Das Ich co-founder Bruno Kramm dies at 58 after Granada concert
Bruno Kramm, co-founder of German dark wave band Das Ich, has died at 58, hours after the band’s September 25, 2026 concert in Granada, Spain.
Bruno Kramm
More then shocking and extremely sad news this morning. Bruno Kramm, co-founder and keyboardist of German dark wave and gothic-industrial band Das Ich, died on September 26, 2026, hours after the band performed in Granada, Spain, the previous night. Bruno Kramm was only 58. The news was confirmed on the Das Ich Facebook page.
Bruno Kramm is survived by his wife and two children. The entire Side-Line team expresses its heartfelt condolences to Bruno’s family and friends.
Bruno Kramm dies after Das Ich concert in Granada
Das Ich played Sala Planta Baja in Granada on September 25, its first concert in southern Spain. Kramm collapsed after the show and emergency responders were unable to revive him. Spanish police classified the death as natural and opened no investigation. The exact circumstances beyond that have not been confirmed.
The Granada date followed a Spanish run that took Das Ich to Barcelona’s Sala Upload on September 11 and Madrid’s Sala Nazca on September 12, in support of the band’s 2025 album, “Fanal”, as Side-Line reported in August. Whether a previously announced November 7 appearance at Vienna’s Schattenwelt Festival will go ahead has not been addressed by the band or its label.
Tributes from musicians and collaborators
Granada promoter Distortiongirl Eventos confirmed the death in a statement: “Bruno Kramm, member of the band Das Ich, passed away after his concert in Granada. Unfortunately we could do nothing for him.”
Sven Hegewald, a close collaborator of Kramm’s through Danse Macabre Records, described the loss in a statement carried by multiple German outlets: “Last night, a big part of the scene – and a huge part of my own life story – is gone.” Hegewald asked fans and press to give Bruno Kramm’s family privacy while further details are confirmed.
Tom Shear of Assemblage 23 wrote on September 26: “Shocked and saddened to hear about the untimely passing of Das Ich’s Bruno Kramm. He was not only an extraordinarily talented guy, but also a very humble and kind-hearted one. I can’t imagine what his band-mates and loved ones must be feeling right now. 58 is too young by any metric. RIP”
VNV Nation’s Ronan Harris, in a post that drew more than 3,000 reactions, wrote: “I’m really saddened to hear of the passing of Bruno Kramm. I want to express my sincerest sympathies to his friends and family and Das Ich fans who are undoubtedly deeply upset by the news. I’ve known Bruno since the 90s, had many a universe bending conversation with him and found him to be a larger than life unique spirit who danced to his own tune and who I always looked forward to running into. He will be missed.”
Thorsten Quaeschning of Tangerine Dream and Picture Palace Music wrote: “Through his music, Bruno helped shape the German music scene, particularly the darkwave and gothic scene, over several decades. He was also deeply involved in politics, with both the Green Party and the Pirate Party, serving for a time as the latter’s Berlin chairman. He was someone who spoke his mind and took an active part in the world around him. Many years ago, I even released a single on his label, Danse Macabre. I fondly remember the wonderful days during WGT 2018 in Leipzig. We spent so much time sitting on the benches outside the hotel where we were both staying. Those memories are especially close today. During the pandemic, we began working on a piece together as a YouTube collaboration. We took turns uploading videos of our musical contributions, each responding to what the other had played and developing the piece further. […] Sadly, we never finished it.”
Oberer Totpunkt, signed to Danse Macabre since 2008 and a support act on Das Ich’s 2019 and 2024 US tours, wrote in German: “In deep mourning for our friend Bruno Kramm. Since he signed us, OBERER TOTPUNKT, to his label Danse Macabre Records in 2008, a special connection has stayed with us – as a musician, companion, supporter and, above all, a friend. […] Just three days ago we spoke on the phone about our new album, music, plans, and his Spain tour and Granada. We never imagined it would be our last conversation. For us, Bruno will always be the man with the broad smile who greeted us at our first meeting, in a very Bavarian accent, with: ‘Hello, I’m Bruno.'”
Cat o’ Nine, signed to Danse Macabre in 2010 for “Butzemann,” wrote in German: “It’s incomprehensible. Above all, it’s hard to find words right now, because the shock runs deep. […] I was just telling Cat that I can still hear Bruno’s voice, that positive and likeable person we never got to meet in person, right up to today. […] Bruno always had an open ear.”
Ton:Fehler wrote in German: “We are deeply saddened by the death of Bruno Kramm. We will miss his warm, open manner and his warmth. The great enthusiasm with which he lived for music connected many of us with one another, inspired us, and left a lasting impression.”
Glass Apple Bonzai recalled being signed to Danse Macabre in the late 2000s under an earlier band name: “Back in the late 2000’s Bruno signed my old band Defence Mechanism to his label Danse Macabre and we talked through e-mail for quite some time and he actually mastered our 2010 album ‘Invasion of the Robot Brains from Planet Zero’ and it sounded amazing. At the time he tried quite hard to get Defence Mechanism some recognition in Germany and other parts of Europe as he genuinely believed our album was good. […] Thank you, Bruno. If there’s another side I’ll see you there.”
Athamay wrote: “When I first started writing songs in the early 90s that would go on to become the first Athamay album Das Ich had such an influence on the sound/songs, I listened to Satanische Verse and Die Propheten on loop. It’s hard to believe that Bruno is gone.”
Norwegian musician Frode Hindrum wrote: “I only met you a couple of times but every time you were super kind and friendly. […] Your influence in our dearly beloved dark scene has been immense; your charm and charisma was contagious because you could always lighten the mood in a room.”
Séba Dolimont of Alfa Matrix wrote: “I met Bruno so many years ago, when he handed me the very first DAS ICH tape and asked for help to get his music heard beyond Germany. From that moment on, we stayed in touch over the years, sometimes more closely, sometimes from a distance, but always with a strong mutual respect and genuine care. […] And I will always smile remembering how much he enjoyed practising his French whenever we talked.”
M’era Luna festival wrote in German: “A fixed star of the dark universe has left us. We can count ourselves fortunate to have run festivals at the same time that Bruno Kramm was helping shape the musical world around us. How much narrower would our horizon be without Das Ich, what would our record collections be without Danse Macabre Records, how much poorer our whole subculture?”
Amphi Festival, where Das Ich played seven times, wrote in German: “We were able to accompany Bruno over many years and welcome him again and again on our Amphi stage. Das Ich took the Amphi Festival stage seven times. […] Bruno was a personality: stubborn, passionate, loving, creative, and always completely himself.”
Das Ich’s most recent work: ‘Fanal’
Kramm co-founded Das Ich in Bayreuth, Germany, in 1989 with singer Stefan Ackermann, and the band released “Fanal” in October 2025 through Danse Macabre, the label the band founded the same year it formed. Side-Line’s review at the time called it the band’s first new album in almost 20 years, following 2006’s “Cabaret.” The album was preceded by the singles “Lazarus” in August 2025 and “Brutus” in September 2025. Kramm discussed the band’s approach to the album in a February 2026 interview with Side-Line.
About Bruno Kramm
Bruno Kramm was born on October 13, 1967. In 1989 he met singer Stefan Ackermann at the Bayreuth nightclub Crazy Elephant, and the two formed Das Ich the same year. Kramm took on keyboards, synthesizers, programming and backing vocals, while Ackermann wrote the German-language lyrics and sang lead. The duo became one of the founding acts of “Neue Deutsche Todeskunst” (New German Art of Death), a scene that paired electronic music with gothic, industrial and classical elements.
Das Ich’s debut EP, “Satanische Verse”, began as a 1990 demo tape before its official release in 1991. Unable to find a label willing to release the band’s debut album, Kramm founded his own label, Danse Macabre Records, that same year to put out “Die Propheten.” Danse Macabre Records went on to release records by numerous other gothic and alternative artists, many produced by Kramm himself.
Das Ich’s catalogue grew through the 1990s and 2000s with the albums “Staub” (1994), “Egodram” and “Morgue” (both 1998), the remix collection “Re-Laborat” (1999), “Anti’christ” (2002), the compilation “Relikt” (2003), “LAVA:Glut” (2004) and “Cabaret” (2006). The lineup changed repeatedly around its two founders: drummer Daniel Galda (1994-1999), Chad Blinman (1994-1996), Jakob Lang (1998-1999), Michael Schmid (1999-2000), Damian “Plague” Hrunka (2000-2008) and Kain Gabriel Simon (2000-2006, and again in 2016) all passed through the group. Stefan Siegl, known as Sissy, joined in 2006, and keyboardist and backing vocalist Martin Söffker joined in 2008; both remained with the band through its most recent lineup.
Beyond Das Ich, Kramm released the solo album “Coeur” in 2000 and, in 2023, the AI-themed “Die Schöpfung und andere Kurzgeschichten”, which paired dark wave production with spoken-word narration exploring, in his words, a machine “recognizing humanity as its creator.” He remixed other artists’ work, including a track for dark wave band The Guests, founded the German goth club night Generation Gothic, and wrote for the now-defunct music magazine Zillo.
In 2016, Kramm and Ackermann won a lawsuit against the German performing rights society GEMA. The Berlin Regional Court ruled that GEMA could not distribute royalty payments to publishers on works where the publisher held no genuine claim to them.
Das Ich did not release another studio album after “Cabaret” for nearly two decades. Work on what became “Fanal” began during the COVID-19 pandemic but stalled for years afterward, which both members have described as a turbulent period. The album finally arrived on October 28, 2025, on Danse Macabre Records, preceded by the singles “Lazarus” and “Brutus.” In a February 2026 interview, Kramm described the band’s original goal as trying to “denazify the German language” by reclaiming it for expressive, artistic use after decades of association with Schlager music and wartime propaganda.
Kramm was also active in German politics. He joined the Pirate Party of Germany around 2010. He served as the party’s federal commissioner on copyright policy and as its political director in Bavaria. He stood as a candidate in European and federal elections and led the party’s list in Berlin’s 2016 state election. After a weak result there, he stepped down as Berlin state chairman, left the Pirates and rejoined Alliance 90/The Greens, a party he had belonged to earlier in his life.
Kramm lived in Werder (Havel), near Berlin, with his German-Finnish wife and their daughter and son, in a house that also contained his recording studio. Das Ich had played three Spanish dates in September 2026, in Barcelona, Madrid and Granada, with a further date planned for Vienna’s Schattenwelt Festival on November 7. Kramm died in Granada on September 26, hours after the band’s show there.
Support Side-Line
More people read Side-Line than ever, and there is still no paywall and no advertising. Readers pay for it instead - from $5 a month.
Why we ask
Advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news organisations we have not put up a paywall, and we refuse to add annoying advertising, so we need to ask for your help. Side-Line’s independent journalism takes time, money and hard work to produce, and we do it to push the artists we like, who are equally fighting to survive.
Handled by PayPal.
Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!
