few shows, there was a desire to release something, so we expanded on the original concept. Now the aim is to establish and develop the Redux sound.

Daniel: If I may add something, to me its also a refreshing style in this scene, a lot of new music is getting released and it repeats the same formula, why not add something new, that listeners and dj´s can explore.

Karo: “Synchronize” was the first recorded step into this new chapter. It is interesting that you did not begin with one of the most obvious early classics, but with a later song. Why was “Synchronize” the right door into Redux?

Steffen: ‘Synchronize’ blends the old and slightly newer De/Vision sound very well, and as we wanted to release our first track quickly, we chose this particular song. It was already at a very advanced stage of production, and the positive feedback from live performances also played a part in our decision.

Karo: The title “Echoes We Keep” suggests memory, but not nostalgia in a passive or sentimental sense. An echo is never identical to the original sound; it is changed by the room that carries it. What did you want to preserve from these songs, and what did you feel ready to let go?

Daniel: I can answer that, I guess, because I also suggested the title. I felt it was necessary to bridge the old with the new, and sometimes an echo is just doing that, that’s at least how I use it sometimes, when I make music. My main idea was, to treat the material, the songs, as the classic songs they are. I was/am a fan of the classic songs, so I tried to keep the structures, the depth and emotions of the songs. I think, I only went a couple of times a little „too“ far and changed the feel a little bit, but in general my attempt was only, to give the old a new polish.

Karo: Daniel is not simply a producer brought in to modernise the sound. He has his own very strong language: physical, precise, detailed, sometimes severe, but also emotional in a different way. What did Daniel understand about De/Vision that made you trust him with material carrying so much history?

Steffen: I’ve known Daniel for quite some time; even though we’ve hardly been in touch, I’ve kept an eye on his work. I simply like the variety of his output; I like the fact that he doesn’t just focus on one thing. He loves music, and that’s important to me. Broadening horizons, not standing still, but always being on the lookout for new influences. That’s the approach I’d been looking for.

Daniel: Plus we crossed paths a few times before, I did a few remixes in the 90ies, we toured together and Steffen was even singing on one of our Haujobb Songs (Violator)

Karo: De/Vision songs have lived with you for decades, but they also live inside the audience, often connected to very personal memories. When you sing these Redux versions now, do you feel closer to your own past, or strangely freer from it?

Steffen: Personally, I don’t associate the REDUX versions with the past. They’re meant to work in the present, and that works brilliantly for me. Of course, everyone associates something different with De/Vision, and we’ve also made sure that the basic essence of the songs isn’t lost. For me, however, DeVision Redux represents a slightly more modern sound, which is also intended to convey that feeling.

Karo: The REDUX versions are more electronic, more direct, more club oriented and often more reduced. Reduction can be merciless, because it removes places where emotion can hide. Did this new sound make your voice and the lyrics feel more exposed than before?

Steffen: There’s a different energy on stage, and as a singer, I naturally try to convey that. The fans’ reaction shows me that I’m on the right track.

Daniel: My idea was also, to give the voice more space, not for every songs, but sometimes, he needs to breathe and shine, so for some tracks I tried to give that space and momentum….

Karo: Some songs survive transformation easily, while others resist it. How did you decide which De/Vision tracks were strong enough for this treatment? Were there any songs that surprised you because they suddenly opened up in the Redux format?

Steffen: Daniel and I made the selection together. We wanted to create around 20 songs as REDUX versions. Daniel was solely responsible for the production. And yes, there were a few tracks that really blew me away. ‘Strange Affection’, “Addict”, ‘Deliver Me’ and a few more. There were also tracks we struggled with at first. Sometimes it just takes a while to find the right approach.

Daniel: Exactly, for some songs the new treatment felt foreign, alienated, even though I tried my best to keep the original feeling and I think, that was the mistake there. Sometimes a little too much respect to the original material is not good;)

Karo: De/Vision have always balanced melancholy and movement, romanticism and clarity, emotional directness and electronic control. Did working on “Echoes We Keep” make you recognise certain patterns in your songwriting that have remained constant across the years?

Daniel: Steffen didn´t answer this, so I am not sure, if I am here to fill in, but for me it felt like, that Steffen has no patterns, as you can see in his other new project Bittersweet Dance Club. He is somehow true to himself, writing pop music, but always exploring new ground, I like that about him.

Karo: The stage seems essential to this project. Devision Redux is not just a studio reinterpretation, but also a live experience with a different physical pressure. What changes in the room when these songs are performed in this leaner, more electronic form?

Steffen: As I mentioned earlier, the atmosphere on stage is changing, and the audience seems to be acting a bit more freely too. I sense more movement in the room, a certain relaxed, laid-back vibe. And the most important thing about the whole thing is that everyone should enjoy themselves and spread a bit of joy.

Daniel: And joyful it is. Sometimes it is even a little standup comedy on stage. We have so many stories to share between Steffen and me, and the audience, of course. We both have a history of more than 35 years on stage and we see familiar faces in front of us, but we also try to keep it entertaining and fun. I improvise a lot in between the more or less structured set and sometimes happy accidents happen. But I also love all my music and I feel a lot the emotions in the songs and when I have the monitors on stage extra loud I really dive into the music and let myself go and vibe with it;)

Karo: The audience comes to these songs with recognition, memory and expectation, but Redux also asks them to accept disruption. What has surprised you most in the reaction so far? Do people respond more to what they remember, to what has changed, or to the tension between both?

Steffen: We were quite surprised that most of the fans who came to our shows reacted very positively. Of course, there are also fans who don’t like the new format, but we’re also hoping to attract new listeners with it. There were, and still are, many listeners who thought De/Vision no longer existed. After all, it’s been eight years since the last regular De/Vision album. But what we found funniest was the comment that some people thought we were a De/Vision cover band. The most important thing for us is that we must feel good about it, that the tracks must feel right.

Karo: Reopening one’s own history can easily become nostalgic, decorative or too respectful. DeVision Redux avoids that by sounding very present, sometimes almost uncompromising. When you look at this project now, does it feel like a way of preserving De/Vision’s past, or more like a way of protecting its future?

Steffen: I think that DeVision Redux speaks more to the present and the future. Of course, it’s not meant to deny the past, and there are certainly plenty of old elements in the tracks, but REDUX signals a sense of renewal rather than nostalgia. I’ve also noticed, however, that there are listeners who only became aware of De/Vision through DeVision Redux. After almost 40 years, there are still surprises to be had.

Daniel: Amen;)

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Berlin-based dark electro and darkwave duo NNHMN have released the single “Touch Me”. The track previews the eight-track EP “Opera of Lust & the Art of Sorrow II”, due July 15, 2026 on K-Dreams Records on vinyl and as a digital release. The EP can be pre-ordered on Bandcamp, and a video for the track is online as well.

‘Touch Me’ previews ‘Opera of Lust & the Art of Sorrow II’

The duo of Lee and Michal Laudarg presents the single as a warmer counterpoint to the EP’s melancholic side. The other tracks on the EP include “Say my name”, “Touch me”, “Cold like Steel”, “Strange Love”, “Gangster”, “Feelings”, “Mannequin”, and “Golden Crime”. Earlier singles “Say My Name”, “Cold Like Steel”, and “Strange Love” preceded “Touch Me” in the run-up to the release.

The EP follows “Opera of Lust & the Art of Sorrow I”, the first chapter in the series. In the May 2026 Side-Line feature NNHMN interview: “We are evolutionists”, Michal Laudarg confirmed the project was already looking past the second part: “Now we are in the world of ‘Opera of Lust and The Art of Sorrow Part Two,’ but the material for the new album already exists.”

About NNHMN

NNHMN is a Berlin-based dark electronic duo formed by Lee and Michal Laudarg. The project name is read as “non-human”. The pair worked together in earlier projects under different names before starting NNHMN.

The album “Church Of No Religion” appeared on the Polish label Zoharum, followed in 2019 by the EP “Shadow In The Dark”, first issued as a limited cassette. In February 2020 the duo launched “Shadow in the Dark” on vinyl through the Spanish label Oraculo Records. The same year brought the “Deception Island” material, including the 12-inch EP “Deception Island Part 1” on Oraculo Records, and a first Side-Line Click Interview with NNHMN.

In May 2022 the duo returned with the 4-track EP “For The Comfort Of Your Exstacy” and a video, released via Young and Cold Records and K-Dreams Records. In April 2023 NNHMN re-released previous EPs on one album as “Deception Island 2“, with an extra track. A few singles were released as well: “Your Body”, “Tomorrow’s Heroine”, and “Bring It On”.

The “Opera of Lust & the Art of Sorrow” series opened with part one, supported by singles including “Bring It On” and “The Secret”. With “Touch Me”, NNHMN deliver the latest preview of “Opera of Lust & the Art of Sorrow II” before its July 15, 2026 release on K-Dreams Records.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Mike Langer on “0.8”, the 1980s and why Digital Factor still refuses completion

Digital Factor’s eighth album, “0.8”, out this Friday 12 July on Alfa Matrix on CD and as download, treats the 1980s as a working method rather than a nostalgic costume. For Mike Langer, the decade becomes a way to think about machines, melody, discipline and risk. The result is a record shaped by research, studio obsession and the strange pleasure of understanding the past more clearly after years of distance.

The title began as a reference to the 80s, yet it also opens a much wider idea: Digital Factor as a project still moving toward something without wanting to arrive too neatly. In Mike’s words, reaching “1.0” would almost be a shame, because completion can also mean the end of curiosity. In this interview, he speaks about old synthesizers, unconscious influences, Gwendolyn Gaffa’s role in the current line-up, the therapeutic function of machines, video mapping, repetition, female guest vocalists, acoustic drums, social responsibility and the next step beyond familiar patterns.

Digital Factor Interview

Karo: An eighth album is a strange point in an artist’s life. It is far enough from the beginning to carry history, but still close enough to the future to demand risk. When you started working on “0.8”, did you feel more pressure from your own past, or from the question of what Digital Factor can still become?

Mike: To be honest, I don’t dwell on that too much. During the preparation and production of an album, I am usually deeply absorbed in the technical and conceptual possibilities.

For 0.8, the studio equipment itself was actually a primary focus beforehand. I wanted every track to capture a distinct 1980s vibe, and the synthesizers and drum machines had to authentically reflect that. Ultimately, working on a new record is always a step into the future. The past only really plays a role for me in ensuring that I don’t simply copy the established Digital Factor style onto a new album.

Karo: The title “0.8” immediately suggests something that is measurable, coded, almost clinical, yet incomplete. It feels like a number that refuses to become one. Does that reflect how you currently see Digital Factor: as something precise, electronic and structured, but still unfinished in a very human way?

Mike: Oh, that’s a fascinating interpretation—one I actually hadn’t considered. Originally, the title “0.8” was simply a nod to the 1980s and the massive influence that decade had on this record. After all, it’s the first Digital Factor album that is a concept album purely in a musical sense, rather than a lyrical one.

But your reading of it isn’t so far off. In a way, you are always chasing a specific sound, getting just a little bit closer to it with every release. Reaching ‘1.0,’ however, would almost be a shame, because it would imply that the project is complete and finalized. Right now, I feel highly motivated to keep making music well beyond version 1.0. There is certainly no shortage of ideas.

Karo: Many artists speak about influence as if it were a list of names. I am more interested in influence as a wound, a memory, or a technical instinct that enters your hands before you even notice it. What part of your musical past still controls you when you work, and what part have you finally learned to control?

Mike: That is a really great question. I have been making electronic music for over 30 years now, and I still learn something new with every single production. However, my approach to synthesizers, harmonies, and melodies is much more deliberate today. I usually have a clear idea in my head before I even start executing it. In the past, these elements emerged much more organically through musical experimentation and the general flow of the production process.

Yet, despite this intentional approach, unconscious influences are always at work. For example, whenever I play a new track for my wife, she often points out that it unmistakably ‘sounds like me,’ even if it completely deviates stylistically from my previous songs. So, inevitably, my subconscious always finds its way into the music.

Karo: Digital Factor have existed long enough to experience several versions of electronic music culture: physical releases, underground networks, club circulation, digital platforms, nostalgia waves and algorithmic attention. Which of these changes has affected you most as an artist, not commercially, but emotionally?

Mike: I believe my career choices—and the creative freedom they provide—remain my greatest influence to this day. I work both visually and musically for film, television, and theater. This grants me significantly more financial security than I would likely have if I pursued Digital Factor purely as a full-time professional musician.

Consequently, I am able to realize Digital Factor as a concept completely detached from any commercial pressure. It also gives me the financial liberty to design and equip my studio exactly the way I envision it. Ultimately, this fundamental freedom is what shapes my work with DF the most.

Furthermore, the artistic network I collaborate with has a profound impact on me. Interestingly, very few of these creatives come from the specific music scene in which Digital Factor operates. This outside perspective sparks new ideas that we then bring to life together. For instance, with the live project “Digital Factor Spheres,” I seamlessly merge my video art with my music. Similarly, performing as a musician for an annual live radio play challenges me in completely different and refreshing ways.

Karo: This album seems to come from a tension between discipline and vulnerability. The structures are electronic and controlled, yet many titles suggest blindness, memory, forgetting, time, darkness and fragile states of mind. Do you see machines as a way to hide emotion, or as a way to make emotion more exact?

Mike: I consider myself a fairly positive person; I usually prefer to tune out the ever-present darkness in life. Yet, my lyrics deliberately explore the dystopian facets of human nature. Because of this contrast, Digital Factor is very therapeutic for me, providing a vital equilibrium. The machines serve as the medium—they are the carriers that channel and transport these heavier emotions.

Karo: With Gwendolyn Gaffa now officially part of the band, Digital Factor is no longer only a project built around your own inner architecture. What did her presence disturb in a productive way? Did she change the sound, the atmosphere, or the way you hear yourself inside the project?

Mike: While I truly enjoyed having complete artistic control over the last few albums, Digital Factor originally started as a three-piece band, and that dynamic was always a crucial element of our live performances. Up until G.B.A., I was fully convinced that the project would never return to the stage. However, working with Gwendolyn made me realize that bringing even improvised musical elements into a live setting is entirely possible. Beyond that, her voice is truly exceptional.

So, while I retained the overall creative direction, I was more than happy to frequently hand the vocal duties over to Gwen. When I wrote the tracks she sings on, I already had her voice in my head—in that sense, she was a profound inspiration for the album. On top of that, she is a brilliant guitarist who can translate my ideas instantly.

Funnily enough, when it comes to playing live, Gwendolyn is actually the one who holds the musical authority. I am often too lazy to count bars, so she is the perfect person to give me my cues.

Karo: There is a difference between looking back and being haunted. “0.8” seems interested in the past, but it does not sound comfortable. When you return to earlier electronic textures, do they feel like home, or do they remind you how much has been lost, simplified or misunderstood since then?

Mike: In fact, it wasn’t until I started working on 0.8 that I truly began to understand many songs from the 80s. As part of my research for the album, I watched countless documentaries about the musicians and bands of that era. My conclusion is that musicologists are absolutely right: it is the most formative decade for rock and pop.

Unfortunately, much of the incredible diversity and virtuosity of that musical period has since been lost. You can see this contrast clearly today. On one hand, musicians from that era are experiencing massive renewed success; on the other hand, you constantly hear poorly executed 80s samples and musical quotes in contemporary dance and hip-hop tracks. It makes you realize that the music of the 80s isn’t just being misunderstood right now—it is being exploited, largely to cover up a lack of original ideas.

Karo: Electronic music often speaks through repetition, and repetition can mean many things: pleasure, obsession, memory, trauma, hypnosis, discipline. On this album, what role does repetition play for you? Is it a musical tool, or a way of thinking?

Mike: Fundamentally, I work a lot within classic song structures. While certain motifs naturally repeat, my goal is always to break them apart and evolve them through new melodic lines or sound design. Because of this, the first verse rarely sounds exactly like the second. I view repetition primarily as a tool to establish a song’s central leitmotif and make it tangible for the listener.

However, 0.8 also features tracks that we designed for our live project, Spheres, which incorporates complex video mapping. In that specific context, musical repetition takes on an entirely different function: it steps back to direct the audience’s focus toward the visual installation.

Karo: After so many years, how do you protect yourself from becoming too fluent in your own language? When you know your tools, your moods and your instincts very well, where do you search for friction?

Mike: Above all, working with other vocalists is a particular challenge that I really embrace—on 0.8, these guest singers happen to be exclusively women. I essentially tailor each song specifically to the intended singer. I am also constantly experimenting. For instance, 0.8 marks the first time I have incorporated a custom-built modular system. Similarly, for the track ‘They Will Forget You,’ I recorded an acoustic drum kit for a Digital Factor song for the very first time. The drummer, Kalle Vogel, has since even joined us on stage for one of our live shows. Ultimately, I am always searching for new creative possibilities.

Karo: “They Will Forget You” is a brutal sentence because it removes almost every illusion an artist might have about legacy. Do you make music against forgetting, despite forgetting, or because forgetting makes the act of creation more urgent?

Mike: “They Will Forget You (When You Die)” is intended to be both a harsh reflection of reality and a wake-up call. The truth is that many people will leave no mark after they pass. Leaving mindless hate comments on social media, going on an annual cruise, or rotting away in front of the television simply doesn’t create any lasting value.

I sit on the board of a socio-cultural center in my hometown, and every day I witness people who genuinely want to make a difference, driven entirely by selflessness. Every single one of them would leave a profound void if they were gone. At the same time, through their dedication to the building owned by our association, they have already built something that will outlast them. This song is ultimately directed at the others—the ones who simply can’t be bothered to get off their asses and contribute.

Karo: The current electronic scene often celebrates vintage sound, but sometimes the surface of the past becomes more important than its danger. What do you think younger artists understand well about early electronic music, and what do they perhaps miss?

Mike: That brings us right back to the 1980s. Electronic music, in particular, experienced its most significant evolution during that era. Unfortunately, I feel that this creative momentum really tapered off by the late 90s. Because of that, with 0.8, I felt it was important to look back and attempt to translate that classic sound into my own contemporary understanding. Ultimately, of course, the hope is that this process has given rise to something entirely distinct—and perhaps even something new.

Karo: If “0.8” is a chapter about memory, incompleteness and transformation, what would you still like Digital Factor to risk next? Not in terms of style, but in terms of honesty.

Mike: Digital Factor has always been a very honest project. We have always created the music we genuinely enjoy making – a principle I still stand by today, even if it hasn’t always pleased every single fan.

These days, we play an annual charity concert where there is hardly anyone from the typical electronic scene in the audience. Yet, the show is always a massive success because of our unique approach to performing electronic music live. Even veteran rock musicians have told us that it completely defied their expectations of the genre. I actually view this as a bit of a personal mission; I’ll sometimes even take a moment during a show to explain how a synthesizer actually works to the audience.

Right now, an exciting, major new project is taking shape. Unfortunately, I can’t reveal too much about it just yet, but I can promise this: Digital Factor will once again be breaking out of familiar patterns and stepping far off the beaten path.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Eastside Festival will return to Karlsbad in Halle/Saale on 3 and 4 July 2026. Presented by Pluswelt Promotion, the Pop and Wave open air event brings together synthpop, EBM, dark wave, electro and alternative electronic music in a lakeside setting.

Now entering its fourth edition, Eastside Festival has grown from a pandemic-era idea into an established meeting point for the electronic and wave-oriented scene. The festival takes place at Karlsbad Halle, located by the Angersdorfer Teiche, with camping options, a beach setting and a summer atmosphere closer to a scene gathering than to a standard large-scale commercial festival.

Nitzer Ebb, Devision Redux and Black Nail Cabaret on Friday

Friday’s programme connects several generations of electronic underground music. British EBM pioneers Nitzer Ebb remain one of the defining names of body music, known for their stripped-down force, commanding vocals and percussive physicality. Their appearance gives the first Eastside Festival day a clear historical anchor.

Another major point of interest is Devision Redux, the new electronic format around Steffen Keth and Daniel Myer. The project reworks material from the De/Vision catalogue into a club-oriented language, giving familiar songs a leaner, more contemporary and more physical shape.

Black Nail Cabaret bring their elegant, dark electronic pop to the line-up. The Hungarian duo have built a distinctive identity around sharp synth work, controlled sensuality and a sense of theatrical restraint. Canadian duo Traitrs add a colder post-punk and darkwave presence, with a sound shaped by guitars, tension and emotional urgency.

In Strict Confidence appear with an electro set, linking the Eastside Festival to the long-running German dark electronic tradition. Future Lied To Us bring polished synthpop with a melodic, emotionally direct approach, while Spanish act Huir open the day with a newer voice from the electronic underground. The evening continues after the concerts with a DJ set by Richard Silverthorn of Mesh in a separate area.

Covenant, Solitary Experiments and Bigod 20 on Saturday

Saturday expands the spectrum from synthpop and dark electronic music to EBM history and club culture. Covenant remain one of the most important Swedish electronic acts, combining philosophical lyrics, elegant synth architecture and a strong live presence. Their place in the programme gives the second day a major synthpop focus.

Solitary Experiments bring a different kind of emotional force: melodic, powerful, direct and deeply connected to the German futurepop and electro scene. Bigod 20 provide the midnight special, adding a classic EBM and electronic heritage element to the festival’s second night.

Priest contribute a darker, more stylised synth-based sound, while UK act Auger bring a more alternative, song-oriented edge to the programme. Beborn Beton add sophisticated German electronic pop with a long history in the synth scene, while Swiss act Blackbook represent a newer generation of sleek, melodic synthpop.

M/A/T open the second day with harder electronic energy, and Lennart Salomon performs a special lakeside acoustic set, creating a quieter contrast before the programme returns to full electronic intensity. The night continues with a DJ set by Talla 2XLC and an after-show party in a separate area.

A lakeside festival for the pop, wave and EBM audience

The full 2026 line-up includes Nitzer Ebb, Covenant, Devision Redux, Bigod 20, Solitary Experiments, In Strict Confidence, Priest, Traitrs, Auger, Black Nail Cabaret, Lennart Salomon, Beborn Beton, Blackbook, Future Lied To Us, Huir and M/A/T. Christian Schottstädt of Forced To Mode will host the festival as moderator.

The location gives Eastside Festival its particular identity. Karlsbad offers an open air setting by the lake, with a sandy beach, camping possibilities and a relaxed summer atmosphere. For an audience often associated with clubs, dark venues and late-night dancefloors, this combination of electronic music and open air surroundings gives the festival a distinct rhythm.

Eastside Festival 2026 does not present itself as a purely nostalgic event. The programme places established names next to newer and mid-generation acts, connecting different branches of the electronic underground: EBM history, synthpop melancholy, contemporary darkwave, alternative pop structures and club-oriented electronics.

Tickets are available through the official Eastside Festival website, Pluswelt Promotion ticketing and Eventim.

Eastside Festival 2026 agenda

Friday, 3 July 2026

• 17:00 Huir
• 17:50 Future Lied To Us
• 18:50 Black Nail Cabaret
• 20:00 Traitrs
• 21:10 In Strict Confidence Electro Set
• 22:20 Devision Redux
• 23:45 Nitzer Ebb
• 01:00 DJ Richard Silverthorn/Mesh, separate area

Saturday, 4 July 2026

• 16:00 M/A/T
• 16:45 Blackbook
• 17:45 Beborn Beton
• 18:45 Auger
• 19:50 Priest
• 20:35 Lennart Salomon, lakeside acoustic set
• 21:25 Solitary Experiments
• 22:30 Covenant
• 00:05 Bigod 20, midnight special
• 00:05 DJ Talla 2XLC
• 01:05 After-show party, separate area

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Hollywood Vampires will return to the UK and Europe in 2026, bringing Alice Cooper, Johnny Depp, Joe Perry and Tommy Henriksen back to the stage for a new run of shows. The tour marks the band’s return to European audiences after almost three years away and includes dates in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Croatia, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.

The Polish stop – and also the last stop – will take place at Atlas Arena in Łódź on 10 September 2026. It will be the band’s only concert in Poland on this tour.

Hollywood Vampires take their name from the legendary 1970s musicians’ club founded by Alice Cooper, whose circle was connected with the rock’n’roll mythology of the Sunset Strip. The current band transforms that legacy into a live project built around classic rock, theatrical stage presence, guitar-driven energy and tributes to rock history.

Their concerts combine original Hollywood Vampires material with interpretations of rock classics. Rather than functioning as a static nostalgia project, the band bring together several layers of rock culture: Cooper’s shock rock theatricality, Perry’s Aerosmith guitar lineage, Depp’s rock sensibility and Henriksen’s experience as a powerful live musician and Cooper collaborator.

The UK dates will feature special guests The Jesus And Mary Chain and The Damned on selected shows, while further guests for the European dates are to be announced.

Hollywood Vampires UK + Europe Tour 2026 dates:

• 12 August 2026 – London, UK – The O2
• 14 August 2026 – Cardiff, UK – Cardiff Castle
• 15 August 2026 – Scarborough, UK – Scarborough Open Air Theatre
• 17 August 2026 – Glasgow, UK – OVO Hydro
• 18 August 2026 – Manchester, UK – AO Arena
• 19 August 2026 – Birmingham, UK – Utilita Arena Birmingham
• 21 August 2026 – Colchester, UK – Castle Park
• 22 August 2026 – Halifax, UK – The Piece Hall
• 25 August 2026 – Nuremberg, Germany – PSD Bank Nürnberg Arena
• 26 August 2026 – Paris, France – Adidas Arena
• 28 August 2026 – Cologne, Germany – Lanxess Arena
• 30 August 2026 – Hamburg, Germany – Barclays Arena
• 1 September 2026 – Novegro-Tregarezzo, Italy – Parco della Musica di Milano
• 2 September 2026 – Este, Italy – Castello Carrarese
• 3 September 2026 – Pula, Croatia
• 5 September 2026 – St. Pölten, Austria
• 6 September 2026 – Prague, Czech Republic
• 8 September 2026 – Budapest, Hungary
• 10 September 2026 – Łódź, Poland – Atlas Arena

Tickets and VIP packages are available through the official Hollywood Vampires website and authorised ticketing platforms.

Here’s what you can expect live.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart in Berlin will present “Ryuichi Sakamoto. seeing sound, hearing time” from 11 September 2026 to 23 May 2027, marking the first major European retrospective dedicated to the late Japanese composer, producer and artist.

Opening during Berlin Art Week, the exhibition will occupy around 1,500 square metres in the Rieckhallen and will bring together seven works in five large-scale installations, placing Sakamoto’s practice at the point where composition, film, performance, technology and visual art begin to alter each other’s grammar.

Here’s a glimpse of the Ryuichi Sakamoto retrospective that took place at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo in 2024.

About Ryuichi Sakamoto

Born in Tokyo in 1952, Ryuichi Sakamoto entered the wider musical map with his 1978 solo debut “Thousand Knives” and, that same year, co-founded Yellow Magic Orchestra with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, a group whose influence on electronic pop, synth-based production, techno, hip-hop and game music still reads like a hidden operating system behind large parts of contemporary sound culture. His solo work moved restlessly between avant-pop, chamber music, ambient composition, electronic experimentation and piano-led minimalism, while albums such as “B-2 Unit,” “Neo Geo,” “Beauty,” “async” and the final “12” reveal an artist who treated sound as matter, climate and memory rather than as genre.

His film work brought that language to international cinema. Sakamoto scored Nagisa Oshima’s “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence,” in which he starred alongside David Bowie, and later composed for Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Last Emperor,” “The Sheltering Sky” and “Little Buddha,” as well as Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “The Revenant.” His awards included an Academy Award, a Grammy, a BAFTA and two Golden Globes, yet the significance of his film music lies beyond prestige: Sakamoto could compress political history, erotic tension, exile, landscape and private grief into themes whose elegance never softened their emotional pressure.

“Ryuichi Sakamoto, seeing sound, hearing time” focuses on Sakamoto’s later spatial and audiovisual practice, especially the three-dimensional sound environments he developed from the 2000s onwards with collaborators including Shiro Takatani, Carsten Nicolai and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Among the central works is “Is Your Time” from 2017, created with Shiro Takatani, in which a piano damaged by the 2011 tsunami becomes an acoustic object activated through real-time seismological data from earthquakes around the world. Further installations grow out of “async,” Sakamoto’s 2017 album shaped by fragility, decay, field recordings and the presence of mortality, while two films by Carsten Nicolai use music from “12,” the intimate sonic diary recorded by Sakamoto between 2021 and 2022.

The retrospective arrives in Berlin as part of the 30th anniversary programme of Hamburger Bahnhof, a museum whose history has long involved the friction between contemporary art, sound, performance and expanded media. Curated by Ingrid Buschmann of Hamburger Bahnhof together with Tokyo-based curator Sachiko Namba, the exhibition will be presented in cooperation with KAB Inc. / KAB America Inc. and Dumb Type Office Ltd.

For audiences connected to electronic, experimental and post-industrial music, Sakamoto’s work remains essential because it never reduced technology to surface or spectacle. His machines breathed, his pianos carried weather, his silences had architecture. This Berlin exhibition promises a rare encounter with an artist who understood sound as a way of measuring time, damage, tenderness and the invisible forces moving through bodies and rooms.

Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away at the age of 71 in March 2023 after succumbing to cancer after a years-long battle.

’12’, the last Ryuichi Sakamoto album (January 2023)

In January 2023 Side-Line presented Sakamoto’s last album, “12”, out via Milan Records. The 12 compositions were recorded by Ryuichi Sakamoto in Tokyo during his 2-year long fight with cancer throughout 2021-2022. The album, his 15th, was the first of new solo material since 2017. The album’s twelve tracks are titled and sequenced by the dates each were written, culminating in a diary-like collection of music that provides an intimate snapshot into this period of Sakamoto’s life.

Prior to the release of his album, Sakamoto debuted a special solo piano concert that was streamed online to over 60,000 viewers worldwide. His first live performance in two years, the concert was recorded at Tokyo’s renowned 509 Studio over a week and featured an hour of the composer playing new arrangements from his extensive repertoire and new album.

Watch “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence” from the live-streamed “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Playing the Piano 2022” on Sunday, December 11, 2022.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Swedish electronic artist EMMON and Zweite Jugend join forces on “Salz”, a reworked and reimagined version of a Zweite Jugend track released via Icons Creating Evil Art. What began as a remix idea turned into something far less predictable: a club driven, tense and physical piece that brings together Zweite Jugend’s reduced EBM architecture with EMMON’s high impact electronic language.

The result is a collision of methods, instincts and voices. “Salz” moves through repetition, desire, pressure and transcendence, carrying the severity of body music into a more expansive contemporary club space. In this interview, Emma Nylén of EMMON and Eli van Vegas of Zweite Jugend discuss how the track changed shape, why collaboration still matters in electronic music, and what older and newer currents in EBM can still learn from each other.

EMMON and Zweite Jugend discuss ‘Salz'”‘ collaboration

Karo: “Salz” began as a Zweite Jugend track and then became a shared work with EMMON. What was the element in the original version that had to remain intact, and what needed to be opened up, intensified or challenged?

Emma:We immediately fell for the groove and the repetitive vocals in Elis Transendenz’s version, and asked if we could do a remix inspired by that groove – but we failed completely, and it accidentally turned into a techno banger with Chemical Brothers influences instead.

Karo: At what point did this stop feeling like a remix or guest feature and start feeling like a new artistic statement with its own identity?

Emma: There was probably never a clear boundary – it evolved organically into something other than just a remix. Since we were never satisfied with our original remix version, we eventually let go of control completely instead. At first we thought it sounded like garbage, but the track kept growing on us until we started to love it.

Karo: Emma’s voice and production presence bring a very distinct kind of pressure to the track. How did EMMON’s contribution change the emotional temperature and physical direction of “Salz”?

Eli: I think, the lyrics are exactly that kind of universal that these can be used on different genres. Songs that represent this kind of black and white like intimacy and a night out at a club. I originally wrote the lines for Krischan Wesenberg‘s solo project which was progressive house in one way or the other. So yeah, it was meant to be fitting into a techno driven context. As the lyrics are about experiencing sexuality in a transcendental way, having a second person in the story makes perfect sense. It opens up the opposite perspective which is basically the same. Or, it wouldn’t be transcendent otherwise. So it wasn’t just a technical learning how to work together. It just felt natural. And I think that I love how it turned out with Emma‘s and my voice combined. Like as this version was always meant to be.

Karo: Zweite Jugend’s sound often works through reduction, analogue tension and direct physical impact, while EMMON brings a more expansive club instinct. How did you negotiate the space between austerity and excess?

Emma: We did not, we just had a flow creating the track aming it to be a dance floor banger and hoped (knew) that ZJ would like it, haha!

Karo: The lyrics in “Salz” move through repetition almost like a fixation. What does repetition allow you to express here that a more narrative structure would weaken?

Eli: It is a fixation. Yes. And that‘s the whole dried here. If you are at the border to transcendence you would not want to leave that mental and emotional space so you keep on going. It‘s like being at a rave at 5 a.m. and you close your eyes and the very next thing that you realise is that it’s noon. It‘s a state of euphoria.

Karo: The track feels built for the body, but the body it imagines does not feel simple, happy or purely hedonistic. It feels tense, driven and haunted. What kind of physical state did you want “Salz” to create?

Emma: Like that manic, inspiring, intense energy you could feel in your guts at an illegal rave party in the mid-’90s.

Eli: Well, the initial idea behind the lyrics was to keep it at the personal level. Now it has opened up to a two-pieced perspective with not only gives it different ingredients but also takes the song to a whole different level. I think, what only this new version brings into account is the complexity. It introduces it for the very first time. The described mental state can be either plain and simple our reflect on the holistic condition of the content.

Karo: EBM has always carried a certain severity, but “Salz” also has sensuality and atmosphere. How important was it to keep the track dangerous without turning it into pure aggression?

Emma: Not at all, it was just a happy accident that came from combining us together. The mood of the track is more like the forbidden feeling of doing something you desperately long for, but aren’t allowed to do.

Karo: Emma, your work has always carried a rare combination of control, force and elegance. In this collaboration, did you feel you were entering Zweite Jugend’s world, pulling them into yours, or creating a third space between both?

Emma: Since Jimmy and I were completely free creatively to do whatever we wanted, you could maybe say that we totally hijacked the track until it became its own creation.

Karo: Eli described inspiration as something that does not have to move in one direction. How important is reciprocity in a scene that often builds its mythology around strong individual identities?

Eli: I feel that the very ancestors of this genre (if you want to just call it one) were all about collaborations and featurings. People came in and left some elements to bring used and left again, or they stayed and became the myth that you are talking about. But behind that it wasn‘t that narrow minded at all. And I feel it is about time to collaborate more to create even greater arts, now that many of the ancestors are gone or retiring. To keep the spirit of this kind of music alive we need to embrace different approaches and let them clash into one work. Just to be separated in other cases.

Karo: “Salz” connects different generations and approaches within the electronic underground. What can older and newer currents in EBM still teach each other when they meet without nostalgia?

Eli: Nostalgia is a very emotional point of view. It can be useful to reflect on old days or to even learn something. But it doesn’t say anything about this present and the past. It‘s most definitely on us to create that future. EBM is more or less dead and now lives in way more open scenes that build on that. If that’s the question, let‘s just accept the past for what it is and build a future that we want to have. Let the younger generation of creators be expressive and successful.

Karo: Collaboration can reveal blind spots in an artist’s own method. Did working together change the way you hear your own sound, your limits, or your future direction?

Emma: What we especially love is working on all kinds of inspiring collaborations, because it’s such an effective way to gain perspectives and discover things you never would have found otherwise. That’s how Jimmy and I both love to work — together and with other artists.

Eli: I always wanted to work with bands like Emmon. Personally, you can’t tear me down to one genre. Today I would listen to NIN und tomorrow it might be Röyksopp. To be honest, I‘m always very disrespectful with my own work. That‘s the essence of being an artist. You have to be your biggest critic. A collaboration is a good way to break this a bit as you might find someone else in your own soul. And that‘s it exactly, colliding souls that build emergence. This just happened to me with Salz and Emma. We are now connected forever. I have left a print of my soul in hers and so she has in mine.

Karo: This collaboration sounds less like a side note and more like a possible threshold. Did “Salz” open any ideas for future work together, either in the studio or on stage?

Emma: Maybe, we’re totally open for all kinds of expressions that inspire us and try not to work with any limitations at all.

Eli: With Zweite Jugend we can now retire. That at least is our approach after we have now the feeling that our story has been told. Which opened up to take some time and see how we want to sound in the future and how to progress without losing the identity. As soon as I heard what Emmon would bring to the table, I was fascinated and inspired. I mean, the least to take from this is inspiration. You never know, probably we should do more collaborations. And we don’t talk about live featurings, because it‘s obviously a things that we most likely should and must do. As soon as our paths cross anyway or on purpose.

Zweite Jugend & EMMON release “Salz” on May 29, 2026 via Icons Creating Evil Art. The track revisits Zweite Jugend’s original version and pushes it into a shadowy, hypnotic club realm, where analogue EBM tension meets EMMON’s darker electronic drive. “Salz” will be available worldwide on major streaming platforms, with an official visualizer also released on YouTube

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Berlin-based NNHMN have built their recent work around movement, tension, and transformation. With “Opera of Lust and The Art of Sorrow”, the duo continue to expand a sound that connects darkwave, electronic body music, performance, and club discipline without reducing itself to nostalgia. As “Cold Like Steel” prepares to open a slower, more melancholic side of the project, Lee and Michal speak about theatrical writing, genre evolution, live tension, Grauzone 2026, and “UNTERWELT”, their Halloween event at Festsaal Kreuzberg in Berlin.

NNHMN interview

Karo: Your new single “Cold Like Steel” is about to arrive, and from the way you introduced it, it seems to lean into a slower, more nocturnal emotion. What drew you toward that mood right now, and where does this track sit in relation to the material on “Opera of Lust and The Art of Sorrow”?

Lee: Yes, you are right. The sound is indeed quite different here, and the tempo of “Cold Like Steel” is much slower. The mood is also a bit more nostalgic and melancholic. After all, the album is called “Opera of Lust and The Art of Sorrow,” so this track definitely belongs to the Art of Sorrow side of it. But I still feel that, when it comes to our wave-oriented approach to electronic music, we keep the quality and the convention intact. I hope it will naturally fit with the rest of the record.

Karo: With “Opera of Lust and The Art of Sorrow,” you created a release that feels sensual, theatrical, and emotionally precise rather than simply dark for darkness’ sake. Looking back at it now, what do you feel that album opened up for NNHMN that earlier releases only hinted at?

Lee: I think the theatrical element has always been present in our music, because already at the stage of writing lyrics, I am thinking about atmosphere. Maybe it comes from the fact that I spent around ten years working in theatres, with dramaturgs, as an actress, so perhaps I always feel like I am constructing a tiny performance when I write my texts. So yes, I think it has always been there in our work.

But now, after quite intense touring, we have really started to understand how our relationship with the audience works. And it is beautiful to deliver high-energy, dance-oriented tracks that still have enough space inside them, little ambient lakes where the audience can breathe for a moment, cool down, and then rise with us again.

Also, I think being blind to the evolution of genres within the dark scene is a serious limitation. We are very much in favour of modernising the sound, of letting it evolve naturally. We are not a dark band in the sense of simply recreating the ’80s. Many bands do that. I do not mean it as better or worse. Some artists are simply faithful to the original sound. We are evolutionists.

Karo: The path from singles like “Bring It On” and “The Secret” toward “Opera of Lust and The Art of Sorrow” felt deliberate rather than random. When you release music this way, do you think in terms of chapters, tension, or narrative?

Michal: Yes, that is a good point. We do try to choose the songs we reveal in a more organised way. The idea is that the tension should grow, that one song completes the previous one or announces the one that will come next. Each single gives a short, still slightly hidden piece of information about what can be expected. It does not happen randomly. It happens in a considered way. That is it.

Karo: You played Grauzone 2026, one of the strongest meeting points for darkwave, minimal synth, and related scenes. What did that appearance mean to you, and did it sharpen your sense of where NNHMN stand in the wider European landscape?

Lee: What has been happening with our project for some time now, headlining and co-headlining festivals like Ombra, Extramuralhas, and Grauzone, does not sharpen our sense of who we are. It shows that the audience appreciates us, that promoters see it, and that we have our own public. During this year’s Grauzone, I honestly did not see the church filled so completely for any other show as it was for ours. It can be overwhelming, but it is motivating. It gives us energy to continue. At the same time, we still play very small clubs for totally enthusiastic audiences. This scene is still a niche. These festivals are the jewels in its crown. We appreciate them very much.

Michal: Grauzone is one of the best festivals in Europe, not only for alternative electronic music, but also for rock. After playing Ombra at the end of the year, then Grauzone in a beautiful church, it felt very special. It is a big family. We meet artists and fans we have known for years. Does it sharpen our sense of where the project is now? I do not know. But it motivates us to work more, to release the ideas already waiting on our hard drives, and to develop the new ones in our heads.

Karo: Your live sets often work through tension, atmosphere, and slow escalation rather than immediate impact. When building a show, what matters most: dramaturgy, physical pulse, emotional contrast, or the ritual dimension?

Michal: That comes from the kind of DJ sets I like most. The ones that feel magical never start with a huge impact, because then what? It is better to invite people into your world and then slowly increase the tension. Once they are inside, you can raise the tempo, increase the emotional dose, and we can all get carried away together. In the end, it is like a trip into another world. More or less, this is how we build our live sets. It is a recipe I keep from my DJ years.

Karo: Looking at the songs shaping your current setlists, is there a newer track that unexpectedly became central on stage?

Lee: A few tracks from “Opera of Lust and The Art of Sorrow Part One” work really well live. “Maybe Late” works perfectly. “Demon Your Demon” has been strong from the beginning. We even tested it live before releasing it, and the audience reacted immediately. “The Secret” has also become a strong point in our set.

Karo: Your schedule now includes Italy, Spain, Sweden, and then Berlin for “UNTERWELT” on Halloween. Do different cities pull different versions of NNHMN out of you?

Lee: Yes, absolutely. We think a lot about the audience before we land in different countries. Reactions are completely different. You cannot compare an audience in the Netherlands with one in Mexico, Colombia, or Poland. In some places you need much stronger contact, more speaking, more closeness. In others, people sing so loudly that I almost cannot sing myself. Recently in Italy and in the UK, people climbed onto the stage. It was sweet and funny, never unpleasant. Audiences differ in temperament and temperature. We pay attention to that.

Karo: “UNTERWELT,” set for 31 October at Festsaal Kreuzberg, already feels bigger than a simple date on the calendar. What do you hope it becomes?

Lee: For me personally, I would love it to be like a dream come true. A dark, shining dream. I would love it to become the best Halloween darkwave festival in Europe.

Michal: This year Halloween falls on a Saturday, so the date aligns perfectly. We want to create a place that presents underground artists and gives the audience a chance to discover what is still underground today but may soon become widely known. Some acts are completely fresh and already amazing. Others are legacy bands that built this scene. None of this comes from nowhere. We are all a continuation of something. We hope future editions will allow us to bring even more artists who inspire us.

Karo: Berlin has no shortage of dark events, but many rely either on nostalgia or purely on club functionality. What gap do you feel “UNTERWELT” can fill?

Lee: Festivals that inspire us most are Grauzone, Ombra, and Extramuralhas. They proved you can build a festival that does not rely only on established names, but mixes young unknown artists with respected ones. This creates a beautiful atmosphere. Underground is forever alive. There is an audience for this. We are the best example, one hundred percent self-made, no backing daddies in the shadow. Good music should never belong to one age group. We want variety and space for growth.

Michal: We want a very mixed audience: fans of EBM, gothic music, darkwave, coldwave, heavier electronic sounds, and different generations under one roof. After the concerts, the night continues with dance-oriented live acts and DJs. We hope even techno fans will join us for Halloween in a different way. This is for every soul that loves alternative electronic pleasure. Many acts will simply give joy.

Karo: NNHMN often balance seduction with severity. How conscious are you of that balance now?

Lee: Six or seven years ago, we made much more experimental music, something like rhythmic ambient, but it did not speak to many people. So yes, we think about readability. Music is communication. We are not extremely socially developed people, so art is our way of communicating with the world. You want to be communicative. But the most important thing is to agree with what you create. If you do not stand behind your work, it becomes a heavy sin. You feel ashamed. So the foundation is honesty with your own creation.

Michal: Our earlier projects were very avant-garde and existential. That has always been our trademark. With NNHMN, we want the songs to be more communicative, but the darkness still comes naturally. We evolve because we change as people. That is life.

Karo: Looking ahead, are you extending the world of “Opera of Lust and The Art of Sorrow,” or are the new songs already pointing toward your next evolution?

Lee: The thought always moves forward. We often talk about Kraftwerk and how they evolved from a krautrock band into what we know today. You cannot create as a person from your past. You are already different from two years ago. That is the nature of life. So yes, we are evolutionists. The sound changes with us.

Michal: Now we are in the world of “Opera of Lust and The Art of Sorrow Part Two,” but the material for the new album already exists. It will be more shiny than what we have done so far, but still dance-oriented. After releasing Part Two and touring, we want to return to the studio quickly. We no longer want to wait. We want to release these ideas as soon as possible. Life does not always align with your plans though.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

First time at Out Of Line Weekender, and already one clear impression: this festival fits Berlin perfectly. Across three days at Astra Kulturhaus from 7 to 9 May 2026, it brought together dark electronics, synth-pop, EBM, post-punk, and industrial in a way that felt curated rather than crowded, with a warm, responsive audience, excellent organization, and lights that often shaped the mood as strongly as the music did.

Out Of Line Weekender 2026

Berlin, first impressions, and a night that knew how to build its own voltage

Thursday review: ghostbells, Twin Noir, Priest, Miguel Angeles, Dina Summer, Sierra Veins
Friday review: genCAB, Vanguard, Reaper, Rummelsnuff, CHROM, De/Vision Redux, Aesthetic Perfection
Saturday review: Promenade Cinema, Mildreda, Dawn of Ashes, House of Harm, Massive Ego, Ashbury Heights, KITE

This was my first time at Out Of Line Weekender, and I could not have imagined a more convincing beginning. Some festivals feel portable, as though they could be lifted out of one city and dropped into another without losing much of themselves. This one felt inseparable from Berlin. Its breadth of temperament, its tolerance for contradiction, its appetite for elegance and abrasion existing in the same room, all of that seemed to belong to the city’s own nervous system. Berlin’s openness is never simply about inclusiveness in the abstract; it is also about permission, about allowing different shades of darkness, glamour, theatricality, queer energy, industrial severity, and electronic seduction to coexist without requiring them to explain themselves. Out Of Line Weekender understood that instinctively.

The audience understood it too, and for a first timer that may have been the biggest surprise of all. They were warm, responsive, generous to every act on the bill, and alert in a way that changed the entire room. Nobody behaved as though the evening would only “properly” begin with the bigger names. People listened from the start. They moved. They reacted visibly to details, to textures, to small shifts in mood. That kind of audience is a gift to any festival, and on Thursday it gave the night both its pulse and its dignity. The organization helped enormously as well. Astra is a strong venue to begin with, but the whole setup felt properly cared for: smooth entry, enough space to breathe, excellent visibility, a human atmosphere around the merch and meeting areas, and lighting that did far more than illuminate bodies onstage. It sculpted each set differently, sometimes sharpening the aggression, sometimes bathing the room in melancholy, sometimes turning the stage into a place of near cinematic tension.

Out Of Line Weekender 2026 Thursday review: ghostbells, Twin Noir, Priest, Miguel Angeles, Dina Summer, Sierra Veins

ghostbells opened the evening with far more force than many headliners manage an hour later. The duo has built its identity around the collision of new wave shadow and EBM drive, yet live the balance tipped decisively toward impact: forceful, catchy, immediate, and physically persuasive. Bathed in red light, with a vocalist whose presence felt both beautiful and dynamic, the set came through with a confidence that instantly animated the room. What worked so well was the refusal of passivity. This was not melancholia presented as mood alone, but melancholy sharpened into movement, into pressure, into rhythm that knew exactly how to grip a festival crowd from the first minutes. As an opener, ghostbells did something invaluable: they set a high voltage without exhausting it. 

Twin Noir, the Berlin duo founded in 2021 and built around Cody Barcelona and Ian Volt, brought a different type of intelligence into the room. Their own shorthand, “2 Punks and a Tape Machine,” sounds playful, but there is something much sharper at work in the live setting: a stripped post-punk and wave attack shaped by wiry discipline, darkly danceable electronics, and a certain urban wit. What I liked most was their control. The set felt lean without feeling thin, raw without becoming careless. There was real style in the way they handled repetition and structure, and their German lyrics gave the performance a tautness that suited the night perfectly. Berlin post-punk can sometimes mistake pose for intensity; Twin Noir never did. They were focused, smart, and fully convincing.

Then came Priest, and for me this was one of the emotional anchors of the evening, because they have long been one of my favorite projects. What I had hoped for, they delivered. The characteristic studded masks were there, of course, giving the set that immediately recognizable Priest iconography, but what matters with them has never been image alone. The performance carried exceptional energy, channeled through a visual and sonic precision that never flattened into sterility. Priest have that rare ability to appear sleek, controlled, and emotionally charged at once. The lighting suited them magnificently, slicing the stage into clean futuristic planes, while the audience gave back exactly the kind of focused enthusiasm their set deserved. Watching them here, masked and immaculate, felt deeply satisfying. They did not simply play well. They changed the room’s chemistry. 

Miguel Angeles then detonated whatever composure remained. His work already sits at the crossroads of rap, punk, and electronics, but live that hybrid became an act of outright aggression. He was jumping, spitting energy into the room, driving the set forward with pounding rhythm and a repeated insistence on force, on impact, on refusing restraint. With his jewellery flashed under the lights and a whole visual language that felt like it had arrived from a completely different world, he became the evening’s great rupture, a total shift in texture, temperament, and social temperature. That was exactly why the set worked. It did not simply diversify the bill. It shocked it into a wider range. The audience did not recoil. They leaned in. That made the entire performance feel even more dangerous and alive

And then Dina Summer, one of my absolute favorites, arrived to pull the emotional threads together. The Berlin trio of Dina P., Local Suicide, and Kalipo have developed a sound that threads dark disco, cold wave nostalgia, and club instinct into something that feels both elegant and emotionally bruised, but what makes them truly special live is Dina herself. She commands the stage in an elegant way, yes, but never a passive or distant one. There is something slightly cheeky, slightly sharp in her presence, a poised confidence that gives the performance its own particular tension. Their set was beautiful, deeply emotional, and full of that suspended feeling only certain bands can create, as though the room were dancing and remembering at the same time. I have always found something unusually affecting in Dina Summer’s atmosphere, and Thursday confirmed that instinct again. Their music does not plead for emotion. It draws it out with style, restraint, and absolute confidence.

The closing word belonged to Sierra Veins, and there was something wonderfully appropriate in ending the evening with an artist whose universe seems built from pressure, drama, and release. Her dark electronic language draws from synthwave, EBM, and darkwave, and live all of that crystallized into a set of overwhelming authority. She felt like the queen of sonic mayhem, yes, but with command rather than chaos at the center of it. Her delivery was exceptional, fierce, total, and utterly inhabited. There are performers who stand inside a show and performers who seem to generate the weather around them. Sierra belongs to the latter category. By the time she finished, the audience was fully hers.

What made Thursday so memorable was not simply the strength of the bill, though the curation was excellent, but the way every element met the others at exactly the right angle. The crowd was generous. The lights were stunning. The room never sagged. The transitions felt intelligent. And because it was my first encounter with the festival, everything arrived with the additional force of discovery. By the end of day one, Out Of Line Weekender had already made its case with remarkable clarity: this is a festival that understands pacing, respects its audience, and knows how to let very different artists occupy the same world without diluting any of them.

Out Of Line Weekender 2026 Friday: genCAB, Vanguard, Reaper, Rummelsnuff, CHROM, De/Vision Redux, Aesthetic Perfection

Berlin turned the voltage up

If the first day of Out Of Line Weekender introduced the festival’s emotional intelligence, the second one arrived like a clenched fist. Friday was the night of force: strong electronics, aggressive performance, sonic violence, bodies moving almost instinctively to impact, distortion, rhythm, and release. Yet what made it memorable was not brutality alone, but the way that aggression kept colliding with melody, memory, melancholy, and a very Berlin kind of openness. In a city that has always understood friction better than smoothness, this program made perfect sense. It was hard, theatrical, excessive, intimate, and strangely communal at the same time. The audience met it beautifully. They were fully in it from early on, responsive in the right places, emotionally available when the music opened, and eager to surrender when the stage demanded it.

Visually, Friday may have been the strongest day of the three. The lights were stunning throughout, not merely dramatic, but genuinely interpretive. They sharpened silhouettes, carved out tension, and gave the heavier sets a kind of cinematic pressure. Nothing felt generic. Each act seemed to inherit a different visual climate, and that made the whole evening feel less like a sequence of concerts than like a carefully designed descent.

genCAB opened the night with what felt like a controlled flood blast, a set that managed to be terrifying, emotional, and strangely beautiful all at once. The project, led by David Dutton, has long worked in that dense zone where dark electro, post-industrial textures, and more recent traces of shoegaze and post-hardcore can coexist without cancelling one another out. Live, that amalgam becomes even more intense. What hit me first was the pressure of the sound, then the emotional undertow beneath it. This was not cold programming for its own sake. There was something deeply human in the force of it, something haunted and bruised, which made the aggression feel earned rather than cosmetic. As an opener, it was devastatingly effective.

Vanguard continued the assault from a different angle. Founded in 2008 by Jonas Olofsson and Patrik Hansson, the Swedish duo has spent years refining a sound that moves between synth-pop clarity and harder electronic propulsion. On Friday, that Swedish attack conquered Berlin with ease. Their set was energetic, sharply delivered, and sustained by a very tangible rapport with the audience. You could feel the room trusting them quickly. What I admired most was the balance: they never lost melodic shape, even when the performance leaned heavily into physical momentum. It was one of those shows that reminds you how much power there still is in structure, in choruses, in electronics that know how to move a crowd without flattening themselves into pure function.

Then came Reaper, and with Reaper the evening fully embraced its harsher instincts. The project’s fusion of techno, aggrotech, and dark electro hit exactly as it should live: aggressive, danceable, catchy, and completely uninterested in restraint. Vasi Vallis has always understood that club violence works best when it knows how to seduce before it attacks, and that was palpable here. The performance carried all the bite one could want, but the hooks were just as important as the impact. The crowd responded accordingly, not with polite appreciation but with immediate bodily recognition. This was one of the points in the evening where the floor seemed to stop thinking and simply obey.

Rummelsnuff then arrived as the great glorious shock to the system, both visually and sonically. Roger Baptist, alias Rummelsnuff, is a songwriter, entertainer, and weightlifter whose music travels under names like Männermusik, Sporthymnen, shanties, and workers’ songs, which already tells you this is no ordinary festival booking. In the middle of such a relentlessly electronic bill, he functioned as a rupture and a provocation, but also as a reminder that darkness in music need not always wear the same uniform. His outlook alone reconfigured the room. Then the songs did the rest. There was humour, theatrical absurdity, brute physicality, and a very specific Eastern German charisma that cannot really be replicated or translated. Some people in the audience looked delighted, some stunned, many both at once. Exactly as it should be.

CHROM brought the evening back into melodic electro with absolute confidence. Founded in 2007 by Christian Marquis and Thomas Winters, the project has long stood for a synthesis of synth-pop, EBM, and club electro built on strong bass weight and memorable hooks, and Friday proved how durable that formula remains when handled by people who know exactly what they are doing. Their set was dynamic, tight, and deeply catchy, the kind of performance that lets melody hit with full force without sacrificing pressure. By that point in the evening, the audience was already fully primed, and CHROM used that energy wisely, not overplaying, not forcing, simply delivering songs with enough momentum and enough emotional clarity to make the room move as one organism.

Then came one of the night’s most affecting moments: De/Vision Redux. As a format built around Steffen Keth and Daniel Myer, reimagining DE/VISION material in a more modern and more electronic shape, it could easily have felt like a technical exercise in revision. On stage, it felt like the opposite. It felt lived. What made the set so moving was not merely the songs themselves, but the way Steffen carried them. His voice has always possessed that unmistakable emotional current, and his performance style, direct, inward, and deeply affecting without turning theatrical for the sake of it, made the whole room follow him almost instinctively. Daniel Myer gave the material a different pulse, a sharper electronic body, but never at the expense of its melancholy core. Many people around me were visibly moved, and understandably so. This is what dark electronic music can do at its best: it can hold sadness, nostalgia, memory, and emotional complexity inside a fully electronic blast without diminishing any of them. For a while, the room seemed suspended between dancefloor instinct and private recollection.

And then, to finish, Aesthetic Perfection hit the stage with the kind of charisma that turns a closing set into an event. Daniel Graves’ long-running industrial pop force has spent more than two decades redefining dark electro by blending industrial, pop, goth, and everything between, and Friday’s special oldschool electro framing gave that history extra bite. Graves was, quite simply, on fire: aggressive, magnetic, razor sharp, and entirely in command of the room. He has that rare talent for making intensity feel both precise and unhinged, as though the performance could fly apart at any second while somehow remaining perfectly steered. The audience gave him everything back. It was loud, ecstatic, and deserved. By the end, Friday had completed its arc from opening terror to full scale catharsis.

What I loved most about this second day was the way it proved that aggression alone is never enough. Friday worked because each artist brought a different temperature to the same broad field of force: genCAB with emotional sonic terror, Vanguard with Scandinavian precision and crowd connection, Reaper with punishing dancefloor instinct, Rummelsnuff with glorious disorientation, CHROM with melodic propulsion, De/Vision Redux with aching beauty, and Aesthetic Perfection with pure charismatic demolition. The audience understood all of it. Berlin held all of it. And the festival, once again, knew exactly how to let those extremes coexist without ever letting the evening lose its shape.

Out Of Line Weekender 2026 Saturday: Promenade Cinema, Mildreda, Dawn of Ashes, House of Harm, Massive Ego, Ashbury Heights, KITE

The closing day, where intensity widened into feeling

Saturday, the grand finale of Out Of Line Weekender, offered the most beautiful emotional palette of the entire festival. After Thursday’s sense of discovery and Friday’s full scale electronic assault, the final day opened the field wider. There was still force, still impact, still the physical thrill that this festival understands so well, but the dominant impression was different. Saturday moved through longing, fragility, theatrical power, darkness, tenderness, glamour, rupture, and finally catharsis. It felt like a day built not around one mood, but around emotional range itself.

It began with Promenade Cinema, and from the first moments it was obvious that the room was in the hands of something special. The duo from Manchester has always known how to marry electronics with drama, but live the effect is stronger, because the voice at the centre of the songs does not simply lead the music; it fills the entire room with presence. The minimal elegance of the stage image only sharpened that effect. There was nothing excessive in the visual presentation, and that restraint made the performance even more powerful. What stayed with me was the sheer force of the vocal range, the way beauty and command could coexist without one softening the other. It was a stunning way to open the day, poised and emotionally immediate at once.

Mildreda’s concert was, for me, one of the most deeply felt moments of the whole festival. The Belgian dark electro project led by Jan Dewulf has always carried real affective and psychological weight, and once again they proved why. Their emotional depth and powerful performances have inspired me for a long time. There is something in what they do that goes beyond performance in the usual sense. Their work keeps circling states of mind, pain, collapse, longing, inner violence, and spiritual conflict, including a difficult, often charged engagement with religion, and yet nothing about it feels theoretical or imposed. On stage, all of it becomes lived language. There are moments when I watch them and feel as if a bruised soul itself had stepped into light and sound. Their emotions are so vivid and palpable that disbelief becomes impossible; I believe them, and in that moment I often recognise the same emotional weather within myself. The translation is that complete. Every time I see them, I am struck again by how fully they deliver, how naturally they turn inner fracture into music without reducing it or sentimentalizing it. They remain one of the most persuasive examples of how dark electronic music can speak a genuinely human language.

Then came Dawn of Ashes, and suddenly the stage belonged to a much harsher, darker theatre. Founded in Los Angeles by Kristof Bathory and shaped across more than two decades of movement between aggrotech, industrial, and blackened extremity, the project carries that long evolution very visibly into the live setting. What hit me first was how much was going on visually: horrorish makeup, theatrical gestures, a stage presence that felt almost ritualistic, and a total commitment to atmosphere. But none of it felt decorative. The music was aggressive in a fully embodied way, and the visual dimension sharpened that aggression rather than softening it into spectacle. There was something savage and almost ceremonial in the whole set, as if violence, dread, and performance had been welded into one language for half an hour. On a closing day built around emotional range, Dawn of Ashes brought in a necessary note of the grotesque and the feral, and they did it with real force.

House of Harm turned out to be one of my personal revelations of the festival. The Boston act moves in that rich zone where post-punk tension, darkwave atmosphere, and synth driven melancholy reinforce one another rather than competing for space, and live that balance became deeply compelling. There was a beautiful severity to the set, enough emotional weight to keep it from feeling stylish for style’s sake, and enough composure to let the songs breathe. What I admired most was how naturally they held mood and force together. The performance felt inspiring in the truest way, not because it tried to announce itself as important, but because the songs carried shape, urgency, and atmosphere in equal measure. It was one of those sets that quietly rearranges your expectations while it is happening.

Massive Ego then brought in a completely different kind of voltage and handled it brilliantly. Formed in 1996 around Marc Massive and emerging from the Romo scene before moving decisively into darker electronic and darkwave territory, the project carries a long history of reinvention, and that history could be felt on stage. Marc remains an exceptionally charismatic centre of gravity, someone who understands performance as both communication and image without ever losing the emotional core of the songs. The rapport with the audience was immediate and strong, and the whole set worked musically and visually at once. The dramatic makeup, the thorn shaped Mickey Mouse crown, and the lighting gave the performance a distinctly theatrical charge, though never in a simplistic gothic sense; the whole thing carried the wit of pastiche, the intelligence of exaggeration, and that sharp Massive Ego instinct for turning camp, pain, glamour, and commentary into one coherent language. What made it land so well was that the spectacle never floated free of the music. It remained anchored in rhythm, songwriting, and that unmistakable sense of a frontperson who knows exactly how to hold a room.Then came two of my absolute highlights.

Ashbury Heights have been important to me for years, ever since I first saw them at Wave Gotik Treffen 2004, and my love for them has never faded. Saturday only deepened it. Their lyrics have always mattered enormously to me, because they approach difficult emotional terrain with grace, elegance, and astonishing verbal precision. They write about fractures, masks, mental states, and those private inner disasters people carry beneath a functioning exterior, yet they do so with wit, beauty, and a kind of hard won lucidity that never slides into cheap darkness. Live, that writing meets a performance language of unusual intelligence. Anders and Yasmine Uhlin feel like two sides of the same coin. He carries the emotional weight in a way that feels almost wrenching, as though each song were drawing something raw and unresolved out into the open. She moves through the set like a spiritualized actress in a beautifully unhinged register, coming as close to the audience as possible, locking eyes with people, inhabiting the stage as though it belongs to her and she has no intention of giving it back. At certain moments, their energies merge into one rich artistic outflow, like two different materials suddenly coalescing, and the effect is stunning. That is what makes Ashbury Heights so special to me. There is real intelligence in how they perform and in what they choose to perform about. The songs hit hard, the stage presence is sharp and emotionally exact, and difficult feelings enter the room in a form that is thrilling rather than crushing. They make pain articulate, stylish, and vividly alive.

And then came KITE.

Whenever I try to write about KITE, I feel language thinning under my hands. There are bands one can describe, and then there are bands that exceed description because what they do on stage is too close to emotional transfiguration. I can never approach a KITE performance from a safe critical distance. I simply stand there and absorb. Their songs enter with extraordinary force because the music and the lyrics strike from two different directions at once, each one devastating on its own, each one magnified by the other. They write about the human soul in states of transition, exposure, loss, revelation, ascent, collapse, and return. They write about transformations and reversals, about the parts of a person that are hardest to face and hardest to name. And then they give those things voice so precisely that you can feel your own hidden inner life being called out into the open. That is what makes certain KITE songs so overwhelming. A track like ‘Glassy Eyes’ does not simply move the listener; it seems to prise something open. Others carry the same effect, that sense of being cracked wide while fully conscious, of having emotions you thought you had sealed away suddenly drawn outward through music. It is cathartic in the deepest sense, and always personal. Visually, the show was spectacular. There were new decorative elements, the lighting was stunning, the stage image felt heightened and fully shaped, and the whole performance had that rare quality of total commitment. The duo do not merely “play” the songs. They inhabit them with a degree of intensity that makes the whole thing feel closer to experience than concert. Especially the physicality from the stage, the sense of total emotional expenditure, gave the set its force. This is why I always struggle to write a detached review of KITE. What they do is too alive, too exposing, too close to the nerves.

And after that, after such a finale, the afterparty felt less like an appendix than a necessary continuation. The energy stayed high, the room stayed alive, and the DJ carried the crowd forward in exactly the right spirit, not as a mechanical epilogue, but as one last shared act of release.

Out Of Line Weekender 2026 final thoughts: audience, organization, lights, and why the festival worked

So the festival ended in the best possible way: with force, beauty, openness, and that rare feeling of having been inside something genuinely meaningful. Out Of Line Weekender 2026 was a fantastic event, beautifully organized, warm in spirit, impressive in sound and light, and full of artists who understood how to meet an audience without ever flattening themselves for ease. For a first encounter, it could hardly have been better. It was wonderful, it was moving, and it left behind the most important thing a festival can leave behind: the desire to return.

The next edition of Out Of Line Weekender will take place on 6, 7, and 8 May 2027, with the first confirmed acts including Hocico, Suicide Commando, Ist Ist, Erdling, Swarm, Ductape, Male Tears, Zanias, Signal Aout 42, Hinefort, and Kllsignl. More at https://www.outofline.de/

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Her Own World have reached that delicate moment when a band stops being discussed as a promising exception and starts being watched as a serious force. The momentum is visible: a major support run with Project Pitchfork, a steadily widening audience, a live concept that feels fully inhabited rather than merely styled, and songs that move with unusual confidence between dark electronics, gothic atmosphere, and emotional precision. What makes Her Own World compelling, though, is not growth alone. It is the sense of inner coherence. Their world does not feel assembled for effect. It feels lived in. In this interview, Yu and ad-x from Her Own World speak about pressure, discipline, performance, feminine power, darkTunes, the balance between image and songwriting, and the quiet patience required to build something durable without surrendering it to trends, algorithms, or speed.

Her Own World interview

Karo: In a relatively short time, Her Own World seems to have moved from being a striking underground promise to a band that is visibly operating on a bigger scale. When a project grows this fast like Her Own World, what changes first behind the scenes: the artistic ambition, the discipline, the self-expectation, or the pressure?

Yu: I think the last two change the most, meaning our expectations of ourselves and the internal pressure we feel. That pressure keeps growing, but above all, we put it on ourselves. We want to become more and more professional and show that both onstage and off it. We feel ready for large scale, professional productions, which is why we keep raising the bar for ourselves. The artistic ambition has always been there, and I think it always will be. From the very beginning, we wanted to create ambitious work, both musically and visually. As the band grows, those ambitions naturally grow with it. Our appetite for development keeps increasing, and we definitely want to keep moving further in that direction. We believed in Her Own World from the start. At the same time, we never made promises to ourselves or assumed everything would happen quickly. We simply kept doing the work. We worked hard, developed step by step, and focused on refining what we had to offer. We never tried to take shortcuts or force our way into radio, television, or festival organizers’ inboxes. We just kept showing our work and building a community around the band through concerts and social media. In hindsight, our path may seem fast, but to us it still feels like the beginning. Her Own World has existed for seven years already, and throughout that entire time we built, step by step, the place we stand in today.I would not even say that we experience pressure in a negative way. It is more a form of inner discipline born from passion and from enormous faith in this project. Each of us is constantly developing, musically, vocally, on stage, even choreographically. We simply love what we do very much, and that is why we give it everything we have.

ad-x: For me, the first change is the pressure on the sound. When you play for 50 or 100 people, you can experiment without fear. When the scale grows and you start playing bigger venues, every production decision carries more weight, and paradoxically that pushes you toward greater boldness, not less. I wanted the live session to be set up in a way where I could just walk in, plug in, and the local sound engineer would simply adjust a well prepared session to the room. It worked out perfectly at soundcheck. We played through three songs and still had free time before the show. ☺

Karo: Supporting Project Pitchfork places you in dialogue with one of the defining names of the dark scene. Did that tour feel mainly like exposure, or did it also function as a kind of mirror, showing you more clearly what Her Own World already is, and what it still wants to become?

Yu: I think that tour was above all an enormous opportunity to reach new listeners, especially within the German dark alternative and gothic scene. We are very grateful for that, because it was our first truly serious tour, and the chance to support an absolutely legendary band like Project Pitchfork was a huge honor. Naturally, the tour allowed us to present ourselves to a new audience, and importantly, to the very audience we care deeply about. The German gothic scene is incredibly strong and has a huge, very conscious community around it, so the possibility of playing for people like that was truly meaningful to us. We also felt that we entered the tour well prepared. The material we were presenting was already very polished, so we were able to show Her Own World in the best possible form. Of course we are still developing, and we are still refining everything. With every concert we become more efficient, more experienced, and more professional. But that tour gave us the feeling that we are ready for the next step. The offer itself was a huge surprise. At first, it was honestly difficult to believe it was really happening, because for a long time we had dreamed of touring Germany alongside a major band and reaching that audience. When that opportunity suddenly appeared, it felt a little like one of our biggest musical dreams coming true, and it was a very important moment in our professional path.So no, it did not act as a mirror in the sense of showing us exactly who we already are. It worked more as a huge source of motivation and a confirmation that the direction we chose for Her Own World really makes sense. Looking at Project Pitchfork, we perhaps saw ourselves in a few years, or maybe in ten.

ad-x: Definitely a mirror. You stand backstage and watch a band with more than thirty years of legacy, and either you get scared or you begin to understand what you want to be in a few years. For us, the second option came naturally. There was stress during the first two shows, but once we settled into the rhythm of weekend touring, it all started to feel very natural.

Karo: The visual language of Her Own World is unusually strong, not decorative, but structural. Fire, LED elements, styling, movement, atmosphere: all of this feels woven into the identity of Her Own World rather than added afterward. At what point does a Her Own World song tell you what it should look like, and have there been moments when the visual idea changed the music itself?

Yu: When it comes to whether visual ideas influence the music itself, not really, because with us the music and lyrics always come first. We first build the whole story and the emotions inside a song, and only afterwards do we begin to think about what kind of visual setting can best express the atmosphere of that story and intensify what is already happening in the music and lyrics. That is why all the visual elements, fire, LEDs, styling, movement, performance, are never something added at the end purely for effect. They grow directly out of the emotion and character of a particular song. In a sense, each song tells us what visual world can accompany it. At the same time, we try to approach live performance very consciously. Not every song requires an elaborate stage setting, and we also do not want the visuals to overshadow the music itself. There are technical and physical realities as well. Our performer would not be able to dance through an entire concert at full intensity with fire, LEDs, and complex choreography. It is an enormous physical effort, so those moments usually appear every second or third song. We try to choose precisely the moments where performance can truly add something to the story the song is telling and make the audience feel the emotion inside the music even more strongly. And I actually think that is a very healthy approach. Some bands eventually discover they have so many LED screens and so much smoke that they could just as well put a playlist on a USB stick and go for coffee. With Her Own World, the visuals still serve the music, not the other way around.

Karo: A lot of bands talk about “creating a world,” but in the case of Her Own World the name almost feels like a working method. As the band grows, how do you protect that inner world from becoming diluted by external expectations, algorithms, scene trends, and the very practical demands of visibility?

Yu: That is a very good question, because the name Her Own World was always something more than just a band name. “Her Own World” obviously means exactly that, but for us it is more of a kind of shorthand. It is a world into which we invite the listener and the viewer. We want people to enter our reality, our emotions, and our aesthetics. From the very beginning, we have tried to do everything our own way, and I think that is exactly what distinguishes us the most. We never tried to adjust ourselves to trends, algorithms, or temporary fashions within the scene. We simply create things that genuinely resonate with us. Of course we curate all of it very consciously, because we want to preserve the coherence of our world and the direction we have chosen as a band. It is not about changing style every few months just because something happens to be fashionable. Everything we do has to fit our identity and arise naturally from who we are. The most important thing for us is that nothing in this world is artificial or calculated. This vision was not invented at a marketing table under the headline “let’s create an aesthetic.” It develops organically alongside us, because we have been creating together in the same lineup for years, continuously building something as a group. We are not trying to pretend or to present ourselves as something we are not. Everything comes from emotion, from sensitivity, and from the things we genuinely feel. I think that is also why Her Own World has such a coherent character. Every new thing we create grows out of something that came before. This world keeps evolving, but in a very consistent way. We also do not obsess over audience expectations, but what is beautiful is that people resonate very strongly with what we do. Their expectations are not that we change ourselves or adapt to trends. They simply want more of what we already are. That is why we want to keep developing Her Own World along exactly the path we chose from the beginning. Algorithms change their mood every three days, trends have a shorter shelf life than yogurt in the fridge, and bands that blindly chase them often do not even know who they are after a year. Consistency still wins. Just more slowly. And people are dramatically impatient with the word “slower.” We are patient (smiles)

ad-x: Artistic decisions stay within Her Own World as a band. Yu and I are responsible for the musical direction. We listen to feedback, but we do not write music for algorithms or to meet someone else’s expectations. We do what we like and what we believe in. If something starts to sound too safe, that is a warning sign for us. We are Her Own World, we have our vision, and we follow it.

Karo: darkTunes has clearly been an important platform in Her Own World’s trajectory, from earlier releases to the newer chapter. What has that collaboration actually changed for you in concrete terms: reach, confidence, artistic pace, access to the right audience, or perhaps even the way you think about yourselves professionally?

Yu: This question almost contains its own answer, because everything you listed has genuinely influenced our development in a major way. Working with darkTunes Music Group has changed a great deal for us, both in terms of reach and confidence, and also in the way we think about the band on a more professional level. First of all, the label truly believed in us. Rafael Beck gave us room to grow and supported us strongly from the beginning, but at the same time, nobody ever tried to limit our vision or impose a direction on us. We have a great deal of artistic freedom, and that is incredibly important to us, because it means we can develop Her Own World exactly the way we imagined it ourselves. It is also very valuable that the label genuinely understands and supports the direction we have chosen. darkTunes is also a very modern and professionally run label. We feel that we landed in a place that truly understands what artist development looks like today and how to build a band within the contemporary alternative scene. Of course, greater reach and the ability to reach the right audience are hugely important, but equally important is the positive feedback and the real support we receive. That builds confidence enormously. And once you start believing more strongly in what you do, you naturally walk your own path more boldly. Everything becomes even more exciting and motivating. We as Her Own World feel a little as if this collaboration gave us an extra pair of wings and confirmed for us that people genuinely want to hear what we create. The atmosphere within the label itself is also very special. There is no room for toxicity or unhealthy competition there. On the contrary, bands support one another, friendships emerge, artistic collaborations happen. That creates a very creative environment, and it has an incredible effect on both the pace of work and the motivation of all the artists involved. We are all developing together and trying to create the best possible conditions for greater professionalism. Today, many alternative bands begin with small steps, but all of us dream of reaching the moment when we can fully live from music and treat it as a real profession. We definitely want to get there too.

Karo: “The Queen” carries the language of rebirth, self-possession, and returning stronger after pain. Was that song a continuation of themes you had already been exploring, or did it mark a deeper shift in how you wanted Her Own World to speak, especially in terms of feminine power and authorship?

Yu: The lyrics to “The Queen” really did come out of a need to process certain very difficult emotions and experiences. As you noticed in the question, the song carries motifs of rebirth, agency, and returning stronger after pain. It is a story about the idea that even the hardest experiences can ultimately strengthen us, teach us something, and leave us stronger and more self-aware. This song speaks about the moment when someone goes through something very painful, but over time regains their strength and rebuilds themselves. There is also a kind of symbolic blooming in it, in spite of everything that previously tried to break us. Hope is very important there as well, the conviction that pain does not last forever, and that after the hardest moments you can stand on your feet again. Of course, I sing that story from a woman’s perspective, so the motif of feminine strength and agency appears naturally. But in truth, I would like the song to resonate much more broadly than that. It is not only a song about femininity. It is a song for everyone who has gone through something difficult and has had to find themselves again. I always dedicate this song to people who have survived something and still keep moving through life with their heads held high. For me, “The Queen” is about that moment when, after everything, you straighten your crown and keep going, stronger, more aware, and no longer so easy to break. The song also has a very personal dimension, because I co-wrote the lyrics with a friend who at that time was herself going through a very difficult period. Writing it was emotionally important for both of us, and in a way it helped her regain her strength. That is why I deeply hope that “The Queen” can give other people a similar feeling of hope, strength, and support.

Karo: Her Own World is often described as a fusion of industrial rock, gothic metal, and electro, but what feels interesting now is not the list of influences, but the balance of forces inside the music. When you write today, what tells you that a song is truly yours, not just stylistically effective, but unmistakably Her Own World?

Yu: It really is no longer about listing genres or influences. It is more about the way all these elements begin to create their own identity. We sometimes call this mix “nugoth,” a kind of modern take on gothic. When we create music, we think about it a little like building something from specific ingredients. In Her Own World songs, there is almost always an electronic layer inspired by dark electro and dark electronic music. That is one of the foundations of our sound. Another very important layer is live instrumentation, especially guitar and live drums, which add energy and a more organic character. The bass often functions on two levels at once as well, electronic and live simultaneously. Then there is the vocal layer, where emotionality, delicacy, and a certain ethereal quality in the female voice are very important to us. We do not try to overload songs with too many elements or add things simply because they are flashy. We focus instead on combining those ingredients consciously, in different proportions, so we can create new melodies, new emotions, and new spaces while still preserving a shared stylistic core. I also think it matters enormously that each of us brings a slightly different musical sensitivity and a different approach to creating. Out of that mixture of energies, something emerges that ultimately sounds like Her Own World. It is not something you can mathematically design. It is more the natural result of who we are, both as people and as a band. I hope that is why our songs contain something recognizable, and that when someone hears even a fragment of a new track, they can think, “That sounds like Her Own World.” Although, honestly, it would probably be fairest to ask the listeners, because artists are usually buried so deeply inside their own material that after a week of mixing hi-hats, they no longer know what reality is.

ad-x: If I feel that something is primarily us, I say, “Okay, let’s release it.” Though let’s be honest, these days comparisons are unavoidable. If there is a clear element of “us” in it and it works, we release it. Creating something one hundred percent original and comparable to no one is pretty much a utopia today.

Karo: Because your shows are so visually memorable, there is probably a risk that some people first notice the spectacle and only later discover the songwriting. Do you ever think about that tension, and is part of your artistic challenge to make sure the image opens the door, but the song is what stays in the bloodstream?

Yu: Her Own World is first and foremost a musical project, and that always remains the most important thing for us. Many people listen to our music every day without the concert performance attached to it, so the songs themselves have to stand on their own emotionally and musically beyond the stage as well. The visual setting, the performance, the choreography, and the concert atmosphere are there to strengthen the emotions already present in the music and to emphasize even more strongly the stories we are telling through the songs. Her Own World has never treated visuals as something separate from the music or as something created only for effect. Everything is deeply interconnected and arises from the same aesthetics and the same emotional core. That is why we do not feel that image covers the songwriting. It works in symbiosis with it and together forms a fuller experience. For us, a concert is something more than simply playing the songs live. I think the show matters enormously, because people come to a concert for emotion and experience. We want to give the audience something more than the musical layer they can later hear in headphones. Performance, lights, stage movement, and choreography are there to make the reception of the music even more intense and engaging. Our relationship with the audience is also extremely important to us. We try to keep eye contact with people, to build atmosphere, and to be genuinely present with them in that moment. If a song is more emotional or more serious, we try to reflect that on stage as well. If the energy of a song is more dynamic, we want to draw the audience into experiencing it together with us. Everything comes from the emotion of the particular song. And honestly, the best confirmation that we are keeping the right balance lies in people’s reactions after concerts. Very often, we hear that the audience experiences all of it as one coherent whole. People do not separate the music from the performance. They simply talk about the concert experience. For us, that is a huge compliment, because it means all those elements are truly working together rather than competing for attention. I even have the feeling that if one of those elements were missing, a Her Own World concert would feel incomplete for some people. That is exactly why we treat music, visuals, and performance as one shared organism. And honestly? Audiences can tell very well when “show” is merely a cover for average music. People may enjoy fire, LEDs, and dramatic poses, but if there are no emotions and no good songs underneath, the whole spell breaks by the third chorus. If people remember both after the concert, then the balance is clearly working.

ad-x: I do not see it as a problem. I see it as a deal. The visual side grabs attention, and we usually have three minutes or more to prove that Her Own World also has something to say musically. It is a fair transaction, and the two worlds complement each other perfectly.

Karo: If this current phase of Her Own World, the tour momentum, the stronger visual identity, the newer singles, the widening collaborations, is not the destination but a threshold, then what do you feel Her Own World is moving toward now: a sharper sound, a darker one, a more emotional one, or something that would surprise even the people who think they already understand Her Own World?

Yu: I do not feel that we are moving in one single concrete direction out of the ones you mentioned. Our sound is simply what it is, and we want to preserve that. Our music is not one-dimensional. Sometimes it is dark, sometimes lighter, sometimes more emotional and direct, sometimes more reflective. As for people “understanding” us, I do not think that is something we can fully control, and we do not really try to. We are not trying to be a riddle or to manufacture ambiguity. We are simply ourselves, we show emotions, and we invite people into a shared experience of the music. How someone receives and interprets that is already a very individual matter. Our main principle is to do what we feel. We do not want to pretend or to chase any particular trend or direction. If we feel the need to create something darker, we do it. If something moves us emotionally, we translate it into music and lyrics. And if something provokes resistance in us, we are capable of showing more teeth. That is why our work will never be uniform. Different themes and emotions naturally shape what we create, both musically and lyrically.

ad-x: Her Own World is moving toward a sound that is slightly heavier than the debut and more emotional, and I do not think that is a paradox. We are working on material that contains more contrast within itself, more room for tension. Each track is its own story. One carries weight and emotion, another is a straight up banger in a pop structure so people can have fun and go wild. I think that is exactly what will surprise the people who think they already understand us. 

Karo: Last one. Her Own World has already built a very distinct identity, musically, visually, and emotionally, but every strong artistic world also reaches a point where it has to either deepen or transform itself. When you look ahead now, what feels like the next true step for Her Own World: a new sonic direction, a more ambitious live concept, broader international presence, or perhaps something entirely unexpected?

Yu: Her Own World still has many challenges ahead, and I think the fact that we played a tour with Project Pitchfork, a legend of the gothic scene, is not the end of our road at all. In a way, it feels more like the beginning. I do not think we need to transform ourselves in the sense of changing direction. It is more about continuing to develop in the direction we have already chosen and consistently raising the level of professionalism so that we can become more visible, more accessible, and reach an ever wider audience. As for the live concept, of course it matters and it can keep developing, but a lot depends on the possibilities we will actually have. At the moment, almost everything we do is still largely our own investment and grows out of the real conditions in which we function. That is why we do not want to plan things beyond our means. We simply want to do the best we possibly can here and now. Our main goal is for music to become our full time work and main source of income. That would allow us to operate on a larger scale, in an even more professional way, and to devote ourselves fully to what we do. Music is not only a passion for us. It is also something we would truly like to live from. So the musical direction remains coherent, and the live concept does as well, although of course both can continue to develop and expand along with our growth and possibilities. It is also very important to us to continue strengthening our presence in Poland and internationally, including in Germany, where we have already taken a very important first step and where we would love to continue growing and performing.

ad-x: I think the real next step for Her Own World is deepening, but the kind of deepening that looks like transformation from the outside. We want to take people further into this world, not build a new one, and to do that, we need to reach beyond Poland. The dark independent scene in Western Europe is much bigger, and we feel there is an audience for us there. We just need to reach them. ☺

Yu: Finally, we would really like to thank you for this interview and for the opportunity to talk about our world. As the founders of Her Own World, it means a lot to us that we can share this story and this energy with more people who listen to us and support us.

Her Own World will perform at Castle Party 2026 in Bolków on July 18, 2026. Around the turn of June and July, their new single “Like a Moth” will also see the light of day.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

“I’m not interested in perfection; I want to show the cracks that let the soul out.” – Anton Corbijn

I was in Berlin for Out Of Line Weekender, but there are obligations that have nothing to do with schedules and everything to do with devotion. Fotografiska’s new Anton Corbijn exhibition was one of them. For me, as a portrait and concert photographer, someone who also photographs musicians and keeps returning to faces as if they might finally confess something essential, Anton Corbijn belongs to that tiny order of artists who stand above influence. Alongside Helmut Newton, Henri Cartier Bresson, and Peter Lindbergh, he occupies the place reserved for gods and impossible standards, the figures one follows knowing perfectly well they cannot be caught.

That is why walking into Corbijn, Anton at Fotografiska Berlin felt less like a casual museum stop and more like entering a sanctuary built for people who understand that music history has a face, and that in many cases Corbijn gave it one.

The exhibition opened on Friday with a party, and that choice made perfect sense. Anton Corbijn has spent more than four decades shaping the visual identity of modern music through photography, videos, and film, so to celebrate him with silence alone would have felt strangely insufficient. Fotografiska turned the museum into a living nocturnal structure, with an artist talk by Anton Corbijn himself, then performances by Sally Dige, Pol, Isolation Berlin, Drangsal, and Anika, while Daisy Weweh and DJ Hell took over Bar Veronika and the Café Bar moved through its own sequence of DJs and live setsIt was not so much a vernissage as a carefully tuned occupation of the building, the kind of opening that understands that Corbijn’s work has always lived somewhere between contemplation and afterhours voltage.

The retrospective itself traces his photographic journey from the nineteen seventies to the present, and what becomes immediately clear is that Anton Corbijn never photographed fame as fame. He photographed aura, fragility, distance, inner weather. His pictures do not flatter celebrity. They interrogate it, strip it, sometimes wound it a little, then offer it back to us with more truth than glamour could ever survive.

There is something almost unbelievable about the accumulation of presences in these rooms. It feels like entering a party where the entire subconscious of the nineteen eighties and nineties has gathered under one roof. Nick Cave is there. Blixa Bargeld is there. Siouxsie Sioux, David Bowie, Joy Division, Björk, Annie Lennox, Martin Gore, Courtney Love, Slash. The effect is almost surreal. Slash can sit next to Cave and somehow the conversation still makes visual sense. Corbijn’s eye gives the room an unusual coherence. Across decades, genres, and personas, these figures seem to belong to the same emotional climate. 

Anton Corbijn expo – Photo review by Karo Kratochwil

And that eye remains devastating.

The black and white work is especially overwhelming. Anton Corbijn understands monochrome the way certain writers understand silence. In his hands, black and white begins as an aesthetic choice and ends as a moral one. It removes decorative noise. It forces structure, mood, doubt, bone. Faces emerge from shadow with that strange mix of vulnerability and self possession that the best portraits carry. The grain matters. The blur matters. The lack of polish matters. In room after room, one sees what Corbijn meant by those cracks that let the soul out. The line immediately brought Leonard Cohen to my mind: “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” Corbijn’s portraits seem to trust the same principle. Perfection closes a surface. Fracture lets a person appear. An Anton Corbijn portrait is not about smoothness or glamour; it rather wants tension, atmosphere, the unstable edge where a person stops performing and starts appearing.

That blurred line is one of the great subjects of the exhibition. Between public figure and private self: between star and somebody, costume and exposure. One of the wall texts includes Corbijn’s remark that he never wanted to be a photographer of the stars, he wanted to show what was behind that. It is one of those statements that sounds simple until one stands in front of the photographs and realizes how rare that ambition actually is. Plenty of photographers have documented famous people. Very few have been able to make fame feel secondary.

What gives the Berlin show its particular richness is the way Corbijn transforms a room full of cultural icons into something far more intimate and unsettling: a study in emotional weather, written across faces. Again and again, one encounters the same quality in those hypnotic eyes that seem to look through the lens rather than into it, whether they belong to Bowie, Björk, Annie Lennox, or Siouxsie. Decades shift, styling changes, California light replaces a harsher European grain, yet Corbijn keeps locating that inward pull, that faintly haunted concentration which makes each portrait feel less like an image than an encounter.

For those of us who photograph musicians, the lesson is brutal and beautiful at once. Anton Corbijn never seemed interested in access for its own sake – he was famously uncompromising, guided less by commercial calculation than by instinct, taste, and conviction. The very idea that he could initially turn away from photographing massively successful acts feels entirely plausible here, because the exhibition makes clear that market value was never the real currency of Anton Corbijn’s work; what mattered was presence, mystery, and the human face under pressure.

That also explains why the exhibition never feels embalmed in nostalgia. There is far too much movement inside it for that. One section follows Anton Corbijn’s deeply personal series a. somebody, where he steps into the skins of his musical heroes in self portraits made in his hometown of Strijen. Another shows Famous, the early black and white portraits that already contain the raw directness of his mature vision. Elsewhere, MOØDe explores fashion as a psychological instrument rather than surface. The clothes in these photographs are not decoration. They are mood, armor, confession.

Then there is the room devoted to the moving image, and it is impossible to overstate how important that room is. Corbijn photographed modern music, then went on to shape the way it moved. Seeing the videos and film material gathered there, one is reminded how much of the MTV era and after it still bears his grammar. Depeche Mode, U2, Nirvana, Coldplay, Arcade Fire, Joy Division by way of Control – the list alone is enough to make you stop. More importantly, the room reveals continuity rather than career hopping. That same visual intelligence runs through the still photographs, the videos, and the films, along with the patience with darkness, the suspicion of perfection, and the rare ability to let stillness accumulate dramatic force without any hint of coercion. Perhaps that is what moved me most deeply, the way Anton Corbijn’s work remains vibrantly alive even when the subject barely appears to move, as though everything were held in a state of concentrated tension. It places its trust in the viewer and asks for real attention, which in an age devoted to speed, polish, and instant legibility begins to feel almost radical. I went in knowing I admired him. I left with something closer to gratitude.

For me, this exhibition was deeply personal, because it gave precise form to something I had sensed for years without ever quite naming: the strongest portrait photography does not take possession of a face, but waits until that face begins, almost against its will, to disclose itself. Anton Corbijn has spent a lifetime working from exactly that conviction, and it explains why his photographs still seem to breathe, still carry risk, still hold something that refuses to flatten into mere cultural memory. At Fotografiska, that quality runs through the entire exhibition, giving it the presence of something living rather than the composure of a museum exercise.And yes, it truly felt like visiting a temple.

The kind of temple where the saints wear black, the lighting is severe, the music never really stops, and you realise, after far too long standing in front of one wall, that you have no desire to leave.

“Corbijn, Anton” is on view at Fotografiska Berlin from 9 May through 20 September 2026

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Chris Corner of IAMX on UNMASK, IAMIXED, imperfection, and learning how to frame the future

When Chris Corner speaks, the old binary oppositions that still shape too much music journalism, authenticity versus performance, intimacy versus theatre, vulnerability versus control, begin to look embarrassingly simplistic. Across IAMX, he has spent years proving that a mask can reveal as much as it conceals, that dressing up can be a form of truth, and that unfinishedness is not necessarily failure, but a deeply human condition. That tension felt especially palpable at the Leipzig date of The Artificial Innocence Tour, the opening night of a new chapter and the first live appearance with Gözde in the line up. From the audience, the show felt raw and exacting at once, instinctive but tightly held together, as if volatility itself had been rehearsed into form. Corner, as it turned out, experienced it rather differently: less as a triumphant unveiling than as a highly charged exercise in concentration, adjustment, and trust.

That divergence says a great deal about IAMX. What often reaches the audience as intensity, elegance, and emotional coherence is, on the inside, bound up with doubt, pressure, revision, and a refusal to accept the idea of the fixed work. With UNMASK and IAMIXED, Corner returns to the world orbiting Fault Lines, not to close it down neatly, but to test what survives when songs are reopened, displaced, and handed to other instincts. Our conversation moved from the discomfort of festivals to the cultural fragmentation artists now face, from perfectionism and neurodiversity to the peculiar freedom of theatrical self construction, from remixing as creative release to the question of how an artist survives, aesthetically and materially, in an age of acceleration, categorisation, and artificial intelligence. What emerged was not a promotional conversation around two releases, but something more revealing: a portrait of an artist who is still suspicious of completion, still wary of his own past, and still trying, in his own words, to learn “how to frame the future.”

IAMX interview

Karo: Hi Chris, thank you for taking the time. I saw you at the Leipzig show at E Only Festival, the opening of The Artificial Innocence Tour, and it felt like a very particular moment. There was something raw, but also very controlled about it, and seeing you perform with Gözde for the first time added a different kind of tension and elegance. Before we go deeper into discussing your new work, how did that night feel from your side, as the starting point of this chapter?

Chris: It was interesting because I’m known for hating festivals. It’s always very uncomfortable for me in that situation. I was very preoccupied with making it work. It was the first time I performed with Gözde too, so I think my mind wasn’t really with the audience, which is rare, because I’m usually very connected. I was very much concerned that everything was working. Mentally, I was kind of somewhere else, which is rare because I’m usually quite present. Saying that, I was very relieved and happy to have her integrated in such a cool way, because it was a super cool thing, and I love the space. The sound was great. It was a little stressful setting up and things like that, but what a way to introduce her. Overall, I’d say it was a very special moment, as you’ve said. I’ll probably look back at that at some point and enjoy it more, but at that point I was kind of stressed, to tell you the truth.

Karo: These two releases, UNMASK and IAMIXED, both seem to resist the idea that a body of work ever really ends. One gathers material still emotionally adjacent to Fault Lines, while the other allows that same world to be reinterpreted, even dismantled. Do you experience this moment as a form of closure, or as proof that your work continues to evolve beyond your control?

Chris: That’s a brilliant question. It’s an interesting moment. Privately, culturally, there’s so much going on for artists, and I digest that stuff. It can be quite confusing sometimes. As an artist, you’re constantly not just questioning your own work, but your place in the world. Culture is so fragmented and wild. It’s like a Wild West out there. What do you do? Do you make an album? Do you release a song? Do you release a video? Do you not do a video? Do you do an Instagram post? What do you do? What’s going to help you survive? A lot of the time we’re preoccupied with that more and more these days, as opposed to just having a lot of focus on creation. And in a way, it’s interesting because you take something like IAMIXED and UNMASK, and they are musical orphans. They don’t really exist as part of a bigger piece. I kind of like that, because it reflects what’s happening culturally anyway, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to try something like that that doesn’t necessarily have to be part of an album. To me, it feels okay. It’s like the starting point: do I lean into that? Do I do little fragments of art now? Is that how the world is? Or do I always fall back into this larger piece, the album, the traditional? Is that old fashioned? I don’t know. Or is that just a format that describes a certain time in your life perfectly? Does it have to be like that? Is that just a proven thing? So I guess I’m just trying things out, and IAMX has always been quite a multidimensional project anyway. I’ve never felt that my art is ever complete. I’m always interested in revisiting and trying to improve, and it’s never really done. I’m never fully happy. I know how to complete, and I know how to accept the defeat of that kind of completion and just go with it. This is what I can do at this time. I know there’s something in me that tells me this could be much better, but I cannot achieve that right now. That’s not who I am, or maybe I’ll never be that person. But I can accept it for its flaws and its beauty at the same time. So it’s quite nice for me to come back to things and correct what I felt was missing, or add what I felt was missing. I grew up in the culture of remixing and sampling and all of those things, and it’s just part of the way that I do things. I like to throw things around.

Karo: You’ve often pushed back against the idea of a final version. Listening to these releases, it feels less like a production choice and more like a philosophical stance. Do you resist completion because identity itself remains unstable, or because the finished work risks fixing something that is still in motion?

Chris: Fascinating. There are so many layers there. There’s this idea of perfection in creating something that I’d like to say was a philosophical choice, because that would make me sound like it was intentional. But I don’t think it is. If I’m truly honest, I feel like there are certain things I just can’t achieve, and it’ll never be good enough. That’s just my place in the world. I hear things that I don’t particularly like, but I’m impressed that people can make it so complete. I think it’s just a reflection of my nature. It’s not an intentional philosophy. I think I’m going to be less harsh on myself maybe. I’m aware that that’s okay. And then I’m a bit of both. I do lean in and say, in this world of perfection, and now artificial intelligence and all of these things, where human incompleteness is going to be an attractive thing, maybe that is now what makes it interesting, as opposed to trying to achieve something that is beyond you. I think I’m just starting to accept that there are certain things I’ll never be able to do, and that’s just my place. And that’s okay.

Karo: You mentioned perfectionism, and almost instantly this quotation from your lyrics came to mind: “and I was carrying the weight of the universe, the typical brittle perfectionist.” I think you are kind of accepting that now.

Chris: Yeah, I do. I think I used to place myself in that. What’s ironic about perfectionism is you can’t achieve it. You may perceive yourself to be a perfectionist, but it’s nonsense. You can never perfect anything. But you do hold on to this idea that you can be better, and it’s self flagellation. It’s very much a self destructive attitude. I used to hold on to that a lot. There’s a certain drive, or a certain engine, in that that does keep you going, but with a bit of distance now, and seeing how burnt out that would make me, often I see how, if I look at my body of work and the things that I’ve done, it didn’t help. It didn’t change that much. It was an inner feeling that now that I have much less of, it doesn’t really change my work. It just changed the stress feeling.

Karo: The word UNMASK feels especially loaded in the context of IAMX because your work has never treated masks as simple concealment. They’ve been tools for transformation, survival, seduction. When you use that word now, does it feel like exposure, or more like a shift in how consciously you construct what is seen?

Chris: The unmasking thing is loaded. It’s full of levels. You’ve got the theatrical performance level, the inner authentic, the yearning for authenticity level, and they all play off each other. The odd thing about IAMX, or me, I guess, but let’s say IAMX because I’m a little bit more than IAMX, is that it likes to play with that stuff. Depending on its mood, it can flip between playful theatrical stage performance and very serious mental health issues. What’s so interesting to me is how fluid that is. I feel very comfortable going between those two worlds. If you look at what could appear to be a very false, constructed thing like a stage performance, I don’t see it like that at all. I see it almost like a tribal moment. There’s something very liberating and beautiful about dressing up and escaping the self. I always yearned for that. It confused me why people would think putting on makeup and dressing up is not authentic. You have to be very serious, you have to wear a T shirt, these cultural things that are impressed upon us. I always felt this drive to fight against that and to dress up and to say, I don’t give a fuck, I’m going to look like a girl, I’m going to do these things. I’m not sure why, but I know I’m fighting against something that culturally says that I’m not an authentic artist. So it’s definitely been a battle, but it always felt right, and it always felt like there is nothing saying to me why these things can’t coexist and be completely meaningful at the same time. So the idea of unmasking, it’s not that it feels like ripping the mask off and saying, that was wrong and now this is right. It’s not that at all. It’s a symbolic reference to the idea of just being an authentic thing, whatever. That freedom of expression, of thought, whatever that is, however you want to express yourself, is what’s important, and pressure will come and go and say this is right and that’s wrong. But if the inner feeling is always there, and if the inner feeling is unmasked, I feel like the outer can be anything. It can be dressed up, whatever.

Karo: IAMIXED also suggests a kind of surrender of authorship, not polite remixing, but real reinterpretation. When you hear your songs filtered through somebody else’s instincts, do you recognise yourself in them, or do they reveal something you didn’t know was already there?

Chris: I don’t know. Because I’m a producer too, I kind of start as a producer. I recognise decision making in them. There are things that I hear and I think, oh yeah, I get that, I see why they’ve done that. So it’s not like I’m coming from an unknowing, raw point of view. I’m aware. But it’s still a nice moment. I wouldn’t say I’m massively surprised by things, but I still love it. If somebody does some kind of nasty, weird, distorted techno version of an IAMX song, I love that. I like anything that’s good.

IAMX’s genre bending has always been like that. I don’t really care where it fits. If it fits there today, great. If it’s there tomorrow. That’s gotten me into trouble because people like to label things. The world likes to put things in boxes. It makes things easier for people. It probably would have had a lot more commercial success had I done certain things, but it’s not interesting to me. It’s not a choice anyway. It’s just what I am. So this idea that all of those things can coexist, again, a little bit like the theatrical and the serious, different kinds of genres, different musical interpretations, are very natural to me. So I do like it. It’s the kind of thing I would do myself. I wouldn’t do exactly what they do because that’s them and I want them. But it is really nice. I’ve always liked it. I do like to hear myself mixed up, mashed up. And I do like it when I can hand things to somebody else because it can be quite isolating and exhausting, constantly doing you again and again in one room by yourself. So it is nice to hand it away.

Karo: Were you searching for artists who would understand the songs, or rather disturb them in an interesting way, challenge you in a way?

Chris: I prefer that. I prefer when it’s very, very different to what I would do. I do like that. That’s often what I’ve chosen if I’ve done collaborations or things in the past. I’ve had managers who say, well, you’ve got to do this with this artist and you’ve got to go on support with that artist because we can get their crowd. Every time somebody tells me that, it just makes me want to do the opposite. Maybe that hasn’t helped, but it’s definitely interesting when unexpected things happen. It brings me joy, I guess, when it’s outside of what I would do myself.

Karo: Your work often moves through intense psychological states like compulsion, shame, fragmentation, at least this is how I understand it, but it rarely feels like raw confession just for confession’s sake. It feels processed and shaped. How do you recognise the moment when personal experience becomes something that you can communicate rather than simply expose? For me, you have always been a translator of emotions into words. States like these are very difficult to communicate, and you have always done that perfectly. How do you do that?

Chris: Thank you. That’s very kind. It’s an interesting thing because there is this feeling where it’s almost like trying to tame this wildness, this overwhelm. I think a lot of it comes down to trying to understand myself. I’m pretty neurodiverse. I’m pretty on the spectrum of autism. I deal with a lot of overwhelming emotions, with lots of ups and downs in terms of my reaction to the external world and people. I’m constantly trying to figure out what’s right and wrong, how do I need to edit myself to make things right, or why did that happen. Trying to form a theory of mind of others is often like a life goal, and through the work I feel like I’ve been able to process certain things and to understand people, or at least to describe them fully to myself. It becomes a real challenge because it takes a lot of time, the lyrical content takes time to process, to be able to start with something, to understand what it is I want to be talking about, then to understand how to correctly talk about it without sounding too intellectual. It’s an interesting form, a song, particularly for me, because I do feel like I want to go very deep, but I also need to keep it at a certain level that’s understandable for people to consume as a song. So there is a certain framework in songwriting that is quite nice for me, because I need to simplify it to a certain degree, but also have a little bit of depth. So it’s a challenge. Emotions are so much a part of our daily lives, and we have so much reactivity to things, that when I nail something with a few words, it elevates me, and I think it allows me to understand the world. It brings me peace, I guess, and to be able to offer that doorway into something to others feels like it gives me purpose too. That’s the meaning of my life, in a way, to give people access and understanding through my words, through my music. It’s not always necessarily about the words too, and trying to put that into music is a challenge. But I think you’re right. There’s something about the lyrical side of things that I often forget that I’m doing. I don’t think about it until I’m in it, and then I realise how much work it is. Because I can’t just do that “hey baby” thing. It’s not an option for me unless that’s relevant to a certain emotion in the track.

Karo: For me, this music helps to understand human behavior, but you also give it a language. I think it’s both. And I think one reason your music stays with people is because it avoids the simple narrative. Desire, cruelty, tenderness, self destruction, they coexist without resolution. When you write now, are you still trying to understand those contradictions, or have you accepted them as something that can’t be resolved?

Chris: I think if I get to that level of acceptance, I don’t know if I’ll feel like writing so much. That’s a bit of a cynical view of myself. I’m being hard on myself there, which is a natural place for me to go. But I feel like the overwhelming feeling of depth comes to me often just in daily life. It’s not when I’m writing necessarily. It can be amplified when I’m writing and it can be resolved. This emotion can be resolved when I’m doing something and I don’t need to intellectualise it. It just comes out and permeates my being, and then it feels like it’s resolved a little bit, like sex with stress or something. Without words it can be resolved. There’s a lot of that going on. But when I’m out in the world doing life, there’s a lot of things that, if I’m not careful, I can often just be overwhelmed by the depth of things, or the seeming depth of things. That could be anything. I can be caught by a cactus or a little animal or something. It can drag me in very quickly if I’m not careful. So I don’t think I’ll have a problem with material. I think that feeling isn’t going to go away. It changes. I think it transforms. Maybe what I direct it on might be different. I don’t know if it’ll always be directed at other people, but I think that’s the duty of an artist, to access that depth in whatever it is. I feel like it’s everywhere. I don’t feel like it’s just in other humans. It’s a special kind of depth in humans, but I think it’s everywhere.

It would be interesting to see where you can take it. Are we all just so preoccupied with relationships and emotional interaction that anything else might not be that interesting in pop music? I probably will always settle on the idea of interpersonal relationships. It’s such a concern for the human condition that I don’t think that will ever go away. But I do feel a little bit, I’m coming out of quite a turbulent private time in terms of relationships. I’m going through a divorce, all these kinds of things. I feel like an era is coming where my focus is going to be a bit different. I can’t fully promise that, but I’m interested to know because I’m not fully in control of myself. I’ll be interested to know where I’m going with all this on the next round.

Karo: Looking back at earlier phases, like The Unified Field or Metanoia, identity always felt fluid, unstable, but urgent. Does that fluidity feel different to you now? More grounded, or more deliberate?

Chris: No. It doesn’t. I’d like to say that there’s a certain sort of wisdom that’s come with getting older, and I think it just changes. There are certain things that get in the way more. Priorities change a little bit. Life stuff happens, and you get a bit distracted by that. But I think the essence is the same, definitely. You mentioned the word urgency. Fluidity and urgency. Urgency has been a thing from as long as I can remember, and that need to express how short life is to the world, and how we need to grasp the beauty of things all the time, and not necessarily try and hold on to things, but at least recognise those things, and even recognise the impermanence of things. Even if you have access to that way of thinking, which I do constantly, I don’t think that’s going to change. I still feel as urgent about life as ever, maybe more. With age, you start to understand you’re getting on the other side, so maybe the priorities might change a little bit. Do I want to keep doing this thing specifically, or would I like to tweak it? For years I’ve been interested in mental health gatherings and expanding IAMX into different ways of doing things, possibly because there’s lots of different layers to IAMX, and maybe going into installation art. I would like to experiment a bit more with the format. But time, it’s all about time. Where is the time gonna come from?

Karo: Last question. We’ll be wrapping up, although I would probably like to keep you a bit longer. But we’ve got a scheduled time, so my last question will be kind of rounding up. If UNMASK and IAMIXED both deal, in a way, with reframing of material, of authorship, of perspective, what are you currently reframing within yourself? Not what you are releasing, but how you think, create, how you relate to your own work.

Chris: I’ve always had a slightly schizophrenic relationship to my work. I’m scared of it in a way. I don’t listen to old stuff very often unless I have to focus on it, like live music or remix or rework or whatever. I’m a bit scared of the past. I don’t like nostalgia. I don’t really focus on it because I feel like I’m going to criticise myself. It’s my go to feeling, and I don’t like that, so I do avoid my work. But then again, sometimes, as I said, it’s a bit of a schizophrenic feeling, because sometimes I’ll hear something accidentally and I’ll be really pleasantly surprised that I was able to do that thing. And it’s like, oh my God, that’s me. That thing’s actually quite good. How did I do that? It’s an odd feeling. So it’s a bit of an engine. This engine is to correct, to be better, to think I can do this better, and I don’t want to hear that shit because if I hear it, I’ll just be like, oh fuck, I fucked that up. But I’m okay with it. I don’t feel like I’m suffering necessarily from that. I just have to be careful how I filter my world and how I view myself. I’m always more preoccupied with doing something new because I think there’s a comfort in that, there’s a joy in that, there’s a sort of safety in being able to put something in the world as opposed to analyse what’s already there. So it’s not a healthy relationship that I have with my work. I’d like it to be healthier, but we’d like all sorts of things, right? We just have to make peace with a certain way of being. And that’s just how I am.

I do think a lot about how to go forward. I’ve always been like that. What is my place? How do I survive as an independent artist? It’s not easy necessarily, trying to find income and ways to survive and balance life with work. There’s a lot of that going on. There’s a lot of thinking about the future of what format music is going to be. Artificial intelligence, what do we do with that? Can it help? Is it going to take things away? There’s a lot of turbulence going on. It’s not much different. But I think if you bring something like that culturally into the mix, where it’s actually quite a big, obviously toxic subject for many people, for me it’s more like, what does that really mean to me? Is it something I want to get involved in or have to get involved in? Am I going to be forced into this, to use this? Or do I fight against it? Do I make the human frailty attractive? Do I lean into that? Or do I say, well, everybody else is making their lives easier, why do I have to suffer and watch all these people do this thing and nobody cares anyway? What do people care about? How do I fit in that?

A lot of the time I’m thinking about those things because I want to be efficient, I want to be effective, I still want to get to people and I want to produce things that people can connect with and all of those things. So I guess I’m working on how to frame the future right now.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Bent is the project of Niko, based in Aschheim near Munich. Deeply connected to the scene throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, he was also a co-founder of tear!down, though he left the band at an early stage and was not involved in its official releases. After moving to Berlin, music gradually receded behind studies and other priorities, and for years he had almost no real connection to the scene.

That changed in 2021, when renewed contact with old friends, especially James Mendez, slowly pulled him back in. The result was not a calculated comeback, but the eventual shaping of long-existing material into the Bent album Renascence.

What gives Renascence its particular gravity is not age alone, but the way time has been allowed to remain audible inside it. These songs were not freshly designed to imitate an earlier era, nor were they aggressively updated to prove their relevance. They were written between 2000 and 2010, carried privately through years of distance, and finished only once Niko found a way to return to them without falsifying their original charge. That makes Bent an unusual proposition: a project born from delay, memory, and renewed proximity to a scene that had once defined him. In this conversation, Niko speaks about old demos, the Texas electro imprint, artistic absence, and the strange feeling of moving closer again to an earlier self.

Bent interview

Karo: The Bent album Renascencefeels like a debut, but also like the result of a very long private conversation with your past. Did working on these songs feel more like creating something new, or like finally understanding material that had been waiting for its proper form?

Niko: Neither. Renascence is not really a debut in the traditional sense. All of the songs on the album were originally created in their essential form between 2000 and 2010, tracks I had at times completely forgotten about, but kept returning to over the years, in all kinds of life situations. They are pieces I have developed a deep connection with over time. I originally started Bent simply as a project to release these older songs, not to write new material. When finalizing the tracks, it was important to me to change as little as possible and preserve their character, only doing what was absolutely necessary. For example, adding real lyrics, since some of the old demos only had placeholder vocals. I only went through with it because I happened to discover a way to convert the old project files into Ableton format. Otherwise, I probably would not have put in the effort to rebuild everything from scratch, and it would not have felt authentic anyway.

Karo: You describe some of these tracks as carrying more than twenty years of history. What does time do to a song? Does it deepen its meaning, or does it force you to strip away earlier versions of yourself before the piece can become honest?

Niko: The songs were created at a time when I felt deeply connected to, and rooted in, the scene. It was also a critical period in my life, when I found myself at many crossroads and had to make fundamental decisions. The feeling at that time could not have been captured any better. It was never up for debate to bring the songs into the here and now.In that sense, your description is quite accurate: they are like excavations, carefully uncovered with a brush so as not to damage anything.

Karo: Your return to music seems tied not to strategy, but to reconnection: with old friendships, old sounds, and an older version of your own listening. Did coming back from outside the scene change the way you hear dark electro itself?

Niko: All of this more or less unfolded on its own, old and, above all, new friendships, for example with the guys from Amnistia, Tino did the amazing artwork, Michael from StateMent, or Andreas from Object. In recent times I almost never listen to dark electro.

Karo: This Bent album draws strongly from the Texas electro tradition, which has always had a very distinct emotional temperature: cold, expansive, but also strangely spiritual. What is it about that sound that still feels alive to you today?

Niko: Back when these songs were originally created, I found myself strongly drawn to the Texas sound, this kind of music with its organic warmth and cosmic spiritual beauty, in contrast to a more genuine rawness. There was also always a bit of punk irony and madness in it, nothing flat or artificially “evil.” I could never really relate to that. That is also why my older tracks lean heavily in that direction. I still like it today, but I have not listened to a Mentallo & The Fixer album in probably twenty years. There was a phase in my life when I had to sell all my CDs just to afford basic necessities. Now, after rediscovering this music following a long break, I have started rebuilding my collection, Ministry, Revolting Cocks, Cabaret Voltaire, Clock DVA, even Skinny Puppy.I have actually always felt more connected to the avant-garde or Wax Trax sound, which is also more clearly reflected in the songs I have genuinely written anew.

Karo: There is an intriguing contrast in Renascence between choral warmth and futuristic hardness, between something almost sacred and something rigorously mechanical. Is that duality central to how you think about your music, or did it emerge instinctively?

Niko: That emerged more instinctively. It was an expression of how I felt and perceived the music I wanted to make at that time. The songs I’m working on now carry much more energy, grit, and punk attitude, or are more overtly avant-garde. At the moment I’m very fascinated by technology, gear, and sound design, and I enjoy making modern and unconventional things.

Karo: Because you stepped away from the scene for so many years, you were spared the pressure to constantly produce or remain visible. Do you think that absence ultimately protected your artistic voice in some way?

Niko: I was probably never perceived as an artist, and I never really saw myself that way either. Of course, I was sporadically involved with tear!down in the past. So there was never any expectation, or any sense that anyone was waiting for a release from me. Things really started with Bent. Right now I am actually always somehow involved with music, even if I do not release anything significant for a year or two. Over the last four years since Bent began, I have written so many songs that I have imposed a kind of self-restraint, I have forbidden myself from writing any new material until the existing demos are fully finished and ready for release. Which is, in a way, quite frustrating at the moment. Over the past months, I have felt more like a producer.

Karo: Renascence is an album built from persistence rather than immediacy. After finally completing a work shaped across decades, do you now feel more connected to the person you were when those early ideas first appeared, or more aware of how far you have travelled from him?

Niko: I’m aware of my path; that awareness is ever-present. But there were also times when I did not like being confronted with my past. Most likely, this is simply the right moment for this album, I’m at peace with it.To answer your question: I definitely feel closer to my earlier self again. That is also reflected in my newly reignited passion for the scene.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Castle Party has revealed the full timetable for its 2026 edition, set to take place from 16 to 19 July at Bolków Castle, Poland, and the shape of this year’s festival already looks both broad and unusually coherent. Founded in 1994, Castle Party has long held a singular place within the Central European dark alternative landscape: not simply as a festival, but as a seasonal meeting point for gothic rock, darkwave, EBM, industrial, ritual, post-punk, and more esoteric edges of the scene. The new schedule confirms a weekend built with real internal rhythm rather than random accumulation.

Castle Party 2026 line-up

Thursday functions as a proper opening descent on the Park Stage, with Merciful Nuns, A Projection, Denuit, Mayflower Madame, After The Sin, and Meluzyna setting the tone. It is a strong first night: gothic gravity, post-punk tension, and nocturnal atmosphere without unnecessary overstatement.

Friday splits its force between the Castle Stage and Park Stage in a way that feels especially dynamic. On the main stage, VNV Nation, Diary of Dreams, Hocico, Empathy Test, Rotersand, She Pleasures Herself, and The Last Digital Angel create a line running from established electronic headliners through darker emotional textures into sharper club-oriented energy. Over on the Park Stage, the afterparty sequence pushes into heavier and more ceremonial terrain with Sierra Veins for the night show, alongside Wolvennest, Wyatt E, The Devil’s Trade, On All Fours, Thy Worshiper, and Wolfpack Heading Nowhere. There is also a fire show at 22:00.

Saturday may be the most dramatically curved day of the festival. Moonspell headline the Castle Stage, joined by Tribulation, The 3rd and the Mortal, Dawn of Ashes, Long Night, The Silverblack, and Her Own World. It is a bill that leans into gothic metal, dark theatricality, and emotional density without becoming monotonous. The Park Stage follows with Hybryds, This Morn’ Omina, Xotox, In Slaughter Natives, The Allegorist, and Infamis Tenebre, giving the night a more ritual, industrial, and experimental body. Again, the fire show is scheduled for 22:00.

Sunday closes with a different kind of momentum. On the Castle Stage, SKÁLD, Cold Cave, Traitrs, Rue Oberkampf, Horskh, White Ritual, and Agonised Too offer one of the most interesting stylistic arcs of the weekend, moving from ritual and mythic grandeur through cold modern darkwave and post-punk into sharper electronic and industrial edges. The Park Stage afterparty continues with Extize as the night show, plus Rein, Unter Null, Mortes, Autoscopy, and Death by Love, giving the final stretch a more volatile, club-driven pulse.

What the timetable makes clear is that Castle Party 2026 is not relying on one dominant aesthetic. Instead, it is building contrast intelligently: grandeur and abrasion, scene legends and newer names, body music and ritual ambient, dark rock atmosphere and electronic velocity. That balance has always been one of Castle Party’s deeper strengths, and this year’s running order seems keenly aware of it.

Official timetable and festival information: https://castleparty.com

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Speaking from the road while crossing from Denmark into Germany, Tristan Shone sounded exactly like Author & Punisher does on record: blunt, alert, and impatient with simulation. Released via Relapse, Nocturnal Birding pushed the project into a more physical and collaborative phase, with guitarist Doug Sabolick becoming the first real bandmate in Author & Punisher. That shift is all over this conversation: live risk over trigger-safe performance, machines as instruments rather than props, and industrial music as something that should still demand a body.

We spoke with Author & Punisher about border work, improvisation, touring realities, and why too much electronic performance still mistakes playback for presence. 

Author & Punisher interview

Karo: When I listen to the Author & Punisher album Nocturnal Birding, the machine seems to do something unexpected. It listens outward. Instead of beginning from industry, weight, or force alone, the album begins with birdsong and migration. Did that change the role of the machine for you, from something like a weapon or an amplifier into something closer to a translator?

Tristan: Yeah, I definitely think the stuff I make is not related to weapons or aggression in any way, but yeah, I would say more of an amplifier for social justice in some way. I mean, that’s a bit of a paradox for me. My connection to machines and then my connection to immigration and border issues, that’s a strange one, because working in industry and working on science and technology sort of contribute negatively to the environment. That’s a paradox that I haven’t really worked out in my work.

Karo: Do you think your volunteer work at the border changed not just the album’s subject matter, but also its moral temperature? This doesn’t feel like industrial music speaking in abstraction anymore. It feels like it has been forced into contact with real bodies, real routes, real laws. Did this record make it harder to hide inside metaphor?

Tristan: I mean, listen, I think it sort of made me realize that when you’re working in tech and you’re working in industry, you’re very lucky. My salary as a mechanical engineer, and my whole life up until being 44 years old, I’d never volunteered my time in the way I have now, and it’s the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. It’s really made me rethink my life and purpose and what I want to work on, and it really has forced me to, yeah, like you said, amplify my voice within music because it’s more powerful than the sounds for me. And that says a lot, because I like to play loud music.

Karo: Was there a moment when the older language of Author & Punisher suddenly felt insufficient for what you had seen?

Tristan: Yeah. I mean, I’ve always written political lyrics, and your voice as a public figure, if you have followers on Instagram, that is important. That means a lot, and I think people will listen. But actions, you know, just getting up on stage and preaching something is one thing, but getting out there and volunteering and interacting with people that aren’t sitting in a music venue or at an interview. When I’m out there hiking with some people whose parents crossed the border when they were younger and hearing those stories, it’s very humbling. I’m a musician who people listen to, and I’m on a stage, but when I’m out there, you are one of 30 people hiking in a line, and you’re not a leader. You’re just a hiker that’s carrying water. And it was really humbling for me.

Karo: You said KRÜLLER was more of a studio construction, while Nocturnal Birding was built much more with live performance in mind. When you compose for the stage rather than the studio, what changes first: the riff, the arrangement, the machine, or your whole sense of what the music has to do physically?

Tristan: Between KRÜLLER and Nocturnal Birding? Yeah. I mean, the major difference for me was I had so much time. I was on tour with TOOL in 2020. It was the biggest tour I’d ever done in my life. And then the pandemic hit, and I had to drive home 20 hours by myself with gas masks, trying to find food, worried I was gonna die. I just got home, and that was a very traumatizing six months for everyone. I started writing music on my laptop, and then I translated it into machines and studio, and it was a very long process with no end in sight, so you could just write whatever you wanted. Then when we went out and performed it, it was nice, it was more mellow, but it wasn’t that fun to play. It was easy, but it wasn’t something that was written on machines with a guitar player in the room and like, hey, we’re gonna riff off each other like a live band. So once we toured a bunch on KRÜLLER, we really knew we had to make stuff that was like a live industrial hardcore grindcore band. And that’s exactly what Doug and I did. We made stuff that was meant to be just live punishing. And you hear the mistakes that I play, because we’re not triggering the drums in a sequence. It’s all played live. And that feels really good.

Karo: Does this live-first writing also force you to simplify, or does it actually push you toward more demanding performance?

Tristan: Well, it’s demanding, but it’s simplified. And I really feel strongly about this. I can go on and on about it, but the whole reason I made drone machines and do it this way is so that you can play stuff live. The thing about it is, when you sit in a room and you start writing an album, you put the guitars, the bass, the drums, okay, you have those players, but then you start layering additional things. Keyboards, more guitar tracks, more vocals. Then you get to a position where you can’t play that song live anymore. And with these two-person industrial bands, you see people trying to find ways to play that live after they’ve already written it in a non-live way in the studio. So you have the thing where the guy sits with his drumstick and plays the snare pad in the industrial band, and it’s not an intriguing performance, nor is it really live. So I find that you have to simplify. You have to play the song in with the actual sounds and devices you’re going to use when you play live. When you write it, you don’t want to add more than you can actually play, because then you don’t have an intriguing live performance. And I feel very strongly about that. But everybody’s got a laptop with Ableton or whatever, so they just layer stuff and layer stuff, and that’s the problem. That’s right there. How do you make industrial music to play live? Play it in the recording studio how you’re going to play it live.

Karo: Doug becoming the first real creative bandmate in Author & Punisher feels like a deeper shift than just adding guitar. What did bringing in another authorial force unlock that the machines alone could not?

Tristan: Well, I mean, there’s only so much organic stuff I can do on my machines. I’ve always sort of missed the organic intricacies of the guitar or a real cymbal or stuff like that. So just being able to chug in an industrial way, like the old Godflesh albums that I love so much from the ’90s, and add that sort of imperfection makes it even more organic, and we weave in and out of each other. Sometimes Doug is, you know, like, for example, on the last album, I didn’t put Doug in my ears when I play. I didn’t want to hear him because I had to really focus on what I was playing. This album, I have to have him in my ears. So we play off each other like we’re just two band members. And he’s messy too. He’s not one of these, I don’t know, like Fear Factory or Meshuggah. Doug is a noise guitarist, so he likes to change it up every night. And I love that. Every night we have a different thing going on. The tour has been sort of like every show we grow in a different way.

Karo: So do you feel that this collaboration made the Author & Punisher music less controlled, or just more alive in a different way?

Tristan: Yeah, I would say it’s less controlled. I’m getting better at playing my stuff. I can play faster beats now, and every time I play a show, I get better at controlling the machines and it becomes more of an extension of my body, like a real drummer would be. So yeah, I’m getting better, but we’re able to improvise more. And improvisation in industrial music is not something that you hear a lot. If you see a band, that guy or girl with the electronic setup with buttons and knobs, then there’s someone singing dressed up and whatever the fuck, that performance is the same every night because those tracks that they’re playing do not change. When Charli XCX goes out and performs in stadiums, that is the exact same performance every night, literally the same exact audio. There’s no growth. Maybe her voice and her performance, but. And I don’t mean to shit on Charli XCX. I actually like her quite a bit. But mostly I’m shitting on industrial music because it’s really disappointing. And part of that is financial, because bands can’t have six members flying to wherever. But I challenge people to try to make their music more live so that the audience gets to see something special every night.

Karo: One of the things that makes Author & Punisher so singular is that you do not just play instruments, you design and build the machines that make the music possible. When you construct a new controller or device, what usually comes first: the sound you want, the gesture you want to perform, or the limitations you want to force on yourself?

Tristan: Well, I just know from my interactions with mechanical devices, like machining devices, like mills, lathes. I work in a microscopy lab which has these big electron microscopes. That’s my day job. There’s a lot of machinery and knobs and buttons and controllers that I’m interacting with. So I know the textures that I want to feel, and I just want them to control music rather than, you know, an aperture or astigmatism on a microscope. So I just know what I want to make. I make doom metal and I make things that sound like broken lawnmowers, so I know what it’s going to sound like already because I control synthesizers. I don’t have things inside of my machines that make sound already. I’m not an analog music synthesizer designer. I control whatever hardware synth and software synth. So yeah, I sit on my CAD machine, I design the thing based on components I know, I send that out now because I don’t do any of the machining really myself anymore. We send it out to machine shops, I get it back, I put it together, I take the circuit board, I put it in, I wire it up, I program the circuit board, which is a Teensy-based custom system that I’ve designed, and then I put it into my system and we start. I’ve been doing this long enough that I know how these things work now.

Karo: Is there a point where instrument design becomes composition for you?

Tristan: Yeah. Well, I mean, I’m more like a hardcore band in the studio or in the practice room. I go down to my practice room, I have a couple of beers, my right hand plays the drums, my left hand controls one of my things, and I sing through a big custom sound system that I built, and I write songs just like anybody else. The songs that I write on my laptop, like there was a song on KRÜLLER called “Centurion,” and I wrote that song with Justin from TOOL. That was completely written with me sitting at a laptop on my couch. That was not played on my machines. And sometimes I do that, but I never play that song live. It’ll just be a studio song.

Karo: As you could probably notice, I’m a bit obsessed with the machines. Do you feel the machines themselves have evolved with the music – less pure drone, more motion, more rhythm, more precision? Has the engineering philosophy changed from building something punishing to building something responsive enough to groove?

Tristan: Well, it has to be light enough to travel. That’s one thing. When I first made these, ideally I was just playing in a gallery in my hometown, so it could be 300 pounds, whatever, 150 kilos. But I can’t take that to Europe. So a lot of the big stuff that I built in the early days, I don’t travel with because it’s too expensive. So I had to make them fit into a Pelican case and be able to fly to a festival. That was a challenge. If I was just performing in the art world, then I could make giant things, but I prefer the metal world because I find some of that other stuff to be pretentious. I don’t want to make ambient drone music. I want to make the music I like. But as far as the way that the instruments work, yeah, I’ve certainly honed the design a little bit more, especially connectors so that you can plug stuff in really fast, like really expensive hardcore connectors for USB and for my encoders and for the electronics, and thinking about putting things in and out of a case every night, getting smashed on an airplane, that all contributes to the design so that when you have a stage tech grabbing your thing, they can’t break it. That is huge. That is honestly most of what I spend my time on, just making everything robust.

Karo: I wanted to come back to what you said before about industrial acts being disappointing. A lot of them today are technically “live”, but not really at risk. Your work still insists on consequence. If you are not moving, the music is not happening. In 2026, do you feel even more committed to that principle, especially now that so much electronic performance has become simulation?

Tristan: Yeah, absolutely. I don’t want to sound like the grumpy uncle who thinks DJ culture sucks, but in some ways DJ culture sucks. You don’t have to even do anything to get those songs to combine anymore. I’ve really moved on to. I really love doom and dub. Like, people like this new performer, KAVARI. I really love the sounds that she’s making. It’s incredible. I don’t know how it happens live, and in some ways I don’t care. But if I’m going to go out and see somebody live and they’re just over-exaggerating the motion of one knob on a CDJ deck to show me how amazing what they’re doing is, I’m not impressed. It’s disappointing. It’s embarrassing to have them twiddle that knob. I’d much rather see a live band get up there than see some jackass spin a tiny knob using their whole body. It’s embarrassing for everyone. And I think in 30 years they’re going to look back and be embarrassed by themselves.

Karo: Do you think audiences can actually tell the difference? Your audience for sure, but in general, do people still recognize the difference between execution and triggering, or has that distinction become blurred?

Tristan: Yeah, I mean, I try to put that stuff in videos and I try to explain it, and I think there are a fair amount of people that enjoy learning about it and maybe someday more people will do it. With the whole revolution that happened with synthesizers, where all that modular synth stuff came back and people have all this different gear and they want to have analog sounds, that’s really cool and it’s exciting. I know that for me it was exciting to see that happen because it was a move away from just push-button DJ culture. But where it goes next, we’ll see. And I’m going to try to start selling some of the instruments and maybe that will help, to try to help people be a little bit more expressive with some of the gestures. But it’s going to have to happen in a broad way, throughout the world, throughout DJ culture.

Karo: Looking ahead, what still feels unresolved in Author & Punisher, not commercially or logistically, but artistically? What have you still not managed to make the machines, the body, or the songs do?

Tristan: Yeah, I mean, I think there are still some updates to gear that I haven’t really had the chance to do. Musically, I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to say I’ve done everything I want to do, because that’s just what you chase your whole life. As a performer, or as a musician, you always think your newest album is your best work. It’s just the way it goes because it’s fresh for you. But yeah, from a machines perspective, there are limitations to what I can afford financially to do or what I have time for, because I have an engineering job, family, other responsibilities, volunteering. So yeah, there are a lot of improvements I would like to make to the setup so that I can tour and maybe have machines controlling lights. And I have a lot of new ideas that will be brought to life soon. I’m also trying to launch this company where we sell some of these instruments to people, and that might be interesting to see where that goes.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

With Alive, Meta Meat do more than release a live album, they preserve a charged state of encounter. Built on percussion, body, voice, repetition, and tension, Meta Meat has always felt too physical, too unstable, and too ritualistic to be fully contained by studio recordings alone. This document, captured at Turbinenhalle and later shaped into an official release, reveals a side of Meta Meat that is rawer, more vulnerable, and more incarnated than any controlled studio environment could offer. In this conversation, the duo reflect on live risk, embodiment, trance, theatricality, repetition, and the strange art of fixing something ephemeral without killing its force.

Meta Meat interview

Q: Unlike a studio album, Alive documents a moment already charged with risk, space, and audience energy. What made this particular performance at Turbinenhalle the right one to preserve, and what does it reveal about Meta Meat that a studio recording never fully could?

Hugues: Strangely enough, we very rarely record our shows. It’s not a lack of curiosity, it’s just that we trust our own feelings during and after a concert to judge it.

As for the Turbinenhalle, it was really the venue itself, along with the technical and material conditions, that made us consider filming the show in advance. It gave us the opportunity to finally produce a self-funded video recording and share an “official” live performance with a wider audience, instead of relying on older recordings that were starting to feel outdated.

I asked my friend, filmmaker Roger Hoffmann, to take care of organizing the shoot, and he also handled the final editing. Since our sound engineer, Sylvain Livache, was touring with us at the time, he decided to professionally record the show as well and later mixed everything.

At first, there was no plan to release this performance as an audio record. In the end, if the concert hadn’t been satisfying, either performance-wise or technically, there simply wouldn’t be an Alive release.

What this live performance reveals compared to a studio album is actually twofold: it’s both audio and visual. It allows the audience to better grasp the physical dimension of the band, to feel different things, especially since the live versions differ greatly from the studio recordings, and to experience our universe in a more direct and intimate way.

Q: There is something almost paradoxical in fixing a ritual into an album format, turning an ephemeral act into an object one can return to. Did Alive feel more like documentation, interpretation, or a new work in its own right?

Hugues: To be honest, at first my goal was simply to visually document our stage universe. Of course, we’re very happy that it eventually became a work in its own right when Ant-Zen decided it should be released as an album.

You’re right in saying that it can feel a bit strange to capture something as ephemeral as a live performance and fix it as an album. But I think this performance is a good representation of what we can offer, especially since it’s important for a band like ours to be seen, not just heard.

Q: Alive is not just a live document, it also feels like a statement about what this project becomes in front of people: more exposed, more physical, perhaps even more dangerous. Did working on this release change the way you think about Meta Meat’s discography, not as a series of recordings, but as traces of transformation?

Phil: Each time we encounter a different stage, a different audience, and a different “here and now,” we reshuffle the cards. We do not try to pretend; we embrace the moment fully and welcome any incidents which might occur, hoping to be true to both our common and intimate experience with each other and with the public.

This recording is a mirror of one of those moments that we shared. In our discography, it has the merit of showing more of our human side. One can witness that our interpretation is not perfect. We are more vulnerable, as we are taking more risks, then again much more adventurous and incarnated than on our studio album production.

Q: The name itself, Meta Meat, is striking because it suggests both the body and an attempt to go beyond it. How do you understand that relationship today: is transcendence something that begins in the flesh, or something that must first pass through it?

Phil: We rediscover often how the association of these antonyms can influence our work, conceptually as well as intuitively. On stage we can always rely on our capacity to inhabit our music with our physical energy. The state of effort can lead us to “travel” beyond ourselves, then we might reach a moment of abandonment when we are not conscious of our technical musical input but just in phase with all the elements in presence. Maybe that is when the “Meta” side appears.

During our concerts, unlike on our recordings, we also use live vocal expression, with singing or spoken words, which can convey intellectual or poetical imagery. These words addressed to the mind counterbalance the power of the raw physical energy.

Q: Meta Meat seems to exist precisely in the tension between instinct and construction, between something ancient and something hyper-designed. When you began this project, did you already know that this opposition would become its core language, or did it emerge gradually through working together?

Hugues: “The tension between instinct and structure,” “between something ancient and something highly elaborate” — I think that describes us very well.

When we started Meta Meat, the Von Magnet adventure had just come to an end, more than 30 years of Phil’s life, and I played drums with them for the last seven or eight years. Once again, it all happened very spontaneously, almost without overthinking it.

We simply wanted to try building a musical and stage formula that would be more stripped-down, more direct, and less theatrical than Von Magnet, but still deeply tribal, something that hits you in the gut and carries you away.

Q: The collaboration between you feels unusually organic, as if two very different energies are not merely combined, but transformed by contact. What does each of you bring into Meta Meat that the other could not invent alone, and where does the real friction, or real magic, happen between you?

Phil: We are always curious about each other’s input. Although, knowing our skills and tastes, we kind of suspect what our partner will be proposing, but as our own personal cultural and artistic endeavours lead us to evolve in each of our parallel worlds, some new unexpected ideas from each side might always fuse inside the duet’s creativity.

When we work on a new composition, sending sketches back and forth, we are often surprised by the new parts that are offered. For instance, when I present a simple basic musical idea that could seem rather poor, the piece can suddenly come to life and be transcended by the next step, the next layer which is added by Hugues.

Q: Phil’s flamenco-inflected footwork and Hugues’ standing drum configurations give the project a very embodied pulse, while the virtual synth architecture introduces distance, coldness, and abstraction. Do you see Meta Meat as a reconciliation of those forces, or as a way of keeping them in permanent conflict?

Hugues: I don’t draw a line between so-called “organic” music and electronic music, even when I listen to other bands. We express ourselves this way instinctively, based on what we can do and what we’ve naturally developed over the years with our instruments, whether they’re acoustic, electric, or virtual.

That said, it’s true that this contrast between different musical worlds, which people often like to oppose, is very much part of who we are.

Q: Your performances are often described less as concerts than as ritual experiences. At what point does a live set become theatrical for you, and how consciously do you think in terms of dramaturgy, gesture, tension, and release when building a performance?

Phil: I guess the music shows us the way. Each composition guides us towards specific atmospheres, moods, intentions that can potentially become an “augmented” version of our stage interpretation. Sometimes it feels right to be experimenting with a certain type of gestures because the music inspires this kind of choreographic extension, and every new show gives us a chance to develop or test these movements further.

Then again, aside from the stamping strict discipline, which will be associated with Hugues’ drumming, I do not like to write fixed choreographies. I’d rather leave room for improvisation around a theme, a character, or an image that feels in phase with the piece and see where the flow of the performance will take us.

Q: A great deal of electronic and industrial music still relies on a relatively static stage presence, but Meta Meat is built around physical intensity, movement, and exhaustion. Was this a deliberate reaction against that tradition, or simply the only honest way this music could exist in front of an audience?

Phil: Just the honest way of how our music should be shared with an audience. Our music calls for energy and might even offer a moment of freedom. We wish that the audience can feel that this time and space together can be special and that there is room to deshinibate, without drugs and alcohol, just with being one with our own deep and true expressions.

Q: The visual and ceremonial side of the project is so strong that one could imagine Meta Meat functioning almost as a form of total art, somewhere between concert, performance art, and invocation. Have you ever been tempted to expand it further into film, installation, or a more explicitly staged theatrical form?

Meta Meat: That would be a perfectly natural evolution for us, and of course something we would really enjoy. We’ve actually already worked with dancers a few years ago, both in Mexico and in France.

However, the geographical distance between Phil and me, along with side projects, family life, and other commitments, doesn’t currently allow us to consider anything beyond more “traditional” concert performances.

There’s also a very important element we’re missing at the moment: proper management and a booking agency. Without them, it’s really difficult to grow further and to develop more ambitious projects.

Q: There is something fascinating in the way Meta Meat uses repetition: it can feel hypnotic, violent, erotic, meditative, and destabilising all at once. What interests you most about repetition, as a musical device, as a physical act, and perhaps even as a psychological tool?

Phil: If a rhythmical phrase is being played repetitively like a mantra, it can lead towards a sense of “letting go.” This is the principle modus operandi at the core of any ethnic trance rituals, the stubborn pulse can help open doors towards inner freedom and hopefully heal.

In our case, our goal is to weave together a challenging polyrhythm, fighting our way along the beats generated by the machine. Although each rhythmic bar will be inevitably different, with various intonations, sudden accents, or offbeats, we aim for a concordance of elements in motion, so as to reach a rhythmical edgy balance.

Nevertheless we have a tendency to introduce a lot of breaks inside our compositions, like a game of hide and seek, trying to retain our breath or regather our forces before a new “attack.”

Q: Alive is a title that sounds simple, but in the context of Meta Meat it becomes almost philosophical. What does it mean for this project to be alive: to be physically present, to be unstable, to be dangerous, to be transformative, or to remain impossible to fully contain?

Phil: When we perform we give a hundred per cent of who we are at this given moment. We try to give and share all the energy that we have. It is the only way to feel honest and alive, and to make the public feel alive as well.

Also both of us are now more conscious of our fragility, in terms of health, but also of the uncertainty of the world, of the chance we have to still be together. So feeling “alive” is somehow precious, we cherish it and do not take it for granted.

Q: Looking ahead, where do you feel Meta Meat can still go next? Do you see the project moving further into performance, deeper into ritual, or perhaps into forms that would surprise even you?

Meta Meat: That’s a big question.

Quite simply, we just let things happen. We follow our ideas and impulses as they come, develop them, present them, and experience them.

In November, we’ll be performing with N.U. Unruh from Einstürzende Neubauten at the Wrocław Industrial Festival. It will be a completely new performance, created exclusively for the occasion. It’s a real challenge for us. As I’m answering you now, we don’t yet have a clear direction or specific ideas about what we’re going to create with him.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

With A Substitute for Light, Diorama return in a form that feels both immediately recognizable and newly sharpened. The album carries everything that has long made the band distinct, melancholy in motion, philosophical tension, emotional precision, and melodies that make unease strangely luminous, yet it does so with a clearer, leaner, more focused impact. Beneath its elegant surfaces lies a record preoccupied with absence, longing, digital distortion, and the increasingly hollow promises of modern life. In this interview, Torben Wendt speaks about the album’s inner climate, the uneasy search for illumination, the seductive tonality of despair, and the way these songs are already beginning to transform once they step on stage.

Diorama interview

Q: When you released Tiny Missing Fragments, you spoke about preserving a certain “magic” that holds Diorama together beyond questions of tempo, instrumentation, or genre. On A Substitute for Light, that magic seems to return in a sharper and more paradoxical form, because light itself appears as promise, guidance, deception, and replacement. At this stage in your life, what made light more urgent to think about than darkness?

Torben Wendt: Oh, I don’t focus on light itself that much, rather on strategies to deal with its absence, in a symbolic sense. What keeps you moving forward when you know your goal can never be reached? What makes you hold on to a love that can’t exist, and that feels both ultimately meaningless and inescapable? It seems like the right time has arrived to confront questions like these.

Q: The album title is beautifully uneasy. A substitute can comfort, deceive, protect, numb, or simply stand in for something real that is missing. Did you conceive this record as a search for illumination, or as a meditation on the false forms of illumination that modern life keeps offering us instead?

Torben Wendt: It’s both, actually. Embedded in the exhausting and ultimately unsuccessful search for a kind of illumination, understood as being held, finding reassurance, etc., lies the realization that the promises of modern technology are not capable of filling the void. On the contrary, they themselves become something like a devourer of light.

Q: A Substitute for Light feels, in a way, like a later chapter in the philosophical terrain Diorama have explored for years: absence, memory, fragmentation, longing, and the unstable architectures of the self. Do you feel continuity between this album and your earlier work, or does it come from a fundamentally different inner climate?

Torben Wendt: I tend to see the album as a continuation of an ongoing story, as the continuity of everyday life is also an inspirational dimension of its own, through its relentless pace and the narrow room it leaves for self-fulfillment. It reflects a desperate longing for a radical break or new beginning that never really comes, and if it ever did, you already know it would only arrive half-heartedly or in a clumsy, improvised, unsatisfying way.

Q: The album speaks of discarded love and digital paralysis, which suggests a record concerned not only with emotion, but with consciousness under pressure, with what technology does to memory, desire, and attention. Were you trying to write from inside that condition, or against it?

Torben Wendt: Again, it’s both. Drowning while simultaneously observing, documenting, analyzing, maybe even somewhat celebrating, the process of drowning.

Q: Diorama have always had a rare ability to make melancholy move, to give sadness rhythm, lift, and even seduction without weakening its seriousness. On this album, how consciously did you think about the relationship between emotional heaviness and melodic immediacy? When does beauty intensify pain, and when does it make pain bearable?

Torben Wendt: It’s an important characteristic of the album, a development we enjoyed increasingly throughout the creative process: the emergence of a light, fluid, catchy and thus comparatively digestible, at least for Diorama, tonality for expressing deeply unsettling emotional states and reflections. This sense of accessibility, along with brutalist self-irony and escapist thoughts, kind of softens and beautifies the void we’re drifting through, making it more comfortable.

Q: A Substitute for Light suggests a more reduced approach: clearer arrangements, stronger melodic focus, less excess, more impact. That kind of reduction can be a sign of maturity, though it can also be risky because there is less to hide behind. Did this album ask for a new kind of discipline from you?

Torben Wendt: The stylistic direction was an organic development. During the first productions, hence songs like “No Complications” and “More Gold,” this clearer, more focused vibe became noticeable and immediately felt right. This, in turn, influenced the design of the subsequent tracks. It’s often difficult and requires consistency to maintain the chosen stylistic path until the result matches what you hear in your mind’s ear. This involves the art of eventually leaving behind beloved sound elements, balancing conceptual ideas on one hand and pure, untamed creativity on the other. But in the end, it’s beautiful when an album gains its own character and distinctiveness in this way. For us and the people who care.

Q: Titles like “No Complications,” “More Gold,” “Million Dollar Smile,” “The Same Ghost,” “Losing Your Coordinates,” and “Weird Physics” hint at a world that is psychologically unstable, ironic, seductive, and disoriented all at once. When the tracklist came together, did you feel you were building a sequence of songs, or mapping a condition of being?

Torben Wendt: It’s all about mapping, all the time. We’re describing states of mind, emotions, dilemmas, contradictions, desires, and so on. This comes through in the songs, which act like waypoints on a massive roadmap, expanding it more or less with each one. The map itself still doesn’t offer any direction, but I guess that’s not really the point.

Q: Diorama have already brought some of this material to the stage in 2026, which means the songs have begun their second life in front of an audience. What have they revealed about themselves live so far, and has that experience awakened the desire to take this album further on stage in the months ahead?

Torben Wendt: The songs have turned out to be super energetic and great for interacting with the audience. We never felt the need to hide or overly dress up the new tracks to play it safe. From the get-go, they’ve felt like highlights in the setlist. With “No Complications,” it’s always surprising how slow the track actually is. It takes about 5–10 seconds to really process that, but then it grooves all the way to Beijing. 🙂

During the last pre-album tour, we mainly focused on the singles that came before the album, but for upcoming solo shows, we’re planning to expand the range of songs, which we’re really looking forward to. The ballad “Ruling My World” could, for example, be interesting. The emotional state on stage makes it possible to connect again with the imaginary person or persons in the song’s “home port,” from a fragile, unique, and exposed moment. I’m curious to see what kind of meaning the song will take on for different people and what kind of resonance we’ll be able to pick up.

Q: These 2026 dates place the new material in very different settings: club shows, festival stages, and international contexts. Do you experience those as variations of one Diorama audience, or do different cities and environments still draw different emotional colours out of the songs?

Torben Wendt: While the songs are still part of that same Diorama universe, the settings definitely bring out different sides of them. There are songs that, from our perspective, work particularly well in a club setting, and others that are more suited for festivals. Each place has its own vibe, the number of people in the audience varies, and that really impacts how the songs function and resonate back to the band on stage.

Q: Years ago, you gave a beautiful answer about maps being outdated the moment one begins to draw them, and yet still worth drawing, with love. Looking at A Substitute for Light now, do you feel you are still mapping the world, or increasingly mapping the distortions through which the world reaches us?

Torben Wendt: Referring to A Substitute for Light, distortion is inseparable from the world that is perceived. The digital filters that permeate everything, the technological progress that overwhelms us, the big middle finger that AI and its creators are holding up to us. The urge to fight through, to preserve a piece of naivety and naturalness, or to become the lighthouse keeper of Tridrangar. It’s all on the same map. And, to quote one of the album tracks, we’re on a journey. We’ll be arriving soon.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Across numerous projects, collaborations, and incarnations, Matt Howden has built a body of work that consistently blurs the borders between song, ritual, spoken word, and sonic experiment. Best known to many for Sieben, yet never easily contained by one format or one scene, Matt Howden has long followed a path where language, texture, and atmosphere matter as much as melody. On Language For Stone, created around the poetry of his father Keith Howden and the extraordinary sound of Skiddaw’s “musical stones,” he moves into especially evocative territory: part composition, part excavation, part landscape study. The result is an album that feels intimate and elemental at once, shaped by geology, memory, craftsmanship, and the strange life of resonance

Matt Howden interview

Q: When you recorded the singing stones for Language For Stone, did you approach them more as a field recordist documenting an acoustic phenomenon, or as a composer translating raw material into form? Where do you place yourself between preservation and transformation?

Matt: I’m definitely more the composer. But I was also keen to compose around the harmonics and foibles of the sounds I gathered, most notably the metres-long lithophone, think huge stone glockenspiel, that I sampled in Keswick Museum, and my father’s voice as he read his own poetry.

Q: The concept behind this release feels close to “music archaeology.” On a practical level, what surprised you most in the studio: pitch behavior, resonance, dynamic range, or the way stone interacts with microphones and processing?

Matt: Exactly that, the pitch behaviour of the lithophone is special, flawed, and inconsistent. How you hit each note, the harmonics, or more likely lack of them, in the resonance. The dead stones, the lively stones, the imperfect hit. The window cleaner doing his job outside, and fucking up my sampling. These were all positives to accentuate and bring out in the melodies I wrote for it. To play free with them, and with a beautifully inconsistent lithophone in the controlled and predictable environs of a studio. To roll with it, feel the nuances of its unique sound, and then pick wisely from the things you create, jam, record, tweak.

Q: You followed a route tied to Peter Crosthwaite and the Skiddaw area. While shaping the album, what ultimately became the true score: geography, story, the samples themselves, or your embodied memory of the landscape?

Matt: The plan was to pull each of these together into the project, including hidden references to the stones and the area within the artwork. We, Giulio from Archaeological Records and I, documented, photographed, took videos, and made sound recordings as we went along on a trip there. There was a lot of pawing over maps, which I love. Maps are fabulous. Some planning over which local pubs had good ales and food also took place.

Q: This is your third collaboration with your father. On Language For Stone, what felt different in your working method, your trust, or your division of roles compared to the earlier projects?

Matt: Set in stone, for each of these three projects. No “collaboration” at all. My father is a poet, and writes his poetry. I set it to music after. Of course, there are the themes we’ve set out before that get it all going, and this work was the first where there were themes for both of us to work to. Previously, I’d simply taken my father’s existing work and set it to music. Collaborations are common and usual in the DIY and underground scene I exist in. It would just seem weird with my dad, and not how either of us works in our natural states.

Q: Keith’s poetry here is intensely musical, with alliteration and hard consonants doing real rhythmic work. When language carries that much internal tempo, do you tend to let the text lead the structure, or do you build a counterstructure that reframes it?

Matt: I always work around the voice, is the simple answer. The words are king, are primary, here. I found that Elgar-style strings and slow-flowing melodies worked well under the voice. The lithophone can fill in, and even be adventurous, behind the words, due to its percussive nature and the way I shaped its sound with multiple time-based effects in the mix. It’s worth noting here just how very rhythmical my father’s reading of his poems was. After recording them, I would sit with them and a metronome click and would always find a tempo that the voice wove into perfectly. And the sonic elements within the plosives, consonants, and timbre of my dad’s voice are a pleasure to work with. Less so when he’d had whisky towards the end of the recording session.

Q: In Language For Stone the stones act as genuine percussive melody, not decorative texture. What compositional decisions helped you integrate them into violin and electronics without sanding down their geological character?

Matt: The lithophone is allowed to dominate the mix as it doesn’t interfere with the main element, the spoken word. It can dance above, set patterns opposed to the voice that don’t make the listener choose, or distract. Then there was the simple choice I allowed myself with other instruments. I stuck solidly to only bass and violins, for the most part, backing up and underpinning the voice and stones. And some nature sounds woven in, for good measure.

Q: The record sits in a rare zone between folk memory, neo-classical sensibility, and experimental sound practice. Did you imagine it primarily as a cycle of songs, or as a suite shaped by conceptual continuity more than by “song form”?

Matt: I mostly worked in a simple song form, depending on which poem it was. The spoken word forms a natural verse, stanza by stanza, and the music swells in the “chorus” in between. The melodies are often longer than pop or song melodies, more free, more thematic, but underpinned with pop, struggling for a good word there, sensibilities. Shorter phrases and drums help simplify the sound and add the ritual elements. I wanted it melodic and listenable, soaked in the landscape of the stones, and as a power bank for the words and their deep resonance.

Q: The physical edition includes a map locating the recorded stones, which is such a specific invitation. Was this meant to encourage listeners toward pilgrimage, or to underline that the landscape itself is a co-author of the work?

Matt: The landscape sprung the work. And I’d definitely encourage people to visit, the Lake District is the most beautiful set of hills in Cumbria, Northern England. Such landscape cannot help but inspire. As said, I love maps, and I love how they represent the land. Digital maps offer even more possibilities, but don’t have the pleasurable physicality of a large-scale 25,000:1 double-sided map you have to wrestle with to enjoy.

Q: There’s a striking restraint in the production. The album feels ritualistic, but it avoids pastoral nostalgia and avoids “fantasy nature” clichés. Were there particular aesthetic temptations you consciously rejected to keep the tone truthful?

Matt: Absolutely so. I tend to drift to the romantic with the violin when I drift off and play without thinking or shaping. And you wouldn’t believe the hours I spent with this, and the last Sieben album, recording strings of multiple layers, masses of edits and production tasks, only to find I’ve done the same old thing, filled the frequency spectrum too much, been predictable. The joy, and pain, of the studio is that you start again, and again, and create something special and unusual that lasts on the recording forever once it’s there. Playing that melody is never hard, finding the right part to play so often is.

Q: Looking at your wider body of work, where do you place Language For Stone now? Does it feel like a continuation of your long-standing interests in language and sound, or does it mark a quieter recalibration of what you want composition to be?

Matt: I think it harked back to some of my earlier works, “Pastoral Howden,” as someone once phrased it to me, that focused on nature, language, and landscape. As always, I tried to put the lessons learned in the previous albums to good use, and develop my sound further. I also came at this album with better production sensibilities, and the clarity that comes with making each record. And as always, this was also a reaction to my previous album, Sieben: Brand New Dark Age, where it was sonically more heavy, pounding, and electronic. I did sneak some gentle electronics into Language For Stone too, though. My father’s poems, his words, make this album what it is. A real pleasure to work with them, and make this album with him and my good friend Giulio. My mother even wrote the sleeve liner note on Peter Crosthwaite, the original finder of the “musical stones of Skiddaw.”

Funnily enough, I’ve started the next Sieben album, which may end up being called In The Strange, far heavier music than Language For Stone, but I’ve carried over my use of the lithophone into this album. It has a cold-wave keys feel to it when mixed with beats and my heavier violin style.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Few projects have to negotiate legacy as openly as Trilogy. Emerging directly from the aftermath of Trial, Erick Miotke’s long-running dark electro vision was never simply about preserving the past, nor about cutting ties with it for the sake of reinvention. With “Forced Perspective” and its companion release “Alternative Perspective”, Trilogy finally steps forward with a statement that feels both conclusive and newly charged: rooted in decades of experience, yet still pushing for movement, tension, and transformation. In this interview, Miotke reflects on continuity, identity, remix culture, live energy, and the long road from unfinished chapters to a fully realized double-album arrival.

Trilogy interview

Q: Trilogy emerged in the shadows of TRIAL, yet it clearly was never meant to be a mere continuation project. Looking at it now, after years of development, what do you feel is the essential artistic difference between honouring a legacy and being trapped by it?

A: Oh, TRILOGY is definitely meant as a direct continuation of TRIAL, just with a new vocalist and a new name. I own all the TRIAL songwriting and lyric rights except for very few lyrics written by Schröder, which sadly will not be used in the coming future anymore.Promoters told me often that choosing a new name was a mistake, because TRIAL is a kind of trademark. Probably they are right, but I thought that, for instance, Depeche Mode wouldn’t be Depeche Mode anymore without Dave Gahan, or U2 without Bono. That much respect for Schröder’s oeuvre has to be acknowledged in my eyes. Even if it made things tougher to get started, as we had to experience.Jens transported the kind of devilish and “kinski-esque” presentation of Schröder’s live presence into a new and slightly different form. It is now a more positive-aggressive style, just as powerful, but not as harsh and disturbing anymore.On behalf of the music and lyrics there is now a different approach from my side. I work basically the same way as I did in the past, only with other gear. I reduced working with my beloved hardware synths and samplers, especially from Ensoniq, and now mainly use Logic with all its possibilities and further sound files I buy in different stores.The tracks arise just the same way and in the end they always sound typically like a “Miotke-style” track, as I am getting told over and over again by different people. This fact is very good and makes me proud.Of course there are some parameters I follow to get the feeling of TRILOGY tracks to sound like the continuation of the TRIAL legacy. Very important to me beside this is that I can work absolutely free, without any kind of boundaries from the past, with Friedhelm Kranz on VILLABORGHESE, my other project. So I am not trapped in any way with these two projects and could now go all-in with the TRILOGY album “Forced Perspective”. A conclusion that gives us the freedom to move on, unchained from now on.

Q: The title “Forced Perspective” is fascinating because it suggests distortion, adaptation, and the instability of what we think we see clearly. At what point did that idea become more than just an album title and start functioning as a broader metaphor for the way this project understands change, identity, and survival?

A: The idea for the album title and concept lies back in the days around 2009. It should have been the next TRIAL album after “No Fate”, which never happened after Schröder left the project in early 2011. So I worked on with basic demos I already had back from that time before, and upcoming new tracks. I could identify very well with it because through the new situation I was forced into a new perspective on getting the project running.

There are lots of possible views to the phenomenon, big vs. small, visions, illusions, delusions, different angles in looking at things, and so on. An undefined way, but with a slight regulation by the main topic title. We had to pick up the loose threads left behind by TRIAL ending and carry them on in a way that old and new songs can stand side by side without a feeling of two totally different worlds, especially at live performances. This worked out perfectly well and makes me very glad, giving me some kind of internal mental peace.

Q: You began laying the foundations of Trilogy back in 2012, but the debut album only fully materialised much later. Did that long gestation strengthen the material by allowing it to absorb more time, experience, and tension, or did it sometimes feel like carrying an unfinished chapter for too many years?

A: Yes, it absolutely was a positive evolution in which Jens could grow thoroughly up to this point. He now has found his own unique vocal style. Especially after I recently heard his vocals for an upcoming cover version of a very well-known industrial band that is hopefully set for release this autumn. Performing live was thankfully never a problem for him after his first steps with his former project “Human Resource”. He is a true stage hog, haha. But it was a long and tough way for both of us. We had to go through it and now are fine with the current situation. We don’t do this for a living, so we move on relaxed into the future of our collaboration.

Q: What is especially interesting about this release is that “Forced Perspective” and “Alternative Perspective” arrive almost as a pair of mirrors: one presenting the core statement, the other exposing its refractions. Did you always imagine the remix album as a companion piece with its own conceptual value, or did it gradually reveal itself as a necessary second angle on the same emotional world?

A: The remix album with all tracks of the main album in the same order was the idea of EAR’s label boss Nader Moumneh. It was defined this way from the beginning on. The running time of the album, with the technically maximal possible playing time of approximately 74 minutes of a CD format, culminated in the delivered 18 tracks. This was quite a treat. Not quite understandable for everyone, but now after it is finished it is a clear statement of our standing and also shows that we have the potential of delivering a double-time journey for the listener with a lot of different approaches without any “filling” material in my eyes. But if there may be another TRILOGY album, we will go back to a standard length.

Q: Electro Aggression Records describe “Forced Perspective” as connecting past and present, and that feels very true to the music. How consciously did you try to balance the DNA of classic dark electro and old school EBM with the need to sound like a project speaking in the present tense rather than recreating a past language?

A: As said above, the tracks evolve just the same way they did from the beginning on in 1991. I start totally free with a melody, bassline, loop or sample and follow that path until we are happy with the result. Then the vocals follow to finalize it. “Forced Perspective” is to be seen as the keystone to my way since then. Besides the 4-disc TRIAL box “Für Zwei” from 2022 that finalized the TRIAL experience, this 36-track double album concludes the way of TRILOGY after almost 14 years until now, followed shortly by the final single “Forced Perspective” with remixes by well-known acts that will complete this album cycle. At last… The “balancing” comes automatically by the experience of now 35 years working on tracks in this segment of electronic music. It doesn’t follow strict measures, as said above. You know when a track is done after listening to it so long until you don’t find anything even slightly disturbing in it. This takes some time, almost always. And it can be truly nerve-wracking sometimes. But: No pain, no gain… haha.

Q: Jens’ vocal presence and Erick’s sound architecture seem to operate in a very particular tension: one side visceral, aggressive, and exposed, the other highly structured, atmospheric, and controlled. How do you negotiate that balance creatively so that the songs feel alive rather than merely well constructed?

A: As said above, this evolves in the process through different stages in the production. Over the years Jens and I developed a tight connection. We can rely on one another’s sight on things by getting through all this and hanging on to the project’s soul. It is important to me that the tracks are compact songs in the end, besides the intro track “Come to Me” and the outro track “Turmoil Over”, of course, with a verse, a hook melody and a chorus. I for instance don’t aim for a “safe” club track. I believe this guarantees an honest approach to each song. I suppose it can be heard that every track is genuine. They all may sound like the same basic TRILOGY style, but not like the same formula, in terms of sound and mood. Individually grown and not constructed to serve a certain purpose.

Q: The remix cast on “Alternative Perspective” is remarkable, from Project Pitchfork and Mildreda to AD:Key, Bent, Synaptic Defect, and others. When you invited these artists into the material, were you hoping they would illuminate hidden aspects of the original songs, or were you more interested in seeing them challenge and even destabilise the emotional identity of the album?

A:I am very happy with all the remixers who did an absolutely great job with their specific interpretations. What a rush! I always loved remixes by other acts. It is astounding what comes around. The original track is known by heart, so it is no surprise to us. It is like hearing a totally new track, just as a fan can when listening to new material. This is always very exciting to me.

I always loved remixes as being a true kid of the ’80s with the privilege of experiencing the start of this phenomenon with my first maxi-single of the extended remix of Duran Duran’s “Wild Boys”, followed by intense Depeche Mode years, who defined the world of great remixes remarkably until today, or special pearls like for instance Grace Jones’ “Slave to the Rhythm” and the Frankie Goes to Hollywood experience by Trevor Horn.It is a true pleasure, especially such a seldom privilege, of being remixed by Peter Spilles, who I know since the beginning of my musical way in 1991, besides the acts mentioned by you and all the others contributing to this release. It simply makes me very happy that they feel in the mood of giving their DNA to our journey in their own explicit way, with truly fascinating new perspectives. The squad of remixers came together by acts called up by Nader and acts I know personally for some time now. This feels like a great family event to me. And not to forget the collaborators of my long-time friends Gunnar Duvenhorst, Andy Bolleshon, Chris Weiland, Jan-Heie Erchinger and last but not least the master of the legendary “Grenzwellen” independent radio format Ecki Stieg, with whom I first had contact for a “Grenzwellen” special about TRIAL’s album “Secret Pain” back in the days and at his production of his first “Accessories” album in 1994. I wanted to have some special appearances on the album by these to me very special people staying at my side for all these years in one way or another. A simply wonderful experience to me with some stunning outcome…

Q: After so many singles, EPs, live shows, and years of expectation, these two releases feel less like a simple debut and more like a statement of arrival. Once listeners have heard both “Forced Perspective” and “Alternative Perspective”, what do you hope they understand about Trilogy that they could not have fully grasped before?

A: Very right! I believe this double album allows one to delve into the world of TRILOGY if someone is open for it. It is a broad range of 18 pictures in two perspectives via the original tracks and the remixes offered. This overall statement stands clear and gives a lot of possibilities to connect with the project. If someone is interested there are loads of new special aspects to be found and experienced. In current times a lot of people want “fast” access. This may be easier through the broad range presented with this release. I see it as a big chunk of stuff you can move into, while others may just pick one or another track in the digital realm via Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube and all other platforms served. But the album is thought to be listened to in order for the total experience. Time will tell if this may work out…

Q: I recently saw you live at the E-Only Festival, and it was a genuinely powerful concert experience. Trilogy seem to carry a very particular tension on stage, something precise and controlled on one level, but also forceful, physical, and emotionally immediate. What does the live setting allow you to express about these songs that the studio versions cannot fully contain, and are there any further live dates or shows already planned around the release of “Forced Perspective” and “Alternative Perspective”?

A: The basics for the live experience are the music and the additional video backdrops for each track. With this stage presence Jens can unfold his energetic vocals and performance in his own unique way. He impersonates in the flesh the music and lyrics. He observes and interacts with the audience and his band members to celebrate the event and the opportunity of playing the songs live. This combination is topped by Leo’s live drumming, or at the E-Only Festival show by guest drummer Eli van Vegas, who gratefully stepped in for Leo, who was not available that night playing a show with Project Pitchfork. It was quite something for me to have the possibility to perform with the live drummer of my all-time heroes Front Line Assembly on this special occasion, and to share Leo as a band mate since 2016, who kicks it live with Project Pitchfork. Sometimes dreams come true in the most unexpected ways. You just have to hang on and never give up.The next live dates are at the “Familientreffen” in Sandersleben on Friday, 10th of July, at the “Dunkle Gezeiten” special session with Mildreda on September 5th in Cuxhaven, and at the end of the year at some VERY special event still to be announced.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

On April 21, 2026, ant-zen will release act482, ‘The Shadow of the Torturer’, a collaborative work by Flint Glass and Ah Cama-Sotz inspired by Gene Wolfe’s monumental ‘The Book of the New Sun’. But this is no simple adaptation, nor a decorative literary exercise. What emerges instead is a three-act sonic structure shaped by decay, ritual, memory, moral ambiguity, and the strange afterlife of technology in a world where the future has aged into myth. Bringing together two artists whose vocabularies have long moved through industrial ritualism, dark ambient gravity, cinematic composition, and ceremonial atmosphere, the album feels less like a compromise than the birth of a third language. We spoke with Gwenn Trémorin and Herman Klapholz about Gene Wolfe’s influence, the paradox of archaic futurism, collaboration as transformation, and what it means to build not just an album, but a world.

Flint Glass & Ah Cama-Sotz interview

Q: ‘The Shadow of the Torturer’ is rooted in Gene Wolfe’s universe, which is famously dense, elusive, and morally ambiguous. What drew you both to this particular work, and what did it offer sonically that a more straightforward narrative world would not?

GWENN TRÉMORIN / FLINT GLASS: I first read The Shadow of the Torturer as a teenager, and it hit me in a way very few books have since. At the time I didn’t fully understand everything Gene Wolfe was doing, the unreliable narrator, the deliberate anachronisms, the way ancient and futuristic elements blur into something unclassifiable, but I felt it viscerally. That sense of a world on the edge of extinction, heavy with ceremony and forgotten meaning, stayed with me for decades. When I finally proposed this project to Herman, it wasn’t really a calculated artistic decision. It was more like finally giving voice to something that had been waiting inside me for thirty years.

HERMAN KLAPHOLZ / AH CAMA-SOTZ: Gwenn came up with a great idea, a story that perfectly fits our musical context. The ambience and atmosphere act like a soundtrack, guiding the listener to create their own film in their imagination. What Wolfe’s world offers sonically is precisely its density and ambiguity. There is no clean narrative to illustrate. That forces us to work in textures, in suggestion, in emotional architecture rather than story illustration, and that is exactly where our music lives.

Q: This album feels less like a simple adaptation than like a full atmospheric translation, almost a parallel architecture built in sound. When working with such a layered literary source, were you more interested in illustrating its world, or in reimagining its deeper emotional and philosophical texture?

GWENN TRÉMORIN / FLINT GLASS: Illustration was never the goal. We are not composers for cinema, painting scenes for an audience that needs visual cues. What interested me was the feeling of being inside that world, the moral unease of Severian’s position, the strange beauty of ruins, the weight of ritual detached from its original meaning. These are emotional and philosophical states, not images. I wanted the listener to inhabit something, not to be shown something. The album is less a soundtrack and more what I would call a parallel architecture, a structure built from the same emotional material as the book, but that stands on its own terms. Someone who has never read Gene Wolfe should be able to enter it fully and find their own truth in it.

HERMAN KLAPHOLZ / AH CAMA-SOTZ: For decades, as both an artist and an ambient music enthusiast, I’ve always aimed to tell a personal musical story. I don’t rely on templates like many film composers do. An idea can emerge from something as simple as a sound, a musical structure, or a spoken sample. When shaping the foundations of a piece, the structure needs to generate a positive musical energy, one where the mood tells me, “Yes, this is exactly what I want it to be.” In short, our collaboration led to something truly great.

Q: Both of you come from distinct but equally uncompromising artistic backgrounds, with very different shades of ritual, darkness, rhythm, and cinematic tension. What made this collaboration feel necessary, or at least irresistible, at this point in time?

GWENN TRÉMORIN / FLINT GLASS: I had been carrying the idea of this project for years, but I think I knew instinctively that it required a collaborator. Not because I couldn’t do it alone, but because the world of The Book of the New Sun is too vast and too contradictory for a single voice. Wolfe’s Urth needs tension, between the cold and the warm, the mechanical and the organic, the martial and the ceremonial. Herman and I have very different aesthetics, and those differences were not an obstacle. They were the point.

HERMAN KLAPHOLZ / AH CAMA-SOTZ: There was also something about the timing. I think both of us had reached a place in our respective careers where we wanted to push beyond what we could each do individually. This project was a way to go somewhere neither of us could reach alone.

Q: Your inspirations clearly extend far beyond one narrow industrial vocabulary. There are traces here of cinematic composition, ritual music, dark ambient, electronic body architecture, and something almost liturgical in the pacing. How do your individual inspirations differ, and where did they unexpectedly converge on this record?

GWENN TRÉMORIN / FLINT GLASS: My references have always been rooted in cinematic composition, Morricone, Herrmann, Zimmer, Vangelis, the weight of silence in film scoring, as well as electronic body music and the harder, more architectural end of industrial. I tend to think in terms of space and tension, of how sound occupies a room and what it does to the body. Herman’s world is more ritualistic, more ancient in its textures, with that very particular ceremonial darkness that Ah Cama-Sotz has always carried. Where we converged unexpectedly was in the pacing, both of us instinctively understood that this material demanded slowness, gravity, breath.

HERMAN KLAPHOLZ / AH CAMA-SOTZ: There are no shortcuts in Wolfe’s universe, and we agreed from the start that there would be none in ours either. I couldn’t put it better than Gwenn does, the timing was right for us to join forces and bring this project to life.

Q: The world of The Book of the New Sun is built on paradox: a future so distant it feels ancient, advanced technology mistaken for relic, cruelty existing beside beauty. Did that tension between the archaic and the futuristic resonate with your own musical languages from the beginning?

GWENN TRÉMORIN / FLINT GLASS: Completely and immediately. That paradox is almost a definition of what both Flint Glass and Ah Cama-Sotz do: we work with electronic tools in ways that carry the memory of something much older. There is always, in our music, a sense that the machine is haunted. The Book of the New Sun gave us the most perfect literary metaphor for that, a civilization where advanced technology has become indistinguishable from ritual, where no one remembers what things were originally built for. That is the relationship many of us have with electronic music itself.

HERMAN KLAPHOLZ / AH CAMA-SOTZ: Indeed, the collaboration between Flint Glass and Ah Cama-Sotz opens up new ways of interacting, a meeting of two musicians that might seem like a clash, but one that ultimately leads to a positive evolution. I’ve known Flint Glass for many years, and I’ve always been intrigued by his ritualistic approach. We’ve shared a long history, and with Wakan Tanka album, the moment finally felt right.

Q: The album is described as unfolding in three acts, which immediately suggests dramaturgy rather than just sequencing. Did you approach this release almost as a theatrical work, with its own internal staging, progression, and psychological lighting, rather than as a conventional album?

GWENN TRÉMORIN / FLINT GLASS: Yes, from the very first conversations. The three-act structure was not imposed retrospectively to make the track list look organized, it came from the nature of Severian’s journey itself. Act I is institutional, martial, oppressive, the Guild, the ceremony, the weight of a system. Act II opens out into desolation and solitude, the exile across a dying landscape. Act III moves into mystery and revelation, the Cyber-Khanate, the meeting with destiny. These are not just moods; they are psychological stages. We thought about each track as a scene, and about the transitions between acts as genuine dramaturgical events.

HERMAN KLAPHOLZ / AH CAMA-SOTZ: It’s an intriguing concept, shaping tracks into acts, like chapters in a book. For me, it was the first time working within such a structure, and I found the idea fascinating. It felt like writing a book, but expressed through music.

Q: Both Flint Glass and Ah Cama-Sotz have always carried a strong sense of presence, not only musically but almost ceremonially. How important is this idea of presence to you, and does it change when you create music intended primarily for listening versus music that you imagine in a live setting?

GWENN TRÉMORIN / FLINT GLASS: Presence is everything. A record without presence is just content, and I have no interest in making content. For me, presence means that the music demands something from the listener, attention, stillness, a willingness to enter a space that does not accommodate distraction. Whether I am working on a studio album or preparing a live set, I am always asking the same question: does this command the room? The difference with a live context is that presence becomes physical and shared, it is a contract between performer and audience. On record, the listener has to be willing to meet the music halfway. With this album in particular, I wanted to create something immersive enough that halfway would feel insufficient. I wanted the listener to go all the way in.

HERMAN KLAPHOLZ / AH CAMA-SOTZ: My first live performances in the nineties were very different from what I do today. It took time to translate my music into a live format. I don’t create music with the question, “How will this sound live?” in mind, some tracks naturally work in that setting, while others don’t. Certain pieces can elevate the listener to another level, but it ultimately depends on the live context.

Q: Your work has often been powerful on stage precisely because it does not reduce darkness to posture; there is gravity, immersion, and a real command of atmosphere. When you think about performing this material live, do you imagine it as a concert, a ritual, a narrative journey, or something closer to a piece of sonic theatre?

GWENN TRÉMORIN / FLINT GLASS: Sonic theatre is the closest term, though even that doesn’t fully capture it. What I imagine is something where the three-act structure becomes physically present, where the audience feels the shift between acts not just aurally but atmospherically, almost architecturally. I am thinking about lighting design, about staging, about what it means to enter the world of Urth in a live space. It should feel like a ceremony, but not a static one. There should be movement, transformation, a sense that something has happened by the end that could not have been undone. Whether or not we can realize that fully depends on the context we are offered. But the vision is there.

HERMAN KLAPHOLZ / AH CAMA-SOTZ: You can check out our very first concert together at Wroclaw Industrial Fest in November, a special moment for us, marking the beginning of this project in a live setting. It’s an important experience where the music truly came to life on stage and connected with the audience in a unique way.

Q: A collaboration like this can easily become a matter of compromise, but the most compelling ones create a third identity that belongs fully to neither side. Did this album feel like a meeting point between Flint Glass and Ah Cama-Sotz, or did it become something stranger and more autonomous than either of your solo languages?

GWENN TRÉMORIN / FLINT GLASS: Honestly, yes, and that was both the most surprising and the most satisfying thing about the process. There are moments on this record that I could not have made alone, and I am certain the same is true for Herman. The album has its own identity, its own logic, its own emotional center of gravity. It is recognizably rooted in both of our worlds, but it does not belong to either of us exclusively. I think that is the test of a real collaboration, not whether the seams are invisible, but whether something genuinely new has emerged that neither party could have built alone. The Shadow of the Torturer passed that test.

HERMAN KLAPHOLZ / AH CAMA-SOTZ: I would say our first collaboration was a truly pleasant surprise. I’ve worked on many collaborations before, but this one felt particularly intense and deeply engaging. We took the time to carefully shape both the sound and the structure, allowing everything to evolve naturally. It became a process of exploring musical emotions and inner feelings, rather than rushing toward a result. Naturally, it took us more than a year to fully develop what became our shared “new” sound.

Q: At its core, ‘The Shadow of the Torturer’ seems fascinated by transformation: of power into ritual, of memory into ruin, of technology into myth. When listeners enter this album, what kind of transformation do you hope they undergo by the time they reach the epilogue?

GWENN TRÉMORIN / FLINT GLASS: When I read the book as a teenager, I came out of it feeling that something had shifted in how I understood time, memory, and mortality. Not in an abstract intellectual way, in a felt, almost physical way. I would like this album to do something analogous. Not to deliver a message or resolve into comfort, but to leave the listener in a different place than where they entered. A little older, perhaps. A little more aware of the weight of things. Severian carries the memory of everything he has witnessed, without the mercy of forgetting. I want the listener, by the epilogue, to feel something of that, the beauty and the burden of a world that refuses to disappear quietly.

HERMAN KLAPHOLZ / AH CAMA-SOTZ: Well, in the end, it’s all about a personal approach. I believe this album truly reveals itself over time, the more you listen to it, the more layers you begin to uncover. The blend of sounds and emotions runs quite deep, inviting a more immersive and reflective experience with each play. It’s something I’ve often felt with much of my earlier Ah Cama-Sotz work as well. When I revisit those pieces after some time, I sometimes find myself wondering how I actually arrived at the final result, as the creative process becomes almost impossible to retrace. That sense of mystery is part of what makes the journey so special, it’s not always about remembering the path, but about feeling the outcome.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

After seven years away from the stage, Klangstabil returned not with nostalgia or spectacle, but with something rarer: clarity, presence, and the kind of emotional precision that has always set the project apart. Since 1994, Boris May and Maurizio Blanco have built a body of work in which structural discipline and human vulnerability do not cancel each other out, but deepen one another. Songs like “Shadowboy,” “Push Yourself,” or “You May Start” have long ceased to function as mere catalogue highlights; they have become part of the emotional architecture of dark electronic music itself.

What makes Klangstabil still feel so singular is not only the weight of their discography, but the way their work continues to speak to rupture, recovery, inner pressure, and connection without ever lapsing into theatrical excess. Their recent live return made that especially clear: stripped-back, intense, and quietly overwhelming. We spoke with Klangstabil about silence, friendship, control and vulnerability, live performance as release, and the strange, enduring way songs keep changing while remaining entirely their own.

Klangstabil interview

Q: After a seven-year silence, returning to the stage seems like not just a logistical decision, but also an emotional and artistic one. What had to shift internally for Klangstabil to become live again, and what did you feel this return could now express that perhaps it could not have expressed before?

A: Everything has its moment in life. The pause felt right when it happened, for both of us. From my side, I needed the space to clear my mind, to not think about anything for a while. That worked, and it was genuinely beneficial. I believe Maurizio experienced something similar in his own way Klangstabil has always been a channel for processing thoughts and emotions, turning them into something tangible and understandable. Naturally, during the break, things came up that needed to be dealt with, otherwise you carry them with you indefinitely, and without an outlet, that can become a weight. That’s why it felt right to bring Klangstabil back. What this return can express now that maybe wasn’t possible before, I can’t really say. That’s something each listener has to decide for themselves. For us, it remains what it always was: communication and an exchange of energy.

Q: When you look back at the project that began in 1994 and compare it with what Klangstabil is now, what has remained fundamentally intact, and what had to be transformed in order for the project to stay truthful to itself? And when you return to songs such as “Shadowboy,” “Push Yourself,” or “You May Start” now, do they still belong primarily to the selves who once wrote them, or have they also become something new through time, distance, and the lives of those who have carried them?

A: I think in both cases the answer is friendship. Friendship has always remained, but it is also constantly nurtured, like a tree that always receives enough water and light. All the songs you mentioned are part of the DNA of Klangstabil. They will always accompany us and will always be a mirror for us. The songs are us.

Q: Your music has always carried a rare tension between emotional exposure and structural precision, almost as if mathematics and vulnerability were not opposites, but two necessary languages describing the same inner state. How consciously do you work with that balance between control and rupture?

A: You use beautiful imagery and describe it quite accurately, like a yin-yang symbol. We like simple structures, a clear beat that gives the emotions a framework. We enjoy build-ups and breakdowns, and a phase at the end that brings everything back to calm. Essentially, it’s a classic arc of tension.

Q: What moved me so strongly in the live setting was the radical economy of it: darkness, light, voice, presence, and almost nothing that could distract from the human core of the songs. It felt less like spectacle than like concentration, almost like theatre reduced to breath and exposure. Boris, when you stand inside that stripped-back space, does it feel to you like interpretation, release, confrontation, or something closer to witnessing yourself in real time?

A: Another great question, thank you. Before every concert, I ask myself what I want to convey that night. What have I experienced recently that I want to process? Which tracks should carry a calmer energy, and which ones are there to break out? And ultimately, what do I want to leave with the audience afterward? If I feel that I’ve shaped the concert the way I intended, I’m happy. Then I know I’ve truly processed something, that I don’t have to carry it around with me anymore. Whether it’s frustration from the days before, moments where I felt hurt, or even happiness that I want to share, because in truth, I’m doing well, and performing is part of that.When both of us on stage walk off feeling satisfied, it means a lot. And the exchange with people after the concert is just as meaningful, it stays with me.

Q: There was a strong sense that the music was not simply being performed, it was rather as though the songs were creating a space in which people could encounter parts of themselves they might not otherwise touch. Do you think music can sometimes recognise something in a listener before the listener has language for it, and is that one of the deeper possibilities you still trust in?

A: Absolutely. A sound, a voice, or a melody can act as a key that opens something within you in a way nothing else can.

Q: Klangstabil lyrics often feel as though private wounds, social disillusionment, and existential unease have long since stopped belonging to separate territories, and part of their force comes from the sense that they are not merely observed, but metabolised. When a song begins for you, does it tend to emerge from lived experience, from watching the world, or from an emotional pressure that only later finds language? And when you write, are you trying to understand pain, survive it, transform it, or simply prevent it from remaining mute?

A: If you remove the question marks, you have the answers. In a way, all of that is part of it. Songs usually don’t come from just one place, it’s a mix of lived experience, observation, and emotional pressure that eventually finds its way into language. Writing helps to understand things, but also to process them so they don’t stay inside.

Q: You mentioned health issues on stage, and that gave the evening a particular human gravity. Without asking you to go anywhere you would rather not, were there challenges along the way, physical, emotional, or otherwise, that altered your relationship to performing, and has returning to the stage changed your sense of fragility, endurance, or presence?

A: I’ve been a bit under the weather lately, like many others. Unfortunately, a cold hadn’t fully cleared up in time for the last show, but I still managed to get through it. We’ve never cancelled a confirmed gig from our side. We only do about one show per month anyway, because anything more would get too exhausting. Two gigs back-to-back are quite rare for us. We’re not trained singers, nor are we really physically prepared for life on tour. I keep telling myself I should do more for my body, but in the end it’s mostly just a lot of walking and cycling. It would probably help with stamina and appearance, but I’ve never really been focused on looking better or more “fit.”I also don’t like conversations about appearance, “oh, have you lost weight… gained weight… lost weight again.” It gets tiring. We go on stage as we are.

Q:  klangstabil feel to you like something reopening, something continuing, or something becoming possible for the first time? And now that the live current is moving again, has it also shifted your sense of what still wants to be written, performed, or brought into the world?

A: It’s definitely another step forward that we’re taking together. The urge to express didn’t just come with the live shows, it was already there before. There are a few themes connected to a new artwork that’s in the pipeline. Certain perspectives, or an inner attitude, are already flowing into the current performances and are also reshaping the existing set. I think we’ve become a bit more resigned toward the outside world, but that’s also part of the spirit of the times. Still, we try to bring in positive approaches, which is important for us as well, in order to stay stable.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

With LARMO, Mirosław Matyasik distills more than two decades of movement through Poland’s independent underground into something at once heavier, broader, and more self-defined. Known from earlier projects such as C.H. District and Godzilla, the Upper Silesian artist has long explored the space where industrial discipline, mechanical repetition, and electronic physicality meet. But LARMO feels like a particularly direct statement: rooted in the sounds, atmosphere, and industrial memory of Upper Silesia, yet open to techno, rhythmic noise, bass music, and other forms that stretch beyond narrow genre borders. Following the strong reception of the debut full-length ‘Alarm’ and a powerful live appearance at Elektroanschlag, LARMO is clearly gaining momentum. We spoke with Mirosław about regional identity, noise as language, collaboration, rhythmic obsession, and what may be coming next.

LARMO interview

Karo: You have been active on the Polish independent scene for more than two decades through projects such as C.H. District and Godzilla. Looking at LARMO today, what does this project allow you to express that perhaps needed exactly this moment in your artistic life to fully emerge?

LARMO: A lot of time has passed, that’s true. I started in the mid-1990s, and back then it was classic industrial-adjacent activity, drawing heavily from the foundations of the genre: electro-acoustic recordings, manipulated tape, analogue synthesizers. I have always been fascinated by rhythm and by the possibilities offered by technology, so later I moved further in that direction and spent the following years exploring mechanical music in a somewhat milder and more dance-oriented form with C.H. District. LARMO is a relatively new matter, I have been working under this name for only a few years. To answer your question directly, it is the result of everything that has accumulated in me musically over all those years. It is a kind of tribute to what gave me the foundations for my work, but above all it is an attempt to move beyond the stylistic limits I used to impose on myself. I think I simply matured into communicating with the world as LARMO.

Karo: LARMO is described as “rhythms and noises from Upper Silesia,” which gives the project a very strong sense of place. How deeply is Upper Silesia present in your music, not just as scenery or biography, but as a real structural force behind the sound?

LARMO: I was born, raised, and still live and create in Upper Silesia. I grew up surrounded by mines and heavy industry, so I absorbed what is unique to this region almost unconsciously. I also became deeply shaped by Silesian tradition, which I value a lot, and I clearly see its diversity and uniqueness. Of course all of this has left its mark on my music, although it does not determine it one hundred percent. The industrial aesthetic, the sounds of this specific environment, are definitely something I want people to hear in my productions.

Karo: The name itself is very direct, almost programmatic: “LARMO means noise.” What does noise mean to you in this context, as pure intensity, as resistance, as communication, or as a way of telling truths that more conventional musical language cannot carry?

LARMO: In the regional dialect, larmo simply means “noise,” and that is where this, as you called it, “programmatic manifesto” comes from. At the same time, it is not just a catchy slogan, but a kind of motto that has accompanied me for as long as I can remember. This form of expression through loud, non-obvious, or unwanted sounds is something that has always been with me, and I feel that this is the way in which I have the most to say.

Karo: Your music clearly draws from the classic industrial tradition, but ‘Alarm’ also absorbs elements of rhythmic noise, techno, illbient, and bass music. How do you keep this wide range of influences focused, so that the result sounds unified rather than merely eclectic?

LARMO: I’m glad you see Alarm as a unified work. That was exactly my intention while I was working on the album. I wanted to move beyond my own limitations and “glue together” ideas that might seem distant from one another into something coherent, but also into something I would genuinely enjoy listening to myself. I’m fascinated by very different kinds of music, film, literature, and art, and none of that is neutral in relation to what I create. Earlier, though, I was afraid of too much variety in my music. Today I’m no longer afraid of that, and LARMO allows me to release it.

Karo: The album title ‘Alarm’ immediately suggests warning, urgency, disturbance, but also alertness and awakening. What kind of alarm did you want this record to sound, and what exactly was demanding to be heard so loudly?

LARMO: Alarm is not a random title. It is my way of telling everyone that I am stepping beyond fixed frames, reaching for different styles, mixing genres, and wanting to connect different scenes. Maybe that sounds a little banal, but I hope readers will understand my intentions very well. We have reached a time in which, especially younger listeners, though not only them, no longer care much about conventions or genre boundaries. That makes me very happy, and I wanted that to happen for a long time. I want to be part of that, and I believe that I am.

Karo: One of the strengths of ‘Alarm’ is that it feels heavy and mechanical, but never static. There is movement, rupture, and a real sense of internal tension. When you build a track, what usually comes first, rhythm, texture, concept, or the physical sensation you want the listener to experience?

LARMO: The rhythmic layer is usually the part I start with when working on a new track. Even when it is a composition without a clearly defined beat, I usually look for some point of reference, some form of repetition. Repetition in music is the key for me. Around rhythm I build everything else. For me it is the element that pulls the whole thing forward, builds the dramaturgy, and carries the track.

Karo: The album features several guests, including Gosia, IHS, Paula, Pachu, and MONYA. What drew you toward these particular collaborations, and how did these outside voices expand or challenge the sonic identity of LARMO?

LARMO: Collaborations on the independent scene are something very natural. It is a relatively small environment of people connected by similar ideas, tastes, worldviews, and approaches to creativity. Usually we know each other, we are colleagues, friends, and that was also the case here.At the same time, I wanted to follow what has already appeared in my previous answers: to move in a less obvious direction. So I invited, among others, vocalists connected to the HC/punk scene, the frontman of the  metal and broadly understood electronics, namely IHS. One of the tracks was remixed by MONYA, and for me that was a natural choice, because I wanted to close the album with something more technoid, maybe even dancefloor-oriented. Monika did that perfectly. I should also add that I really enjoy working with someone else’s sounds or voice and building a composition around them, so these kinds of collaborations will definitely remain an inseparable part of LARMO.

Karo: After several smaller releases, splits, and enthusiastically received concerts, ‘Alarm’ arrived as the first full-length LARMO statement. Did working on a longer format change your understanding of the project itself, perhaps showing you its scope more clearly?

LARMO: A full-length album is a kind of closure to a certain period in my work. Like probably most people dealing with this kind of material, I have dozens of unfinished ideas or loose compositions resting in the proverbial drawer. It is very important to keep moving forward, to close a given stage, and continue working. Releasing Alarm was a very important moment for me. It fully justified the existence of this project and gave it a solid foundation from which I can continue my search.

Karo: Your performance at Elektroanschlag placed LARMO in front of an audience particularly sensitive to sonic intensity, authenticity, and physical impact. How did that show feel from your perspective, and what does the live setting reveal about LARMO that the studio versions cannot fully contain?

LARMO: I am lucky enough to play live relatively often, and because of that I can honestly say that the audience I had the pleasure of meeting at Elektroanschlag was one of the best. I agree with you, they are definitely people who are aware of what they want, sensitive, and authentic. For me it is extremely important when I meet an audience that, through the interaction created between them and the artist, actually drives the performer forward and creates a mutual exchange. My performances are improvised to a large extent. They are based on a general framework, but their final shape comes precisely from that interaction with the audience. At Elektroanschlag, playing felt fantastic, and I had the impression that people were enjoying themselves as well. I had some concerns, because I was opening the second day of the festival at a rather early hour, but after a few seconds that feeling gave way to pure joy from performing. I felt that magical thread of understanding.

Karo: With ‘Alarm’ having been so well received in Poland and abroad, and with LARMO clearly gaining momentum, what is currently waiting in the shadows? Are there new releases, new collaborations, or new directions already taking shape behind the scenes?

LARMO: It’s nice to hear that. Alarm really did receive quite a lot of positive reviews. At the moment I’m working on new material in parallel. One of those things should appear in the near future, while the other belongs more to the slightly more distant future. There are also some concert plans, although that side of things is always very dynamic. I have no intention of resting on my laurels. I still want to do as much as possible, and where that leads me, we will see.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

(Interview by Karo Kratochwil) Recently, I was given the chance to listen to “4S (Selective Sound Sensitivity Syndrome)”, the new TC75 album due out on 15 May, and it felt like the perfect occasion to ask Tino Claus, the mind behind the project, a few questions. What struck me first was how fresh and uncompromising this record sounds: harsher, rougher, and more abrasive than anything I had previously heard from him, yet still held together by a strong inner discipline. That very tension, between pressure and precision, noise and control, became one of the central themes of our conversation. We spoke about the paradox built into the album’s title, the unusually difficult process of finishing the record, the refusal to repeat old patterns, the role of contrast in both sound and artwork, and the broader artistic space Tino moves through between TC75, collaboration, and Amnistia. “4S” feels like an album that pushes his language into a more severe and exposed territory, and that is precisely what makes it so compelling.

TC75 interview

Karo: “4S (Selective Sound Sensitivity Syndrome)” is a telling title because it creates an immediate contradiction: an album built from force, pressure, and noise is named after a condition defined by hypersensitivity to sound. Was that contrast mainly an intellectual gesture for you, or did it also express something deeper about how overwhelming the contemporary world has become, even for people who are not clinically affected by misophonia?

TC75: The Plan was to name the album “Misophonia” with no deeper meaning or the plan to create a kind of concept-album. Finally I decided to change the name into that little letter monster. I thought it is a good idea to name my album after that condition even I know that my music causes such itches for some people.

Karo: You have said that this album was unusually difficult to finish, and that at one point you had only four songs and doubted the record would ever come together. Looking back now, was the resistance mainly musical, or was it also about finding the right emotional and conceptual language for where you were at that point in life?

TC75: It was just about the music. I did not find the right sounds or hooks to build songs on / out of it. Emotions mostly come on the table when we are talking about the lyrics.

Karo: What makes “4S” especially compelling is that it seems to treat hypersensitivity as more than a medical condition. The album often feels like a portrait of overload itself: too much noise, too much pressure, too much input, too little silence. At what point did the record begin to grow beyond its initial concept and become a wider reflection on the violence of constant stimulation?

TC75: I am not afflicted by misophonia but I know people who are. And believe me this is no fun. Some people are lucky when they know what the reason for their suffering is. I mean misophonia hasn’t even been properly researched yet, and not all medical professionals recognise it as a condition or even a symptom. Yet A LOT of people have health issues because of noise. Everyone is familiar with the sound of fingernails scratching a blackboard, a dripping tap, smacking lips while eating, or snoring. Imagine being hypersensitive to such noises and having nowhere to escape to… A nightmare scenario!

Karo: Compared to earlier TC75 material, this record feels harsher in structure, more stripped down, more abrasive, and at times almost closer to noise in its musical effect, even when the arrangements remain tightly controlled. Was that sonic severity a conscious production decision from the beginning, or did the material itself demand a rougher architecture as it developed?

TC75: I mean deep in my heart I am a Pop-Guy. It means normally I like songs with a clear structure and I don’t need any fancy stuff like the third or fourth bridge, a 5^th break and constantly changing rhythms or something similar. And I am not a musician. That’s why the structures are more or less simple. On the other hand I like noise in music and there are a lot of artists I adore for there works with and in noise. You are right the approach was to change my music a bit because I don’t want to – and can’t – keep drilling the same board over and over again. Your question makes me think I’ve managed to do that.

Karo: You have spoken very openly about not wanting to repeat yourself, not wanting to overthink the music, and not being interested in fulfilling expectations. At this stage, what does artistic progress actually mean to you? Is it about changing your sound, changing your process, or simply refusing to become predictable, even to yourself?

TC75: That is the question! It is the tragedy of artists that they cannot influence how the audience decides – have they found their style, or are they just repeating the same thing over and over? 

For me, it’s important that I can recognise an artist’s music by their style. That could be the music itself, the choice of sounds, and of course the voice. However, I’m not keen on knowing the song before I’ve heard it. Every new release should have some fresh element to it, without the style changing too drastically. Believe me – that’s not easy when you’ve released more than two albums.

Karo: One of the most striking aspects of “4S” is the tension between discipline and intensity. The tracks feel highly constructed, yet never sterile; emotionally charged, yet never chaotic. When you are building a TC75 track, how do you negotiate that balance between control and release in practical production terms?

TC75: My songs are driven by an initial sound. When I have a sound, a rhythm a “something”  instantly the lyrics come to my mind and the process of “composing” is done. I never use the word compose for my works I prefer the term “string sounds together” because this is what I actually do.

Karo: There is also a very deliberate sense of contrast around the album as a whole, not just in the title, but in the decision to avoid scene-typical artwork and to use pink and white rather than expected visual codes. How important is contradiction for you as an artistic method? Do you consciously work against expectation in both sound and image?

TC75: The artwork is still very important for listeners and byers of music. That’s why I try to create something that the people keep in mind. And if, in the end, I’m the crazy guy with the pink industrial pop record then it’s worked.But seriously – the same goes for the artwork… should I cut a piece out or not?

Karo: Songs such as “The Core” “In Parallel” or “Empty Eyes” suggest not just personal unease, but a much broader discomfort with the way people move through society now: overstimulated, performative, disconnected, permanently exposed. Do you see “4S” as your most explicitly social album so far, even if it never becomes didactic?

TC75: I wouldn’t say that. When we are talking about my lyrics – I write them when I have an itch, when something pisses me off. Good for me there is A LOT going on in the world which “inspires” me to write. 

Karo: Your work exists in several different constellations: TC75 as a solo project, collaborations, remixes, guest appearances, and of course Amnistia. When you move between those formats, what remains irreducibly “TC75” for you, the element that survives every different context and still makes the result unmistakably yours?

TC75: I would describe it like this… I feel it when a track is a TC75 song. On the other hand a rarely write songs for Amnistia that’s why I rarely have to decide…

Karo: Because you are also one half of Amnistia, I’m curious whether moving between the duo format and your solo work sharpens different parts of your artistic identity. Does Amnistia feed TC75 in hidden ways, and are there any new Amnistia plans or other collaborations currently taking shape that you can already hint at?

TC75: It is necessary that the solo work have to be different to the work with the main band/project. Otherwise it makes no sense. Thank God I work with very talented people in all my bands, as I don’t make the music there – because my friends do a brilliant job.

Karo: After “4S”, what do you feel has shifted most for you as an artist – not in terms of sound, but in terms of how you understand what you are doing and why you are still doing it?

TC75: To be honest… I still don’t know what I am doing exactly. I try to do my best when I work on music and artwork. It has to please me. I do what I want, I don’t want to think about my music to much because otherwise it would lose its spontaneity.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

(Interview by Karo Kratochwil) Few bands captured the restless imagination of early Scottish post-punk quite like Fini Tribe. Long before genre boundaries hardened into categories, the Edinburgh-born project moved instinctively through experimental rock, industrial textures, performance art, tape collage, physical theatre, and the raw poetic tension of youth lived at full voltage. The newly remastered retrospective “The Sheer Action of Fini Tribe” brings those early recordings back into focus, not as dusty relics, but as documents of urgency, curiosity, and artistic hunger.

In this interview, Fini Tribe’s Chris Connelly and Andy McGregor look back at the formative years of Fini Tribe, reflecting on the band’s visual language, political atmosphere, fierce creative chemistry, and the city that shaped their sound. What emerges is more than a story about a reissue: it is a portrait of a band driven by instinct, movement, and the stubborn refusal to stand still. For anyone interested in Fini Tribe, Scottish post-punk, Edinburgh’s underground music scene, and the collision of sound and performance, this conversation opens a vivid window into a singular creative world.

Interview with Fini Tribe (Chris Connelly and Andy McGregor)

Karo: The title “The Sheer Action of Fini Tribe”suggests energy, motion, and confrontation. Looking back at those formative years, do you think “action” was more about rebellion, survival, or discovery?

Andy McGregor: It was all of the things you mention… and more! We were interested in “actions” as they manifested themselves in art movements like the Futurists, the Dadaists and Situationist actions. Political actions too, to an extent, just doing stuff and freely expressing ourselves. It was also something of an in-joke referring to a guy who collected our rehearsal room rent who talked about the “sheer action” of taking his hand out his pocket and losing his wallet. It was a tiny thing but we joked about it and it became a thing…

Chris Connelly: “The Sheer Action” refers to a private band joke we had, but it was a perfect title as Fini Tribe was all about motion. Whether we knew it or not, we were on, physically and mentally, all the time. It was all rebellion, motion, energy. We were young, but we had purpose, tremendous purpose that was often overwhelming.

Karo: Your early Fini Tribe lyrics, from “De Testimony”to “Backwards and Forwards We Lean,”read like existential manifestos. Were you consciously writing against the social and political climate of Thatcher-era Britain, or were those tensions simply the air you breathed?

Andy McGregor: This is probably more for Chris but I’d say that Backwards and Forwards We Lean was a lyrical and poetic text. De-Testimony was, as the name suggests, angrier, fierce and directly political. It was later, the basic stuff of survival had taken its toll, our youthful creative reverie had paled a little and we’d become angry as we grew hungry, disenfranchised and more aware.

Chris Connelly: As far as lyrics go, they did reflect the times by nature of art and creation being done at a certain time. We were all poor, mostly unemployed, but the lyrics came to me as a result of how the music hit me as we were composing it. Backwards and Forwards We Lean was written while I was still in high school, right at the end, so my memories of that time are pretty idyllic in a way, lots of friends, lots of discovery, being young and having freedom, lots of hi-jinks.

Karo: There is a striking physicality in your work — songs about bodies, pressure, repetition, and release. Do you think of Fini Tribe’s early music as something performed by the body as much as about it?

Andy McGregor: We were young men, very physical and full of jizz/spunk/energy (delete as inappropriate). I think it may be as simple as that on one level, but on another there was a kind of performative physicality at the time that fed into what we did and, in a sense, our bodies were a kind of currency that we could use in performance in the absence of any other currency. We also mixed with other artists such as choreographer Lindsay John who introduced us to Japanese Butoh, which very much treated the human form as sculpture.

Chris Connelly: We were very physical, especially during the era of Detestimony. We used our whole bodies in performance, because why not? Andy McGregor is an amazing visual artist and he really brought great and thought-provoking ideas to Fini Tribe. We also were exposed to a lot of art simply because it was fun and free to go to art galleries, and many of our peers and friends were visual artists. It was there all the time and the idea of the tableau as a moving, breathing, loud thing as performance was important to us.

Karo: The newly remastered Fini Tribe collection feels surprisingly timeless. Listening to those recordings now, what surprised you most — the youth, the naivety, or how modern it still sounds?

Andy McGregor: It sounds a bit boastful but I’m hugely surprised by how well I could play the guitar in the early stuff! I’m going to try and re-learn how to do that as an extension of my mid-life crisis! On another level I’m beyond pleased that it still has some relevance. It could just be dad-pleasing, but my middle daughter, who is 18, and her boyfriend say they are really into the album, and they really know their music.

Chris Connelly: For me it was how fucking well-rehearsed we were and how complicated our individual parts were, and that they reflected our personalities so greatly. When we were mastering, I got to hear individual tracks soloed and it was fascinating how they were uniquely different but fit together seamlessly.

Karo: Fini Tribe evolved from post-punk experimentalism into something that hinted at industrial, ambient, and proto-techno. Did you see yourselves as part of a movement, or were you deliberately trying to escape categorisation?

Andy McGregor: We were influenced by what was going on in music elsewhere, for sure. We had an appetite for everything but filtered quite quickly. Our immediate musical influences were bands close to us like Visitors, Explode Your Heart and Josef K, but they, in turn, would have been influenced by others like Wire, krautrock, Brian Eno and the Last Poets, and so it goes…

Chris Connelly: No, we were not part of a movement and didn’t want to be. We loved listening to music, we loved to go out dancing, but we were a very insular bunch.

Karo: “We’re Interested” remains hypnotic, both musically and visually. It feels like an invitation and a provocation at once. Looking back, what does that Fini Tribe song represent to you now — a portrait of youth, or a statement about curiosity and control?

Andy McGregor: More a question for Chris but my comment would be that Chris made incredibly poetic lyrics full of visual imagery that brought our lives and the landscape we inhabited alive. We’re Interested was perhaps the closest we ever got to a manifesto…

Chris Connelly: It’s a beautiful song. I especially love Andy’s guitar playing, these minor notes against the major melody. To me the song is a snapshot of Edinburgh, the vistas I was privy to, the backdrop of the Union Canal that cuts through part of the city and has always been omnipresent in my life. A lot of time as a kid was spent looking at things like the canal and wondering what was underneath the surface. It’s an invitation to the curious.

Karo: The Fini Tribe anthology captures the raw geography of Edinburgh — the rehearsal rooms, canals, and damp basements. How did the physical city shape your sound and sense of identity as artists?

Andy McGregor: These are the things that we knew. Like most creative people starting off, we drew from what was around us. Places like the Lamppost Graveyard, where the council stored old street furniture, chimed with our love of surrealism. The towering tenements of the Old Town and their abandoned spaces furnished us rehearsal spaces and a kind of vertical playground. The Hermitage park had an old quarry with a great acoustic where we bashed metal, made samples and dropped acid.

Chris Connelly: I think I hinted at that before in the last question, but Edinburgh, for me, was the intricate framework upon which I hung everything. I have not lived there for years, but I can navigate it in the dark, I am so connected to it. I think from a very young age, my eyes were open, and I never took anything for granted, every leaf-covered corner, every church spire.

Karo: Collaboration and experimentation seem essential to Fini Tribe’s DNA. How did working together — often through conflict or chaos — sharpen the creative process during those early years?

Andy McGregor: Good question! We were, in as much as any group of young men can be, “together.” We were a gang with a lot of shared trust and unified purpose. We loved a lot of the same music, art and outlook and, at its best, this crystallised in the music. Sometimes it felt like us against the world, maybe too much so, as we alienated others who might have helped along the way.

Chris Connelly: We were very young when we started, and I have been friends with Andy since we were five. We worked together like organs in a body. It’s inexplicable, but it was magic, organic, enlightening, compelling and truly wonderful.

Karo: You’ve described this Fini Tribe compilation as “a labour of love.” Was revisiting these tapes and memories cathartic, nostalgic, or at times difficult — especially when remastering the imperfections that defined the era?

Andy McGregor: This one is for Chris, I’d say, as he did all the work on remastering the audio side of things. Though you could say I remastered the visuals, I suppose. That was good to do, bringing everything that remained together into one place and digitising it as an archive. It was a positive process, reminded me of how lucky I was to have met and made things with these people and have such a formative creative life experience that has shaped much of my life since.

Chris Connelly: Never difficult. We knew going in that we were working with radically different audio sources. I personally love that kind of stuff, raw cassette recordings and recordings from people’s flats and houses, and there is a breadth to this. Originally I just wanted to license the Peel session, but it grew, so we have the beautifully recorded BBC session and a lot of random recordings too, some recorded outside. And the live material is just incredible sounding to me.

Karo: If you could send a message from 2025 to your 1982 selves — those teenagers rehearsing under flickering lights in Niddry Street — what would you tell them about art, endurance, and staying interested?

Andy McGregor: Another good question… I’d perhaps say: “slow the fuck down, keep at it, and don’t kill the goose that might lay a golden egg.” When you’re that age it’s all a bit polarised and actions can lack subtlety. I rather wish we had said, “let’s just take a break for a while and those who want to can go off and do some other things,” rather than, in huffy tone, “I’m leaving the band… harumph.” We might have then had a rest and regrouped later. That said, FiniTribe v2.0 went on to do some great stuff, as did Chris in the US and all of us in our own individual ways.

Chris Connelly: I would tell myself to never leave Fini Tribe, but advice? No message. We were pretty pure to our purpose. We didn’t listen to many people.

Karo: Fini Tribe’s performances in the mid-’80s — blending sculpture, film, ritual, and sound — were as much happenings as concerts. How important was visual provocation and performance art to the way you communicated your ideas?

Andy McGregor: It seemed like a natural development of what we were doing anyway. As mentioned earlier, we were inspired by Dada, Surrealism, Futurism, all art movements which had their performative action side. I was writing about the crossover between performance art and experimental music for my art school dissertation, so that also fed in and said, why not? These shows were also a manifestation of youthful anger. In some ways this harks back to the previous question around advice we might give our young selves, but I think we didn’t do ourselves any favours in the later stuff with all that aggression and shouty provocation. It was a rather alienating stance and I can’t help thinking that we should’ve been grateful to folks for coming to see us rather than yell at them. I think we could’ve done that and still had an edge. But we were genuinely angry about the state of the world as we saw it. God knows, it’s much more of a shit-show now, but the seeds were being sown then with erosion of workers’ rights and encouragement of a kind of Thatcherite rampant individualism which, in my opinion, has led us to the kind of self-obsessed, everyone-for-themselves, can’t-get-enough culture we’re surrounded by now. This, in turn, opens the door to fascism.

Chris Connelly: This grew from not wanting to just be a band onstage. We could and would develop the visual aspect. We were always into performance art as spectators, and I personally remember so much of it on the streets during the festival. Fini Tribe were never going to settle, we were just too curious. I do not see us as provocateurs, but we had a keen sense of mischief and fun, and a very keen aesthetic. It was hard though, a lot of barriers, some of our own making.

Karo: The Scottish post-punk scene of the early ’80s is often overshadowed by its English counterpart, yet it was uniquely experimental and community-driven. How do you remember that ecosystem of artists, venues, and attitudes that nurtured Fini Tribe’s beginnings?

Andy McGregor: We were very loyal to the idea of making things in our local area but we were not the most collegiate of tribes. Everyone in the Edinburgh scene knew each other but, save for a few exceptions, we kind of kept ourselves to ourselves. So much so that many probably thought we were totally up ourselves!

Chris Connelly: I didn’t see it that way. Those kinds of divisions are often seen in hindsight, if they existed at all. We had a robust music scene in Edinburgh: The Scars, The Visitors, The Fire Engines, Josef K, which kind of fell off a bit because they all split so quickly. But I remember going to see bands like The Slits, A Certain Ratio, Test Dept, Maximum Joy, The Fall, The Blue Orchids, Rip Rig + Panic. So when our local heroes collapsed, we had plenty of touring bands to behold.

Karo: Many of you went on to remarkable individual careers — from Chris Connelly’s work with The Revolting Cocks to Andy McGregor’s design and production. How does it feel now to bring those creative trajectories full circle with this Fini Tribe retrospective — is it closure, continuation, or rediscovery?

Andy McGregor: I’d say it was continuity and rediscovery rather than closure. In some ways it is more of a reopening. The reissued stuff is an eye-opener for me and it’s great to have it all together in one place. We’ve all moved on in life but we’ve all, without exception, continued to work in creative ways. We were incredibly lucky to hook up when we did and it was a really magical experience that has stuck with me and continues to do so. You never know, there might even be more…

Chris Connelly: All of the above! I use my time with Fini Tribe as a template for a lot of my creative endeavours. I learned about sound, and I learned about working with like-minded yet different people.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

(Interview by Karo Kratochwil) Gözde Düzer has spent years shaping Aux Animaux into one of the most distinctive projects in today’s dark alternative landscape, building its sound, identity, and atmosphere with persistence, instinct, and a very clear artistic vision. Now, with IAMX, she steps into another world that carries its own emotional charge, visual intensity, and devoted audience, while continuing to perform under her own name at the same time.

That makes this chapter especially compelling for Aux Animaux. On the current run, audiences are seeing Düzer move between two strong artistic identities within the same night: her own fiercely individual universe in Aux Animaux, and the heightened, immersive live world of IAMX. It is a rare position, and one that says a great deal about trust, presence, discipline, and creative range.

In this interview, Aux Animaux’ Gözde reflects on what joining IAMX meant to her, what surprised her once she entered that circle from within, how Chris Corner’s artistic language connects with her own instincts, and what it means to keep building a path with integrity in a scene that does not always make that easy.

Gözde Düzer (Aux Animaux) interview

Karo: Joining IAMX is not simply stepping into a band, it is stepping into a whole emotional and aesthetic universe. What did that invitation mean to you on a personal and artistic level when it first became real?

Gözde: IAMX and also Sneaker Pimps have both been two of my favorite bands of all times. When the question came, I was hoping to go on tour with IAMX as support act with my own solo project. So it definitely caught me by surprise, a wonderful one for sure! I was of course honored to get the question and that Chris had faith in me to be the right person for his band before he even met me. I am so glad to be part of this amazing universe and everyone in the band and the crew are phenomenal people, and so are the fans! It feels damn good to be in a band again.

Karo: Chris Corner has always had a rare way of transforming pain, desire, fragility, and inner chaos into something poetic rather than literal. Did that sensibility feel close to your own artistic instincts from the start, or did joining IAMX reveal new sides of yourself as a performer?

Gözde: Yes I was already a fan of IAMX so I connected with his music because it felt familiar to me. We only just started the tour and it’s already bringing out a more bestial side of me with no boundaries whatsoever.

Karo: From the outside, IAMX can feel like a very intense and carefully built world. Once you entered it from within, what surprised you most about the way that world actually works, creatively, emotionally, or even practically?

Gözde: It was just amazing that it felt just right from the start. Chris and I are quite similar souls especially where we stand in life today, so we hit it off from day 1 and the practicing has been very smooth. He’s also very easy going and considerate of his band and crew, and that makes playing together all the more fun!

Karo: Aux Animaux already has such a distinct identity, its own atmosphere, its own tension, its own language of darkness and beauty. When you perform with IAMX, how do you protect that identity while also fully serving a larger collective vision?

Gözde: Because I am touring both with AA and IAMX on this tour at the same time, we’re working on a slightly different approach with the outfits and makeup so it is not repetitive to the audience. Other than that it is just me being myself. I feel I already fit into the gang like a glove, it feels like I’ve known everyone forever.

Karo: With Aux Animaux you have built your path with real determination and without shortcuts. Looking back at everything you had to overcome, does this moment feel like a breakthrough, a reward, a new beginning, or perhaps something more complicated than any of those words?

Gözde: I really don’t know what it is but I know it feels good. I definitely worked my ass off for aux animaux for years. I started this project from scratch and worked on getting it where it is all on my own without knowing anyone in the scene and learning how to produce music all on my own. It sure took its sweet time. The last two years have been pretty tough and brutal in my private life, where in the meantime aux animaux finally started to really grow and get some real recognition and that’s what kept me going.

Karo: Why do you think Chris Corner chose you specifically? Was there something in your presence, your sound, or your artistic temperament that you feel naturally belongs in the IAMX universe?

Gözde: I think he liked my wildness, ambition and drive. My stage presence and energy.

Karo: There is often a big difference between admiring an artist and creating beside them. What has it been like to move from that distance into direct collaboration, and has it changed the way you hear IAMX’s music now?

Gözde: If anything, I like it even more. Chris is amazing to work with and the songs are already phenomenal. I’m definitely digging the song in a different way today, now that we’re rocking the songs together with the actual band. As a producer, I think the songs are genius. And I like that live versions are a bit different to get even wilder on the stage.

Karo: This tour places you in a very unusual and fascinating position, because you appear both as Aux Animaux and as part of IAMX’s live band. Does that double role feel liberating, challenging, exhausting, or energizing, and how do you shift between those two states of being on the same night?

Gözde: It was my choice to do the both shows so if it becomes physically exhausting then it’s only myself to blame. But it is only for this tour and a couple of summer festivals then I will be either with IAMX or Aux Animaux.

Karo: At EoNLY and on the current European run, audiences will see you inhabiting both worlds almost side by side. Do you see this as a special chapter for this tour, or do you imagine a longer future in which Aux Animaux and IAMX continue to grow alongside each other?

Gözde: I don’t know if I do more shows same night in the future as it’s quite intense for me. But I definitely am inspired a lot by Chris as a producer and a musician, and I learn a lot from him. Maybe we do a collab in the future if we get the time. We’re both pretty busy as it is.

Karo: Your story carries a strong sense of self creation, resilience, and artistic self belief. For women and independent artists who may be fighting through gossip, doubt, or resistance around them, what have you learned about staying faithful to your own path long enough for the right doors to open?

Gözde: Being a solo woman artist and musician has definitely struggles of its own. Not being taken seriously, not being given credit… I have been doing this for a while now and it still happens to me. Men who get rejected with their private forwardness, trying to mess with one’s musical reputation is definitely something I have had to deal with as well, which I am guessing doesn’t happen to a lot of male musicians. But I work hard and keep going and that’s the best thing you can do to fight off the negativity.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

(Interview by Karo Kratochwil) With Caught In The Throes, SKOLD returns with an album that feels feverish, lean, and emotionally exposed. In this new Side-Line Magazine interview, Tim Skold reflects on the narrative arc behind the record, the tension between persona and private self, the dark absurdity of AI, the freedom of solo work, and the long path from Shotgun Messiah and KMFDM to the raw intensity of his current material.

Sharp, honest, and characteristically uncompromising, Skold speaks about instinct, responsibility, collaboration, and why some songs begin as fleeting thoughts before turning into something permanent.

SKOLD interview

Karo: Caught In The Throes feels less like a collection of songs and more like one long feverish state of mind. When you were writing it, did you think of the album as a single narrative arc, almost like a monologue that never cools down, or did that sense of cohesion only appear once everything was recorded and sequenced?

SKOLD: I think of all the music I make under my name SKOLD as a single narrative arc but it is a fairly wide arch that allows me creative freedom to move and experiment. Some of the songs on “Caught in the Throes” were started up to a couple years ago while other songs were done very quickly in the weeks leading up to the completion of the album.

Karo: Pop The Smoke is about wanting to disappear, to just step out of the frame without making a scene. You have spent decades being highly visible in some of the most scrutinised bands in this scene. Is that wish to disappear a fantasy, a form of self-protection, or an honest reaction to where you are in your life and career now?

SKOLD: Both I guess. Songs like that aren’t exactly a final testament or carved in stone. Sometimes a song will be based on a fringe thought or feeling, even a fleeting moment can be “eternalized” in a song.

Karo: In All Humans Must Be Destroyed you play with themes of AI, identity and the end of humanity in a way that feels both dystopian and strangely playful. When you write something that absolute, are you documenting where you really think we are heading, or exaggerating a private misanthropy until it becomes cathartic and almost darkly funny?

SKOLD: Again, I don’t think one necessarily precludes the other. I can jokingly sing about something I am deathly serious about and vice versa. Regarding AI as a concept, yes, I think it is a complex game changer for the human population of earth.

Karo:The sound of Caught In The Throes is stripped to the bone. The drums are rigid, the guitars move in thick repeating shapes, the distortion feels very controlled, and there is almost no romantic texture. What were your non-negotiable rules for the sound of this record, and where did you allow yourself to break those rules and let chaos in?

SKOLD: Oh, I don’t analyze my work like that at all. I really am completely driven by my subconsciousness and emotions. That is what dictates what is written and I don’t really want to question it.

Karo:Your lyrics balance self loathing, swagger, black humour and vulnerability in a way that is instantly recognisable as Skold. When you write now, how clearly do you feel the line between Tim the private person and Skold the persona? Are there moments on this album where you felt you were revealing too much, or has that boundary been fading for years?

SKOLD: Yeah I think that blurred long ago. I obviously think of my lyrics as fiction and with that definition established I feel that I have the complete creative freedom to write any way about any thing. That doesn’t mean that it’s not a very emotional engagement. Sometimes I try very hard to obfuscate my original thought in language so as to protect myself from specific memories.

Karo:You have been the architect behind many different machines, from Shotgun Messiah and KMFDM to Marilyn Manson, Not My God and your production work for other bands. What is the one thing you can only say or do in your solo work as Skold that you could never really get away with in any of those other projects?

SKOLD: Of course there is a big difference in collaborative work from my solo stuff. I think the whole concept of working with other people is great and something I really enjoy. I would even say that I think I make a very good “team player”. When I work on my own stuff I am not concerned with what anyone else thinks or wants. I feel very fortunate to able to do both.

Karo:If you listen back to the early records, from the neon of Shotgun Messiah through the precision of KMFDM and the theatre of The Golden Age of Grotesque, do you hear a completely different person, or do you recognise the same temperament that is still behind Caught In The Throes, only with fewer tools and fewer scars?

SKOLD: I never approach collaboration with the mindset of trying to influence my way, style, sound or anything such. I’m sure people feel that they can hear my contributions in most if not all the work I’ve been involved in but that has never really been my goal. My journey through music has been very rewarding and I feel I have always honored every stop to the best of my abilities.

Karo:The title Caught In The Throes suggests being trapped in a process, maybe of anger, addiction, grief or creative compulsion. At this point in your life, what do you still feel you are in the throes of, and how do you stop that intensity from sliding into a cliché of the tortured industrial frontman after so many years inside this aesthetic?

SKOLD: Oh, to me being “Caught in the Throes” have very romantic overtones and a most of the torture is self inflicted, I don’t really blame anyone else for anything and take full responsibility. If anyone is thinking of my work as cliché, they are clearly not paying enough attention.

Karo:Your songs often feel engineered rather than just written, almost like machines built for a very specific emotional purpose. How do you imagine the new material will live on stage? Do you see the live show as a tight and controlled extension of the record, or are you hoping the tour for Caught In The Throes will be looser, more volatile and maybe even a bit destructive compared to the studio versions?

SKOLD: I never really consider how to perform something live while I work on music in the studio. That is a separate battle. I have recently committed to joining Marilyn Manson again so there will not be any time for me to try to put a tour together for this SKOLD album.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

(Interview by Karo Kratochwil) Statiqbloom is one of those projects I instinctively follow with every new release – whether it’s Fade Kainer’s own work or collaborations, like the excellent record with Blush Response. On the eve of the new Statiqbloom album The Casket Nest, we connected once again, and Fade agreed to answer a few questions about weight, restraint, and staying honest in a world that keeps burning.

Statiqbloom interview

Karo: The new Statiqbloom album The Casket Nest feels like a very concentrated statement : seven tracks, with a heavy focus on weight, repetition, and tension rather than constant forward drive. In the context of Threat and your work with Blush Response, what did you want to strip away this time, and what did you want to sharpen?

Fade: With The Casket Nest, I wanted to strip away any sense of comfort or predictability. Threat had a confrontational energy, the collaboration with Blush Response thrived on exchange and movement, but this record is more oppressive – sometimes slower, heavier, almost claustrophobic. I wanted to sharpen the sense of gravity, to let repetition, tension, and density carry more weight.

There’s also a darkness drawn from the world outside – the album is in dialogue with ongoing suffering, conflict, and human fragility that we witness daily. Harsh, grinding textures coexist with quiet, suspended atmospheres, creating a kind of reflective pressure, moments to feel both the weight of reality and the traces of memory within it.

Karo: In our previous conversations, you described each Statiqbloom release as a chapter tied to a specific headspace:  insomnia, relocation, survival. What personal or psychological landscape does The Casket Nestdocument for you, and where do you see it in the longer Statiqbloom narrative?

Fade: If previous releases explored personal survival or adaptation, The Casket Nest documents a more external and existential pressure – the imprint of suffering, war, and the collapse of certainty. Internally, it’s a reflection on what it means to bear witness to pain that is not yours, but still impossible to ignore. Psychologically, it’s about containment – the tension between chaos outside and the quiet interior moments where thought and memory persist. Sonically, the record mirrors this duality: harsh, oppressive noise and moments of stark density contrasted against quieter, more esoteric textures. In the larger STATIQBLOOM narrative, it’s a chapter of reflection, of holding weight and observing what remains after shock or confrontation.

Karo: The album text talks about “sound as substance: heavy, pressurized, deliberately restrained.” On a practical level, how did that idea shape your studio process? Were there specific production or mixing decisions where you consciously chose restraint over impact, or tension over release?

Fade: This record demanded that every sound feel like it had mass, almost physical presence. Harsh textures were treated as objects pressing into the space, while quieter passages became counterpoints – fragile atmospheres that create tension through their vulnerability. I deliberately resisted adding relief or ease, letting the pressure remain constant, letting discomfort coexist with reflection. In mixing and production, restraint became a tool: allowing a low drone to dominate a passage, letting distortion linger, and leaving space for subtle textures to emerge quietly between heavier elements. The result is a dynamic tension with moments of intensity punctuated by air that feels lingering, as if filled with smoke.

Karo: Tracks like “Salt the Flower” and its instrumental version seem to open a more ritualistic, atmospheric space inside the record, while still feeling dangerous. What role do those pieces play in the overall architecture of the album, and how do you decide when a track needs vocals versus when it should remain purely textural?

Fade: “Salt the Flower” acts as a breathing room within an otherwise oppressive sonic landscape. It’s quiet, esoteric, and atmospheric, yet carries danger in its fragility – like a memory under threat, or a moment of stillness in a world falling apart. Vocals anchor a track, provide focus, and create narrative weight, but sometimes ambiguity is more powerful. Instrumental versions or textural passages allow the listener to inhabit the tension, to feel the contrast between what is harsh and what is ethereal. The interplay between these extremes is central to the album’s architecture – it mirrors the push and pull of chaos and reflection, violence and fragility.

Karo: You’ve always balanced brutal, mechanical elements with unstable, almost ghost-like melodies. On The Casket Nest, did you find yourself pushing either side of that spectrum further – and did you ever catch yourself going too far into abstraction or too far into straight rhythm and needing to pull it back?

Fade: Yes. The brutal, mechanical textures are still present alongside slow movements, while melodic, ethereal elements have been distilled to fleeting, ghost-like traces. The tension arises in their juxtaposition – allowing suffocation by the density, then being suspended in the quieter, fragile passages. There were moments when either side threatened to dominate: the oppressive textures risking monotony, the melodic elements too fragile to hold weight. Constantly, I had to pull them back into place, ensuring that harshness and subtlety coexist, creating a dynamic tension that mirrors both internal pressure and the weight of witnessing external suffering.

Karo: The physical edition,  steel-grey vinyl, numbered, very limited,  and the Bandcamp community around Statiqbloom suggest a very intentional relationship with objects and with supporters. How do you think about merch and physical formats now: as simple carriers of sound, as relics, as part of world-building… or something else?

Fade: Physical objects become anchors, reminders that sound is something material, something to inhabit rather than simply stream. Steel-grey vinyl, limited numbering, and tactile design make each copy an artifact – something special, a vessel for the weight and tension of the record. These editions create a relationship with listeners. They allow the music to exist as both object and experience – something to be held, reflected on, and shared, a tangible counterpoint to the chaos and impermanence of the world outside.

Karo: Looking at the upcoming year, how do you imagine translating The Casket Nest to the stage? Are there specific pieces of hardware, visuals, or staging ideas you want to explore to make this material feel different live compared to previous tours?

Fade: Live, the record becomes immersive and more physical. Harsh textures press into the space, drones create weight and presence, and quiet passages allow listeners to sink into reflection. It’s about inhabiting the tension rather than observing it. Visuals will be minimal and shadowy, reinforcing the contrast between pressure and stillness.

Karo: You’ve often spoken about integrity in the age of algorithms and about Statiqbloom as “immersion, sound as a mirror.” With a new album, festival appearances, and collaborations ahead, what does that philosophy mean in practice for the next 12 months – in terms of where you play, who you work with, and how close you stay to your core community?

Fade: For me, it’s about presence and care. The project has always been about creating something where listeners can engage fully in spaces of reflection, tension, and immersion. The next year is about maintaining that integrity – choosing collaborators, venues, and contexts that respect the depth and weight of the work. STATIQBLOOM reflects both the outer and inner worlds of violence, fragility, and beauty. It’s about cultivating environments where attention, perception, and shared experience matter, even in the middle of a world of chaos and conflict.

About Statiqbloom

Statiqbloom is the post-industrial and industrial techno project of Fade Kainer. Kainer set up the project in 2013 after Batillus ended. Kainer later ran Statiqbloom as a duo with Denman C. Anderson from 2016 to 2020. The project is now based in Berlin and continues as Kainer’s solo outlet.

Statiqbloom debited with the self-released “Mask Visions Poison” in 2013, followed by “Blue Moon Blood” on April 28, 2017 and the EP “Infinite Spectre” on July 27, 2018.

Statiqbloom then signed with Metropolis for “Asphyxia”, released on June 7, 2019, and followed it with “Beneath The Whelm” on July 10, 2020. Kainer moved on with Sonic Groove for “Threat” on March 26, 2022 and “Kain” on March 8, 2024, then teamed with Blush Response for the Hands EP “Folding In” on April 25, 2025. Out now is “The Casket Nest”, released via Hands on March 6, 2026.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

(Interview by Karo Kratochwil)  Forty-five years after they first welded steel, sequencers and social tension into one brutal language, Die Krupps are bringing their industrial machinery back to North America. In spring 2026, the German legends will cross the U.S. and Canada with a full 45th Anniversary Tour, joined by special guests Ghostbells, to celebrate nearly half a century of sonic construction work.

The run picks up where last year’s shows with Ministry left off, but this time the spotlight is entirely on Die Krupps – a band that turned “metal and machines” from an idea into a genre. Expect a career-spanning set that taps into their early industrial beginnings, their metal-driven phase and the newer material that has kept their sound evolving. With the back catalogue now finally available on all major digital platforms, this tour underlines that these tracks are not museum pieces but a living, heavy and still uncomfortably relevant body of work.

From Austin to Vancouver, from New York basements to West Coast clubs, the 45th Anniversary Tour promises nights of pounding percussion, serrated riffs and that unmistakable Die Krupps chant-energy that turns a room into a moving engine.

Die Krupps Interview

Karo: Hi Jürgen Thank you so much for taking the time today. I know you’re in the middle of preparing tour, so I really appreciate you squeezing this in.

Jürgen: Hello

Karo: I know you are probably extremely busy, so let’s get straight to it. You’re about to take the 45 Years of DIE KRUPPS celebration across North America again. The first run already felt like a statement. What convinced you that this chapter still had more to say on American stages and that you needed to come back?

Jürgen: We hadn’t toured here in probably two decades before the Ministry tour we did last year, and the response from the audience was amazing. The reason we wanted to go back out on tour is because we want to make our fans happy. Also, I live in the U.S., so for me it’s an important thing to do. I feel like we haven’t really taken advantage of the fact that I’m based here and that we can actually tour here because we definitely have a fan base. The U.S. has been neglected for a long time, but that was mainly due to costs. Most European bands that tour here downsize. I’ve seen many over the years – Project Pitchfork, Covenant, and so on – and they don’t come over with the same kind of lineup they have in Europe because the costs are immense. Touring in the U.S. is more expensive: you need flights, work visas, which are crazy expensive nowadays, and the nightliner buses are a lot more expensive. In general it might be cheaper to live here, but for European bands touring is definitely more expensive. Since I live here I obviously don’t need a work visa, so that’s not a big problem for me personally. But bringing our crew over, bringing the band over, and getting all the gear here – my steel phone is usually in Germany – that all costs a lot of money. It’s not easy. I also never wanted to downsize the band. Whenever we had offers to play here the promoters would say, “Why don’t you use some local crew, some local musicians?” I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to tell people: “Sorry, we have a U.S. tour, but you have to stay home.” That’s not right, and that’s why we basically didn’t play shows here for a long time. When we got the opportunity to do the Ministry tour, that was great. The pay, when you’re not a headliner, is not so great, but in the end it was a very important tour for us to put our foot down again and make a mark. We are a strong live band and we went over really well. The fans loved it every night, we had an amazing audience, and the pictures I posted online speak a clear language.

Karo: An anniversary tour can easily slide into a “greatest-hits jukebox”. How do you build a setlist that honours the different phases of DIE KRUPPS and still keeps the feeling of urgency and risk that defined the band in the first place?

Jürgen: The setlist will probably differ slightly from the one we played in Europe, but not too much. There are a lot of songs that we should be playing, and we are playing the obvious singles and strong tracks: “Machineries of Joy,” “Fatherland,” “Robo Sapien,” “Vision 2020 Vision,” and so on. It’s not that hard to choose from our catalogue because there are a lot of good tracks that the fans love. But some tracks are not so well known in this country. For example, “Industrie-Mädchen” – we played that on the European tour, but we wouldn’t play that over here. Instead, we may pick something from Odyssey Of The Mind, because that was a very popular album here, maybe even the most popular one in the U.S. So we might choose a song like “Isolation Again” or “Scent.” It’s not that easy to switch out songs and keep the same kind of flow, because I really liked the flow of the set on the last European tour. Changing songs is always a little tricky, but we’ll manage. It will differ slightly – maybe three or four songs we might replace – and I’ll go with my feeling for what keeps the flow similar.

Karo: You mentioned living in the U.S. while the rest of the band travels over. After so many line-up shifts and collaborations, what does “DIE KRUPPS as a band” mean to you today? Is it a stable core of people, a certain way of working, a sound, or more of a mindset that survives regardless of who is on stage with you?

Jürgen: It’s very important who is on stage with you. There’s nothing more important. You have to feel right with the people on stage. The current line-up was great. For me, the feeling on stage with Ralf, Paul and Dylan was perfect. We had a perfect vibe on stage, a great time, and a clear understanding of how to work the stage. That’s very important. Between Dylan and me it was totally in line – we had no problem working the stage just the two of us. In the past I sometimes had the feeling that I had to work the stage more to compensate for others not contributing as much. It’s very important that you have a good feeling on stage. There are many angles to this, but for me as a performer it’s most important that I feel comfortable there. It’s my territory, but I share it, and when I share my territory it has to be with the right people. It’s like working a job in an office: you want the right team. You don’t want anybody who is creating friction or issues while you’re working. What happens in your private life is different, but when you’re on stage or on the job, you want to make sure you have the right people on board.

Karo: Your DIE KRUPPS work has always reflected industry, power structures and social pressure. When you perform songs like “Machineries of Joy,” “Metal Machine Music,” “To the Hilt” or “Fatherland” in 2026, which lines feel most disturbingly relevant today? Have you ever been tempted to rewrite or update anything, or do you prefer to let the original lyrics speak for themselves?

Jürgen: I wouldn’t rewrite them because they’re all still relevant. It’s not like humanity has changed a lot. I think our lyrics are more or less timeless. I don’t feel that any of those lyrics have really lost their dynamics or weight. I also wouldn’t want to change lyrics anyway. Those songs were written at a certain time, which may have been different, but they’re still relevant. I don’t feel like something like “Fatherland,” “Robo Sapien” or “To the Hilt” has lost any of its important meaning. To me it’s still relevant and nothing needs to be changed. If I felt we had written a song that is totally irrelevant nowadays, I just wouldn’t want to play it. But rewriting lyrics is not that important to me. Why would you do that, unless you’ve written a bunch of crap – like a lot of other bands have done – and then they still play it. So why change anything?

Karo: I also wanted to ask about the DIE KRUPPS EP that accompanied the European anniversary shows, Collision Course. It presents a very current, hard-hitting side of DIE KRUPPS. When you were working on those tracks, did you consciously think about how they would sit next to the ’80s and ’90s classics in the live set, or did you treat them as a separate chapter?

Jürgen: When I write music it’s always connected to the past as well – it comes from the same person. Certain ingredients of the music have to be there. When I approach music and we compose tracks, what comes out is always going to be DIE KRUPPS, and it’s going to be connected with the history. We have a broad history. When I compose a track there are usually pumping sequencers, heavy riffing guitars – all that stuff. It’s always going to be there. I wouldn’t try to open a new chapter by reinventing the wheel or reinventing DIE KRUPPS. Why do that? We have found our niche. We are DIE KRUPPS. We sound like DIE KRUPPS and nobody else does. So why change anything? What comes out of me is what DIE KRUPPS have always been. It’s a very easy process for these songs to weave into the whole DIE KRUPPS sound and style, because everything is part of it. On Collision Course, for example, the title song was written in 2001, so it’s 25 years old. I played it to some people – Ralf really liked it, the record company thought it was a great song – so I decided to rework it. When I pick out stuff that was written a long time ago, I usually give it a more updated sound: I work on the production and change it up a bit. But in general the outcome is always clearly DIE KRUPPS. I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel anymore. We did that with Stahlwerksymphonie back in the day and with the “Metal Machine Music” metal-and-electronics combination. Since then we clearly have our niche and a very unique style. That’s important.

Karo: Speaking of other songs – recently the DIE KRUPPS catalogue has been digitally re-released. What sparked the idea to revisit these DIE KRUPPS albums in this way?

Jürgen: There were many good reasons. The main one was that a large portion of the catalogue had never been released digitally. Our former record company missed out on that, and we decided we needed to finally get this material out. I’ve been getting lots of messages from people over the last ten years: “Why is Odyssey Of The Mind not online? Why is it not on Spotify? Why is Paradise Now not online?” And there were other releases, like the tribute to Metallica. I was asking myself: what the hell is going on, why have these important records never been released? So in the end I said: this has to finally be released. Since the back catalogue was available, we approached a new label and sold them the catalogue so they could finally put it out and give it to the fans. To be honest, that’s the most important part for me. I don’t want people to think we don’t care what we put out. It was always important to me to cater to the fans. It’s not like I do this for money. I do it for the fans, no matter how crazy that may sound. It’s very important that they get access to the music they like and love. It’s just as important as when we play shows: we want to make them happy and give them what they want so that everyone has a great experience. It’s the same with the records – I want people to be able to listen when they feel like it, not be wondering where they can get a record they loved and don’t have anymore. All those complaints I heard over the years – I’d had enough at some point. So that was definitely a big motivation.

Karo: It will definitely make a lot of people happy. Back to the DIE KRUPPS tour: on this upcoming run you’ll pass through Austin, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, Montreal, Vancouver and many more. Are there any North American cities that have become “characters” in the DIE KRUPPS story for you – places where the crowd, the venue or the local history add a special charge and make you think: this is exactly why we’re still doing this?

Jürgen: There are the usual hot spots where you know you’re going to have a big, great audience -Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and so on. But what’s really surprising this time are the Canadian shows. The pre-sales for those shows are very strong, which is interesting. I did not expect that when we were presented with the dates. I wasn’t sure if all those cities in Canada, between the east and west coasts – Edmonton, Calgary, etc. – would really carry the weight of the costs. But they do. They have equal or even higher pre-sales than places like New York, which is leading in the U.S. That’s really interesting. For me it’s not that I care more for certain cities than others. Whenever the show is great, it’s great. I don’t care whether I play in Austin, where I live, or in Denver or Calgary. I personally enjoy playing live to our audience no matter where it is. Of course it’s more fun the bigger or more enthusiastic the crowd is – smaller crowds can be very enthusiastic and make up for not being huge – but the city doesn’t really matter to me. We have connections with certain cities, of course – good fan bases in the obvious centres like Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Los Angeles – but in general I love playing all the places. There aren’t many I wouldn’t like to play. As long as the audience gives us a good vibe and good energy, I’m happy anywhere. I don’t want to cherry-pick cities.

Karo: One last question: once the anniversary dust settles and the last DIE KRUPPS U.S. show is done, where do you feel the creative compass pointing? Further into the metal-driven territory, more electronic experiments, more collaborations – or something completely different that fans may not expect? What’s the next move?

Jürgen: The next move is that the album is almost completed. The new album will be finished soon and then out a few months later. As I said before, the music is what it is: it’s DIE KRUPPS. It’s not more metal or more electro. We have our niche, we have our sound. It’s not going to be a “metal album” or an “EBM album” – it’s the combination of all elements that make DIE KRUPPS what we are. It has a very tight production, that’s what I can say. Besides that, we also have upcoming festivals in Europe, and then we have a European tour in the making. And then we have a European tour in the making – I’m not exactly sure when it will start, but the booking agency is working on it. Beyond DIE KRUPPS I do a lot of production work for Cleopatra Records. That’s my main job: production work. I’m working with a lot of big-name artists right now for a Deep Purple project, a Flamin’ Groovies project, and there’s an upcoming William Shatner project where he’s doing metal tracks. There’s lots and lots of stuff in the making. This machinery never stands still.

Karo: Thank you very much for finding the time. All the best!

Jürgen: Best to you. Bye.

Die Krupps 45th Anniversary North America Tour 2026

The Die Krupps run kicks off in Austin, Texas – Jürgen Engler’s adopted hometown – before rolling through major cities across the continent.

• 03/23/26 – USA – Austin, TX / Come and Take It Live
• 03/25/26 – USA – Houston, TX / Warehouse Live Midtown
• 03/27/26 – USA – Atlanta, GA / Garden Club
• 03/28/26 – USA – Greensboro, NC / Hangar 1819
• 03/29/26 – USA – Philadelphia, PA / Underground Arts
• 03/30/26 – USA – New York, NY / Gramercy
• 04/01/26 – USA – Cambridge, MA / The Middle East
• 04/02/26 – CAN – Montreal, QC / Theatre Fairmount
• 04/03/26 – USA – Detroit, MI / El Club
• 04/05/26 – USA – Chicago, IL / Reggies Rock Club
• 04/06/26 – USA – Minneapolis, MN / Fine Line
• 04/08/26 – CAN – Edmonton, AB / Starlite Room
• 04/09/26 – CAN – Calgary, AB / Dickens
• 04/10/26 – CAN – Vancouver, BC / Rickshaw Theater
• 04/12/26 – USA – Seattle, WA / El Corazon
• 04/14/26 – USA – Denver, CO / Bluebird Theater
• 04/15/26 – USA – Salt Lake City, UT / Metro Music Hall
• 04/16/26 – USA – San Francisco, CA / Great American Music Hall
• 04/17/26 – USA – Los Angeles, CA / Whisky A Go Go
• 04/18/26 – USA – San Diego, CA / Brick By Brick
• 04/20/26 – USA – Mesa, AZ / The Rosetta Room

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

(Interview and photos by Karo Kratochwil) Catching Bon Harris in the middle of Nitzer Ebb’s Europe 2026 run feels a bit like trying to grab a moving train. We spoke by phone on 24 February – EBM Day – in a rare quiet moment between shows, with Nitzer Ebb heading towards Frankfurt, where Nitzer Ebb would play at Das Bett the following night with SIIE as special guests.

For me, Nitzer Ebb is one of the groups that shaped who I became as a listener and as a person, so this wasn’t just another routine press call. It was a chance to talk with Bon about what it means to keep such a physical, influential band on the road in 2026, how they’re navigating loss and change after Douglas McCarthy’s passing, and why the next Nitzer Ebb chapter – including a completed new album that bridges past and present – still feels very much alive.

Nitzer Ebb interview

Karo: Hello, Bon, I just realized that we are meeting on EBM Day, so that’s quite accurate, I would say. So how are you? How are you doing in the middle of tour chaos? I’m just wondering how you’re feeling.

Bon: Very good. It’s obviously really challenging times at the moment, not just for Nitzer Ebb as a band, but for touring musicians and, well, everybody, really. I think the situation in the world at the moment is a little bit unsettling for everyone. But in the midst of that, you just get up and try and make the best things that you can and make the best of the situation. So, all in all, I’m feeling pretty good. I know there’s lots of challenges, but I feel like we’re meeting them pretty well.

Karo: I wanted to ask about this tour in a wider perspective, because you have played so many tours over the years. When you look at this current European Nitzer Ebb run, what does it feel like from the inside? More like a celebration, a test of endurance, a kind of audit of where Nitzer Ebb stands in 2026? How does it feel for you?

Bon: All of the above, really. It feels very much like a transition – because it still is. In many ways, there’s a feeling of transformation, that new things have to happen, which is always a good challenge. But there’s also an awareness that just because of the age we are, the finish line for Nitzer Ebb’s career is somewhere on the horizon. Whether it’s close or farther away, nobody knows yet. But at some point, nothing lasts forever.We’re aware of how old we are and the nature of our shows has always been so energetic and physical. We’re aware that we can’t do that forever. So I think for me, it feels like, at this point – because there’s been a lot of chaos and some fairly dark times recently – my main job is, wherever the finish line for the band is, to get the band across that line with some dignity and to leave people with some happy memories of the music and the shows.

A lot of the dark times came upon us so suddenly. I think it’s important for both ourselves as a band and for the audience to hear the music one last time and just enjoy the moment and maybe prepare to one day say goodbye. That’s the main job that I see that I have: for those people that still want to experience the music. Every night when we play concerts, there are so many happy faces out there that the music continues. I know there are some negative voices that don’t feel the same way, but the majority that I see at the concerts are really happy and thankful that the music continues and they get to experience it for a little while longer.So as long as that’s the reaction that I see within the audience, that makes me more determined to look after Nitzer Ebb until it’s time to put it to rest.

Karo: The Nitzer Ebb live set obviously leans on the songs that people know, and it would be very hard not to know “Join in the Chant,” “Murderous,” “Control.” These songs are iconic at this point. How do you keep those Nitzer Ebb tracks alive for yourself – for you and David? Do you treat them like fixed monuments that you try to deliver faithfully every night, or as material you can still bend, stretch, or maybe slightly corrupt on stage?

Bon: I think we’re always looking for ways to reinterpret them in some way and bring something new to them.You have to respect the audience, who’ve grown with those songs and lived with those songs for many years. So you don’t really want to change them too much, but you want to try and be creative within the limitations of the piece. It really helps that we change how we present things every so often. Previously we did more of an electronic presentation, and that helps keep it fresh. For this tour, again, because I’m aware of the age and where we are with things, I started to have the feeling that I wanted the most original members and original people in the lineup as possible, and also for this run to return more to live drums, because that’s where we started. A lot of my thinking on this tour was to go back to our roots. The fact that Front retired from touring and Tim Kroker was available in Europe was kind of perfect for me, because I’d been planning to reintroduce live drums into the set, and Tim’s such an amazing drummer that I think it’s really added a lot of depth and life to the whole thing.I’ve been singing quite a lot over the last few years of shows, but that’s still very new to me, and it’s a real challenge. I love singing. I obviously didn’t love the circumstances in which it came about that I ended up doing it for Nitzer Ebb. That was never the intention and, under the circumstances, not a job I would prefer if the situation was different.But nonetheless, we are where we are, and I do love singing, so I just try and do my best with the Nitzer songs and bring as much energy and true feeling as I can, because it does feel like that.In a lot of ways, we’ve had a lot of changes over the last years, and that in itself tends to keep things a little bit fresh.

Karo: This is something that I actually wanted to ask about as well. The passing of Douglas changed, I guess, a lot – almost everything – for Nitzer Ebb, for the fans, for the wider scene. When you step on stage now and those songs begin, how present is he for you in that moment?Does the live show feel more like a way of keeping a conversation with him going, or more like an act of handing the music over to the audience completely?

Bon: It does very much feel that he’s present. These are Doug’s words. Every single night when I sing, I remember us being in the studio and working on the songs and all the silly things that happen when you’re working together.In learning the lyrics for all of the tracks, of course we all know that Doug was an excellent lyric writer, but having to go that deeply into them really reminds you how excellent he was at writing lyrics and what a unique perspective he had.

Sometimes, as a singer, our voices are very different. My voice is a lot higher than Doug’s, so sometimes trying to capture something close to the mood reminds me how unique his voice was. I understand why people love it so much, me included.Overall, it feels like his work lives on. In some regards, both for David and myself, we were determined that it must live on. I think it would be piling too much tragedy on top to just stop.So I think that it’s very important that the music does prevail and his work does live on. That’s very important to all of us who are out on the road with Nitzer Ebb. He is very much with us in that regard and we feel that very deeply.

Karo: You also mentioned this physical aspect of the Nitzer Ebb music. You helped define a very physical kind of electronic music, something that attacked the body as much as it addressed the head. At the same time, you said you’re not getting younger. In a time when people often experience music through tiny phone speakers or algorithmic playlists, what does it mean to you to still insist on that body-first impact? Have you had to rethink how you write and produce, or does the principle remain exactly the  same?

Bon: I think the principle remains the same.Music historically is a communal pastime. Before electronic music, you had to have a group of musicians to make a band and you had to have a group of people; it performed a very social function in our lives.That’s still the true essence of music. It’s nice to have the private experience of listening to a record on your own and experiencing it, but for a lot of us, the true joy comes from live shows where you gather together, meet your friends, are in the atmosphere, feel the music for real and feel the energy.To me, that remains the main point of creating music in the first place: to get out there live and feel the energy of the people, to give your energy to the people and have them give it back to you. There’s no feeling quite like that.When I’m playing a show, that is the highest form of why music exists: so that we can all experience it together in the same place, in the same moment.

Karo: You also mentioned this role that changed because of the circumstances. I’m always thinking that from the outside, Nitzer Ebb looks like a single entity; from the inside, it is people, history and changing roles. How different is the way you communicate and make decisions now compared to the late ’80s or early ’90s? Are there habits that never really change, or is it an ever-changing matter?

Bon: The main thing that changes is that, as you get older, you just accumulate more and more experience.In the early days, we were so desperate to sound how we wanted to sound as Nitzer Ebb and to present ourselves a certain way and present a certain image. It makes you a little bit anxious and a little bit uptight until you feel that it’s right.Over the years, we’ve relaxed a little bit on that. We still have very high standards and a very clear idea of what we want to present and how we want to present it, but the act of creating it has become much more enjoyable because we’re that much more relaxed about it. Even in Doug’s final years, we worked a lot in the studio together, and to see how our relationship had matured and how much fun the creative process was – that’s the main thing that’s changed over time.The thing that never changes is the desire to be creative. I feel very much like myself, David, Simon, everyone involved with Nitzer Ebb was put on this earth to be creative and to say things in a certain way and to express things in a certain way.The importance for us to create music and express certain opinions and certain emotions through music is an instinctive force that’s with us as soon as we wake up in the morning, and that’s never changed.

Karo: The energy and the time you’ve spent active makes many younger acts in electronic and industrial music name you as a major influence. How do you relate to that idea of legacy or being a legend? Is it something that you consciously feel when you work, or is it more like a background noise that you prefer not to think about?

Bon: It’s something that you’re aware of. We had huge influences when we were starting, so I know what it means. I know what it means when you hear a band for the first time and it changes your life and you can’t get that sound out of your head.You really feel like you were meant to listen to that music, and it connects deeply with your life. It’s not just listening to records or going to concerts.

It’s something that’s in complete alignment with your spirit and your approach to the world.It was important for me and it was important for all of us in Nitzer Ebb when we had those experiences of watching a band that just blew our mind and changed the way we thought or finally made a connection that we hadn’t made.So I’m aware of it, and I’m quite proud of the fact that we’ve been able to do that for other bands. That is some of the point of touring and playing live shows: to hopefully inspire new generations and try and lead by example.I hope we’ve set a good example. If we have, and that inspired young people to do something creative – even if it’s not music, whether that be dance or whatever it may be – if the music empowers them to think, “Yes, I want to lead a creative life,” then that makes me really proud.

Karo: Going back to the Nitzer Ebb tour a bit: you have played everything from tiny, sweaty clubs to huge festival stages on this tour. Have there been any cities or specific nights where you thought, “Okay, this is exactly the kind of room and crowd this music was built for”? And what makes a room right for Nitzer Ebb – acoustics, chaos, precision, or something less tangible?

Bon: We’re so used to playing different venues and situations that we’ve learned over the years that everything comes from us, and we just deal with whatever situation we have. The tour’s still in its early stages – we’ve done three shows so far. What really amazes and pleases me is that we’ve played in very different environments on each of those three nights: different size crowds, different size rooms.But the energy has been consistent. It feels like a Nitzer Ebb show wherever it is. A lot of that’s down to the audience being really amazing and bringing great energy to the shows.It gives me satisfaction that we can almost go anywhere and bring a consistent level of energy that people can rely on and expect, and I think that helps them bring the energy in return.We’ve learned to be very flexible. Honestly, at this point, I’m just happy playing music. Wherever we have to play it and however we have to play it, I’m just happy to be doing it.

Karo: I wanted to ask about the new things coming up in Nitzer Ebb, but then you mentioned that this tour might be the last time for the fans to hear the sound, and that kind of got me off the beat. Are there any ideas or sketches circulating at this point toward a next chapter, or is this tour more about closing and consolidating a cycle? How do you feel about this?

Bon: This tour absolutely is not about closing. I’m only mentioning the final point of the career because you have to realistically be aware of that. We will keep going as long as we’re physically able to keep going. But you just have to accept, as anyone does in their life, even as a non-musician, that there are certain things you can’t do anymore as you get older. It’s wise to prepare yourself at least for that eventuality. Maybe the more you prepare yourself for it, the longer you continue, because you are aware of it and you’re not denying it. You’re keeping a completely open mind. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m saying, “Oh, this might be the last time.” There’s no intention to bring it to a halt.

There’s just an awareness that sooner or later that time will come. In the meantime, there is a complete Nitzer Ebb album written and finished. Because of how quickly things happened, there’s a lot of administration and technical things that we have to clear up and a lot of organization to be done, which is taking longer. It always does. You hope that these administrative things can be done quickly, but there are so many details. There’s a really strong collection of new Nitzer Ebb tracks. We’ve got about 15 or 16 to choose from, and we’ll probably choose somewhere around 10 for the album. There’s an album ready, and Doug sang on quite a lot of stuff. We were very conscious about staying productive in his final years. We didn’t know they were his final years at the time, but we were very conscious about being in the studio and recording good ideas as they came to us. I’m very glad that we did that. So there’s a good number of songs where Doug is singing and, in my opinion, some of his best lyrics ever – some really amazing stuff.

We don’t want it all to be about the past or about saying goodbye, so I’ve taken on some of the songs and written and sung those. There’s a mixture. The whole idea with the album is for it to be the best of one period, but also the beginning of a new period. I think it’s important to have that. There’s a slightly different sound to it, but to me, it all sounds like Nitzer Ebb. It doesn’t sound unfamiliar. If I’m singing on a track and it’s one of the songs done in later times, it all feels consistent and authentic to me. Obviously the audience will decide that for themselves, but as a creator, I’m satisfied that the new songs belong there with the ones that we previously recorded. That goes back to what I’m saying about the purpose of these tours.

There’s a really beautiful album almost ready to go. It’s written and finished in terms of being created; it’s just a case of clearing the way so that we can release it. I think it’s really important to release it. However many albums we go on to do, this one really needs to be heard by everybody. That’s what I’m putting all my efforts into – continuing touring and everything else, to keep things going so that we can release that album and, who knows, maybe many more afterwards. We’ll see. The immediate goal is to keep the touring lively and fresh. A lot of people’s response to the shows has been that it’s everything you would expect from a Nitzer Ebb show in terms of the atmosphere and the energy, but there’s a fresh, new energy to the whole thing. There’s a feeling of something new and a new perspective on it.That’s exactly what we’re trying to do. We all know that things can’t be exactly the same as they were, but there’s still a huge amount of creativity between myself and David and Simon. 

There’s so much life still within us. When I play the concerts, I see that there’s still so much life within the idea of Nitzer Ebb continuing to play live songs. There’s a lot of passion, a lot of energy, and a lot of great emotion from the audience and Nitzer Ebb, and it comes together in a really beautiful way when we play. We’re looking forward to being able to get the album done. We really wanted to play some of the new songs on this tour, but because there are still administrative things to be finished, we can’t really do it, and it’s frustrating. I really wanted this tour to be about new songs and new things, or at least to have some included. At the moment, huge things have happened to this band and we just have to continue to be patient and keep doing the best work that we can until we’re in a position to bring the new things out.

Karo: The way you describe it, it sounds like this Nitzer Ebb album will be a bridge between the past and the present, and I’m really curious about the content, about the things that you picked for this album. It really sounds interesting.

Bon: It is interesting. For obvious reasons, it’s a bridge between the past and the present. But also, the fact that it’s been – what is it now – 12 or 13 years since the last Nitzer Ebb album. Doug and I went off and did solo projects, Dave did solo projects, and we came back to writing new Nitzer Ebb material with so much more experience and a different perspective. It was amazing to see that. It’s the same band and the same people, but with a lot more depth to it and a lot more things that have happened in our lives. Every time I listen to the tracks periodically, just to check, it’s quite amazing. I’m really amazed that it happened and that the content is what it is. It’s wonderful that we were able to do it. I really can’t wait for people to hear it, because I do think it is a really interesting and unique album.

Karo: Is there any date for the release of this new Nitzer Ebb album set, or is it very wishful thinking to dream of it at this point in the administrative chaos?

Bon: I wish there was a date, and we’ve been working really hard to try and have one. I was really hoping that we could at least announce the release for this tour, but things take what they take Things are in progress and I have meetings coming up in the next month. I really hope at that point we can at least start to have a concrete date in mind and let everybody know when they can look out for it.

Karo: All right, so I’ll definitely be following the news feed. Okay, last question: when this current run of shows is over and people look back on Nitzer Ebb in a few years’ time, what would you most like them to remember? The sound, the physical experience of the gigs, the attitude – or maybe something more personal that rarely gets talked about?

Bon: Our commitment is what I would like people to remember. It’s a good lesson for anyone creatively that you are going to face challenges and you’re going to face people who are not into what you’re doing. Any creative person has to struggle not only to establish themselves as a creative person, but, unless you’re very lucky, it’s a constant struggle to maintain yourself as a creative person for a lot of different reasons – financial, emotional, spiritual. The fact that we’ve remained committed to our vision and have never really backed down from those challenges and have always been determined to continue – that’s what I would like people to remember: that we committed ourselves to our art and we stuck with it.

Karo: That was great, thank you. Is there anything important that we didn’t touch on? Any message for the people coming to the next show, or for those who have followed Nitzer Ebb through all these different phases, that you would like to share?

Bon: Specifically on this tour, I understand that there’s a lot of changes for the established audience to try and process and take on board. For the people that are coming to the Nitzer Ebb shows, from all of us at Nitzer Ebb: just the deepest gratitude that people are still supporting us, still coming to the shows and still bringing such amazing energy. We really want to thank everybody that does come to the shows and continues to support us. It really does mean the world to us.

Nitzer Ebb Tour dates 

• 25.02.2026 – Frankfurt, Germany – Das Bett
• 27.02.2026 – Gothenburg, Sweden – Film Studios
• 28.02.2026 – Stockholm, Sweden – Fållan
• 07.03.2026 – Dresden, Germany – Reithalle Strasse E
• 13.03.2026 – Berlin, Germany – Columbia Theater
• 14.03.2026 – Hamburg, Germany – Markthalle
• 03.04.2026 – Bremen, Germany – Schlachthof
• 04.04.2026 – Oberhausen, Germany – KULTTEMPEL
• 05.04.2026 – Utrecht, Netherlands – TivoliVredenburg
• 18.04.2026 – Żebbuġ, Malta – Dark Malta Festival
• 03.07.2026 – Halle Saale, Germany – Eastside Festival

More info at https://nitzerebbtour.com

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

(Interview by Karo Kratochwil) For many listeners, Wieloryb is one of the projects that proved Polish extreme electronics can hit with the same force and invention as anything coming out of Belgium or Germany. Formed in 1994 in the Trójmiasto area and first associated with EBM, the project quickly developed its own dialect – raw, physical, and confrontational – captured early on in releases like ‘1’, later reissued by Requiem Records and rediscovered by a new generation.

With ‘No Flag’ (Requiem Records), Wieloryb steps further into a hybrid zone where hardware-driven rhythm and industrial pressure meet generative processes and AI-assisted systems. The point is not to replace human intent, but to stress-test it – turning technology into a field of tension, and identity into a question mark rather than a banner. Below is a conversation with Paweł Kmiecik, the mind behind Wieloryb, about the early days of Wieloryb, rhythm as pressure, visuals as parallel language, and what “no flag” means in a world eager to label everything.

Wieloryb interview

(S+) You formed Wieloryb in 1994 in Trójmiasto and were quickly seen as one of the first Polish representatives of EBM. When you look back at the early days of ‘1’, ‘2’ and ‘3’, what do you feel you were reacting to—musically and socially—and how do you hear that material now, after the Requiem Records reissues gave it a second life?

Paweł: My strongest emotional attachment is to the Wieloryb album “1”, because it was created during an extremely intense period. It was a constant struggle. With equipment that was almost impossible to access. With unstable early electronic technology. And with a complete lack of understanding from the local scene.

At that time, punk rock dominated in Poland. Guitars, sweat, direct confrontation. We came with computers, drum machines and electronic generators. For many people, this was unacceptable. “The machines play instead of you” was something we heard constantly. We were outsiders. In that sense, it is very similar to how artists working with AI are sometimes perceived today.

Out of that tension we coined a slogan that defined us and deliberately provoked the scene: “We can’t play any instruments, and we are the best at it.” It was not a joke. It was a rejection of the idea that music must be validated by traditional instrumental virtuosity.

Today, I hear the Wieloryb album “1” as a document of raw intention. No strategy, no career thinking, just emotion and resistance. The Requiem Records reissues gave this material a second life and confirmed that what was once seen as a limitation was actually the foundation of Wieloryb’s identity.

(S+) Your sound has always balanced industrial grit with a very physical sense of rhythm. How did your approach to rhythm and texture evolve from those first releases to the new Wieloryb release ‘No Flag’?

Paweł: At the beginning, rhythm was almost disciplinary. Rigid, repetitive, functional. Over time, rhythm became physical rather than dance-oriented. I stopped thinking about groove and started thinking about pressure.

Technically, this evolution came from deeper work with hardware drum machines, analog generators and layered rhythmic structures, combined later with digital and generative processes. Conceptually, rhythm stopped being a backbone and became a field of tension. On No Flag, the music does not move forward smoothly. It pushes, resists and presses against the listener’s body.

(S+) ‘No Flag’ is described as a manifesto and as a world without flags, divisions, or clear borders between human and machine. What does “no flag” mean to you personally?

Paweł: “No Flag” is a refusal of simplified identities. National, political, cultural or technological. A flag is a shortcut, and shortcuts are dangerous.

This album is not about choosing sides. It is about stepping outside predefined frameworks. The border between human and machine is no longer a conflict for me. It is a condition. Emotionally, No Flag comes from exhaustion with narratives. Politically, it is a conscious refusal to be easily classified.

(S+) You treat AI and generative algorithms as something closer to a catalyst than a gimmick. How does that collaboration look in practice?

Paweł: First of all, AI does not replace traditional instruments in my work. Hardware synthesizers, electronic generators and drum machines remain the core sound sources. AI enters the process as an external intelligence that proposes structures, relationships and unexpected variations.

I allow algorithms to suggest forms, rhythms or textures at certain stages, usually early or mid-process. But meaning, selection and emotional weight are always human decisions. The machine can propose form, but it has no memory, no fear, no intention. That line is never crossed.

(S+) There is always a fear that AI flattens individuality. How do you prevent that?

Paweł: By never using AI in a neutral or “default” way. Systems are restricted, misused, forced into errors. I am interested in moments where algorithms fail or behave unpredictably.

Those errors are often kept. Glitches, instabilities, awkward transitions. Paradoxically, these moments feel more human than polished perfection. Identity is not produced by AI. Identity is the filter through which AI is allowed to speak.

(S+) The visual side of Wieloryb feels tightly connected to the sound. How do you design that dialogue?

Paweł: Sound and image are parallel processes. One does not illustrate the other. Sometimes a visual concept triggers sound. Sometimes finished tracks demand a specific visual logic.

Generativity plays a similar role in both domains. What matters is not style, but tension. The visuals and the music share the same energetic state rather than the same aesthetic vocabulary.

(S+) On ‘No Flag’ you create dense clusters of sound that hit both physically and emotionally. What are you listening for when building these structures?

Paweł: I listen to the body, not to meters. Of course I work consciously with frequencies, sub-bass and psychoacoustics, but the final decision is instinctive.

A track is finished when it becomes uncomfortable. When it applies pressure. No Flag was designed to be physically demanding, not aggressive, but uncompromising.

(S+) Wieloryb has always experimented with technology. What do you see as the next step in the human–machine dialogue?

Paweł: I am interested in autonomous systems that react to space, time and audience in real time. Not as a gimmick, but as a living component of performance.

For me, rhythmic noise is not a genre. It is a language. Technology is not a goal, but a medium for testing the limits of perception and control.

(S+) Finally, where will we be able to experience ‘No Flag’ live?

Paweł: This material works best in liminal spaces. Between club and gallery. Between concert and audiovisual installation. Places where the audience is not sure whether to dance or to observe.

It is not about the number of shows. It is about context. No Flag needs space to breathe and to apply pressure at the same time.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

(Interview by Karo Kratochwil) Johnny Tupolev recently released their debut album “The Best Unknown,” created in collaboration with producer John Fryer. The record presents songs built on contrasts between physical impact and emotional tension, and its title addresses the relationship between artistic value and visibility in the current media environment.

In the following interview, vocalist and songwriter Tom Berger from Johnny Tupolev explains the idea behind the title “The Best Unknown,” discusses his use of contrasts and contradictions in composition, and outlines his approach to lyrics and editing. He also comments on themes of selective blindness, social attitudes toward respect and education, and what growth means for Johnny Tupolev in the coming years.

Johnny Tupolev interview

(S+): The title of the new Johnny Tupolev album, “The Best Unknown”, feels like a statement and a provocation. At what point does “unknown” stop being romantic and start becoming a cage, and did that tension shape the record?

Tom Berger: Hey Karo, wow, first time someone is asking the right questions—it’s nice that you want to take a peek “behind the curtain”… The title “The Best Unknown” of our new Johnny Tupolev album is indeed meant to be provocative: Today, the quality and value of something is equated with popularity, manifested by clicks, likes, and followers. Manipulable, controllable, predictable. Art and music become arbitrary, degenerate into arithmetic tasks and are thus forced into rules that make it impossible to grow, to surprise, to cross boundaries and to develop further. Art is not measurable!

S+: A lot of these songs run on forward momentum, almost like controlled acceleration. When you write, are you chasing a physical response first (movement, adrenaline), or an emotional one (pressure, release), and how do you know when the balance is right?

Tom Berger: Well observed: my compositions are both, and alternately both: physical and emotional. Brutal and tender, loud and quiet, color and black and white. It’s the contrasts that interest me—and the challenge of bringing together something that supposedly doesn’t belong together. Do your feelings and emotions go on a roller coaster ride when you listen to my music? Then the balance is right!

S+: There’s a recurring theme of selective blindness — “the joy of not knowing,” buying dreams, refusing the truth. What scares you more: people being manipulated, or people choosing to be manipulated because it’s comfortable?

Tom Berger: That’s exactly the point: what scares me is the willingness to “look away” because it’s supposedly the easier path.
The reason is the brutalization of a society that confuses respect and education with weakness.

S+: Industrial rock can easily become a costume if it’s only about attitude. What’s the one thing you refused to compromise on to keep this album feeling lived-in rather than “performed”?

Tom Berger: I never asked myself that question—every song, every idea, every live performance first springs from an extremely clear, deeply physical attitude—conveyed by playing real instruments—and only secondarily by programming sequences. The Power of JT is real and comes naturally.

S+: Some tracks feel like they’re built from contradictions: punchy and bleak, hooky and hostile, seductive and abrasive. Do you write to resolve contradictions, or to keep them open like a wound?

Tom Berger: I have to smile—you’ve captured the essence of my music in just a few words—I’m impressed… Next drinks on me, Karo….

S+: You’ve got sharp lines that sound almost like slogans, but they hit because they’re bitterly specific. How do you edit lyrics: do you cut until only the blade remains, or do you intentionally leave some mess to keep the human fingerprints?

Tom Berger: Actually, I like to leave room to give the listener the chance to come to the same conclusion as me on their own. But sometimes I can’t resist the temptation and shout it right in everyone’s face: Shit doesn’t taste like chocolate. Full stop.

S+: If “The Best Unknown” is a debut that already sounds like a band with history, what part of your “past” is actually present here — scene, influences, personal scars, rehearsal-room chemistry?

Tom Berger: Well observed again: “The Best Unknown” is indeed also a “Best of”: the quintessence of my experiences, my influences, my points of view. Things I love and things I have loved. When I think about it, isn’t that what life is all about? Interesting, I’ll have to think about that some more…

S+: Looking ahead: what does “growth” mean for Johnny Tupolev? More polish, more danger, more vulnerability — or something else entirely that you haven’t shown yet?

Tom Berger: For Johnny Tupolev’s future, I wish to wake up every day, open minded, never tired of trying new things, of surprising others—first and foremost myself and ourselves. And in doing so, never to forget that we are also big kids—who, even today, are allowed to look at the world with curiosity and wide eyes.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

(Interview by Karo Kratochwil) Forty-five years is usually when bands turn themselves into exhibits: tidy eras, polished anecdotes, the safe glow of “legacy.” Ralf Dörper has never cared for museum lighting. Die Krupps’ recent European run proved it as a stamina test: five weeks on the road, crowds in the hundreds, and fans still traveling serious distances to catch a single date.

Dörper calls anniversary touring what it really is: editing. With “too much history,” cuts are inevitable – but not opportunistic. The set isn’t a streaming-stat mirror; it’s a deliberate choice, kept steady, even when a German deep cut like “Industriemädchen” lands abroad without translation or cushioning.

Where Die Krupps always lives, this conversation follows: discipline and abrasion, precision with teeth. Dörper’s core obsession remains “the quest for the perfect hook” – the kind that turns critique into something people can still shout back. And when Propaganda enters the frame, he’s just as unsentimental: anniversaries become product in the pop machine, memory becomes negotiable, and expectations are the real trap. Propaganda stays fluid by design; Die Krupps stays functional by necessity. A new Die Krupps album is confirmed for 2026, with the full back catalogue now digitally available for the first time. A true workshop.

Ralf Dörper (Die Krupps) interview

S+ Forty-five years is long enough to become a museum exhibit – unless you keep sabotaging your own comfort. On Die Krupps European anniversary run, what surprised you most: the audience, the band’s own stamina, or the way old material behaves in 2025?

Ralf: 45 is just a number – and it is the number of years which have passed since Jürgen Engler finished his punk band(s) – i.e. Male resp. Vorsprung – which was in 1980. So for me it was a 44-year anniversary since joining and recording “Stahlwerksinfonie” back in 1981.

With regard to the recent DIE KRUPPS tour the big surprise was its length and the endurance which we had developed. Approx. 5 weeks – a duration like that we had last in the 90s. But why not … as long as the audience numbers in hundreds and not dozens. So the other big surprise is that people still travel to see us when we play in their country…and this sometimes means big distances esp. in Scandinavia but also in France or UK where we played just the capital.

S+ When you tour an anniversary, you’re touring a narrative. Did you find yourself “editing history” on stage — emphasizing certain eras, muting others — or did you let the chronology stay messy and human?

Ralf: Due to covid we could not celebrate the 40 year anniversary for which we had plans to appear in special locations outside of the standard club circuit. And this time the anniversary of 45 years since foundation has been an additional factor as originally the plan was to coincide with the release of a new album. It was nearly finished but we weren´t quite happy yet – thus just two new songs in the set.

Due to “too much history” we always have to edit but we are not a cynical legacy act that mirrors its Spotify regional top twenty, i.e. before tour starts we decide on the set and keep it largely unchanged. So people outside of Germany had to come to terms with “Industriemädchen” which is our interpretation of a song by German punk band S.Y.P.H. from 1979 (of which I have been a member…; ).). All eras were covered with emphasis on the 90s – and the “Machinists” decade.

S+ Die Krupps have always had that tension between discipline and abrasion: precision with teeth. For the next album, are you chasing sharper minimalism, bigger impact, or a new kind of discomfort that the old templates can’t contain?

Ralf: The best Krupps songs feel like they’re engineered, not simply written. What is your current obsession in the workshop: rhythm architecture, vocal phrasing, sound design, or the lyrical “hook” that turns critique into something you can still shout along to?

It is always the quest for the perfect hook which from time to time is successful. So people keep shouting “Lohn / Arbeit “ “To the Hilt” or “Rammt sie”… and hopefully soon “Will nicht, muss!” or “Tu es” as well.

S+ Anniversary tours can turn fans into archivists. Did you notice any specific “misreadings” of Die Krupps’ legacy lately — things people project onto Die Krupps that were never actually your agenda?

Ralf: The only misreadings we might get from uninformed people are political. This peaked in Germany after reunification but is now a thing from the past. Our audience understands irony it seems.

 About the upcoming Die Krupps U.S. run: Europe and the U.S. often reward different kinds of intensity. Are you adapting the set and pacing for American rooms, or is it more interesting to bring the European “steel” as-is and let the friction happen?

As we recently supported MINISTRY on The Squirrel Years Tour all over USA/Canada we already noticed different kinds of receptions depending on state or city. But opportunistic set adjustments are not on the agenda. However we might replace some songs which are too much rooted in our European history. We might drop “Industriemädchen” and “Amboss” from the European “anniversary set”.

S+ The modern industrial landscape is crowded with polished aggression. Where do you still find something that feels dangerous in a productive way — and what do you think most newer acts misunderstand about that danger?

Ralf: I have absolutely no idea who those newer acts might be. The newest act which I discovered – in Germany – is GEWALT which is in no way industrial. I am not a follower of musical fashions.

Propaganda has a very different type of power: elegance, tension, intelligence that doesn’t need to shout. Without giving away plans you can’t share, what’s the most honest “state of the union” you can offer right now: quiet work, active writing, or simply keeping the door open?

Now as we talked about anniversaries there was a real one in 2025, i.e. 40 years since the release and the production of “A Secret Wish”. Being part of the Pop machinery means your work has acquired a certain worth for its owner who is not the band (different to Die Krupps where I own the master rights with Jurgen) but the licensee who changed over the years. It had been BMG for a while nowadays its Universal Records…and these labels use the anniversary dates to come up with a rerelease of a repackaged P-product. But what is very interesting is that due to the retro industry evolving over the years with own festivals and magazines we had a lot of promo activity, “we” means the Propaganda Abba-LineUp of the 80s doing separate interviews. And it is definitely very interesting to read how memories differ.

S+ You’ve spent decades moving between projects with radically different emotional temperatures. When you switch from Die Krupps to Propaganda mindset, what changes first: the rhythm, the language, or the way you allow vulnerability into the frame?

Ralf: Which is not true. But one might think so as due to the legacy of the PROPAGANDA recordings there might be constant reminders – by rereleases or compilations – that there is some activity (which is mostly passive). I started PROPAGANDA in 1982 after having vacated KRUPPS – and I left what was left of PROPAGANDA in 1990. Shortly after having done the “Machineries of Joy”.

The latest Propaganda release (2024) and its remix companion (2025) did not have a schedule. There might have been a beginning around 2015 and 2025 must not be the end.

Krupps is genre Propaganda is not. And Krupps is a band driven by commercial contracts which somehow defines the format and to a certain extent the content. I do not write steel workers love songs however there is the love for sweat muscles and bodies.

S+ If you could choose one sentence you’d like listeners to take into the next chapter — not as nostalgia, but as a forward-facing idea — what should it be, and why does it still matter now?

Ralf: Tempted to say: “Will nicht, muss!” But that is  not even a proper sentence…

S+ Looking ahead to 2026: if Die Krupps is the engine and Propaganda is the ghost in the circuitry – what can people realistically expect from each camp this year (new music, releases, specific live plans, collaborations), and what do you want the year to represent for both projects?

I would like to make it clear: PROPAGANDA is and was a project with ever changing agenda. For a while a project within a pop context and for a short while even adapting a band image. And the long hiatus was a necessity. Maybe PROPAGANDA is a duo nowadays but not a soft sell. And definitely not willing to jump on the retro bandwagon. So its better to have no expectations – but depending on next encounters things might happen.

On the other hand, yes KRUPPS is as a band part of the machine. There are cyclical changes in personell which is a reflection of the “business”. And as part of the business machinery a lot of schedules have to be fixed way ahead. So I can confirm that finally there will be an album release in 2026 while the complete back catalogue has been made digitally available now for the first time ever (!). There will be some live activity as well.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.