Nina Cording (Yendri) interview: ‘It’s just electronic music in any direction I like to go’
Yendri’s Nina Cording explains why the Hamburg project went quiet after “Bitter” in 2011, how Machinespirit differs, and whether reissues are possible.
Yendri
Yendri, the Hamburg electro and darkwave project of Nina Cording, has not released an album since “Bitter” on 26 June 2011. Across the previous decade the project put out eight studio albums on Matrix Cube and Rudy Ratzinger’s Mental Ulcer Forges, and Cording’s remixes appeared on record after record by :wumpscut:. Then the releases stopped.
In a new interview with Side-Line, Cording explains what happened after that, why she now works mainly under the Machinespirit name, and how likely it is that anything new appears under the Yendri banner. Her answer to the last question is short: “No, not really.”
She has not stopped making music, though. Machinespirit’s most recent track, “X26”, went up on 18 August 2026, nine days before this interview was published.
Yendri interview: Nina Cording on the quiet years
SL: Yendri was very active throughout the 2000s, but after “Bitter” in 2011 the project became much quieter. What changed for you around that time?
“It was harder to find a way to publish the music and I didn’t want to run my own label (like for example, Rudy Ratzinger, who runs his own label), and the project was too small to justify it. Also it has to do with the 2nd question.”
SL: You later released music under your own name and as Machinespirit. How do those projects differ from Yendri, both musically and personally?
“The difference is mainly that it’s not as dark anymore maybe. Still can be, but it’s not a ‘default setting’ anymore ;-), and only rarely with vocals. It’s just electronic music in any direction I like to go. Personally this also gives me more freedom.”
SL: Looking back at the Yendri catalogue now, which album or period still feels closest to who you are today, and which one feels the most distant?
“I think the later ones are quite close, from ‘Malfunction’ to ‘Bitter’.”
SL: You were always interested in programming, technology and electronic music. Has your work with technology changed the way you compose or think about music in recent years?
“Of course, making music is also a bit like programming and I like nerdy stuff. That’s why I switched to Reaper as a DAW later. There you can have some quirky configurations, but it’s also ergonomically challenging. Cubase, which I used before, feels much easier to use. But then, I also hated dongles very much and wanted to make music on the laptop without this thing blocking one of the precious USB ports (especially if you have an audio interface which doesn’t like hanging on a hub).”
SL: Do you still consider Yendri an active project, and is there any chance of new music, reissues, or previously unreleased material appearing in the future?
“No, not really. But there is a small chance of reissues, even though just a (literal) handful of people would even notice it.”
SL: How have have things been for you lately?
“The last year I was occupied fighting cancer, so I didn’t make much music. And then I spent much time with my mother who died in March this year. My therapy was successful so far and my hair grew back, but it’s curly now and I actually like it very much. I keep most of it out of social media, after all I’m a nerdy geek that’s not too much into social interaction ;-)”
About Yendri
Yendri is the electronic project of Nina Cording, based in Hamburg, Germany, and running since 1999. Its first appearances were on compilations that year, including Orkus’ “Goths’ Paradise III” and the “Bizarre 12” cassette, and the project’s catalogue kept a close relationship with the German compilation circuit throughout: Yendri tracks turned up on Depeche Mode, The Cure and Nine Inch Nails tribute sets between 2000 and 2001, on “Cryonica Tanz V.1” and on several volumes of Zoomshot’s “Schattentanz” and “Der Seelen Tiefengrund” series.
The albums began in 2000 with “Inhaliere Meine Seele Und Stirb” and “Breakdown Of Reality”, both CDs on Matrix Cube, which also issued “Fluch Und Segen” in 2003. From 2006 the project moved to Mental Ulcer Forges for a run of five albums: “Playdoll” (2006), “Malfunction” (2007), “Dreams Of An Undead Girl” (2008), “Broken World” (2009) and “Destination Oblivion” (2010). Several arrived with separate bonus download sets. The last two Yendri releases came in 2011, the “Cherry Blossoms & Samegame EP” on Audiomagnet and the fifteen-track “Bitter” on 26 June, which Cording issued herself.
Alongside her own records Cording built up a long remix credit list, most of it for :wumpscut:. Yendri remixes appear on “Evoke” (2005), “Cannibal Anthem” (2006), the “Body Census” and “DJ Dwarf Seven” releases (2007), “Fuckit” (2009), “Women And Satan First” (2012) and “Bulwark Bazooka” (2014), which means the Yendri name kept surfacing on other people’s records for three years after her own albums stopped. Rudy Ratzinger, who runs :wumpscut: and its Beton Kopf Media label, is the example she reaches for above when explaining why she did not start a label of her own.
Cording now records as Machinespirit, whose Bandcamp catalogue holds the albums “Yin”, “Yang”, “4 of those”, the “5XMU EP” and the archival “Subsonic I (1997)”, alongside a long list of standalone tracks including “Live your life” (2021), “Mellow 4” (2023), “FM8 Mallet” (December 2025) and “X26” (18 August 2026). It is, by her own description above, less consistently dark than Yendri and only rarely uses vocals. Yendri itself she now describes as inactive, with reissues the only opening she leaves.
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!
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