On This Track: Pop-Kultur Berlin Special
- Raven
- 2 hours ago
- 7 min read
Five artists we discovered during our first two days at Pop-Kultur Festival Berlin.
Pop-Kultur Festival is the kind of festival where it is difficult to leave with just one impression. Across our first two days, we moved between experimental performances, electronic music, dark pop, jazz, soul and artists who seemed to be working somewhere in between. Some sets were intimate and quiet, others turned the room into a dancefloor. There were performances that felt closer to theatre or film than a traditional concert, and others that reminded us how powerful a band can be with nothing more than a stage and an audience. This special edition of On This Track: Pop-Kultur Berlin Special is a selection of what we discovered along the way. These are five artists and projects that caught our attention during the first two days of Pop-Kultur Berlin: Eddna, Avalon Emerson & the Charm, VÍZ & Tekla Valy, Blake Harley and Toshín. It is by no means everything we saw. But these are five acts we wanted to look at a little more closely after experiencing them at the festival.
Eddna: »Equinox«
Elena Herrmann has been making music since she was a teenager, when she began releasing electroacoustic songs. Today, she works under the name Eddna, moving between experimental pop, performance and film. Rather than keeping these disciplines separate, she has gradually developed a practice in which they can become part of the same work. Her debut album "Cut in Half" was released in 2023 and brought international attention to her music. The album reflects an interest in sounds and structures that sit outside conventional pop, combining electronic elements with acoustic instruments and vocals. Herrmann's work has also been shaped by longer stays in Japan and a residency at Villa Aurora and the 18th Street Arts Center in Los Angeles. At Pop-Kultur Festival, these different parts of her practice came together in "»Equinox«". The commissioned work combines concert, film and performance installation, creating a piece that moves between different forms rather than presenting them one after another. Herrmann performs alongside Lisa Baeyens on flute and backing vocals and Tsepo Kolitsoe Pooe on cello, with film and stage design becoming part of the work itself. The idea behind "»Equinox«" is the search for connection and love. But instead of telling that story in a straightforward way, Eddna approaches it through atmosphere, association and imagery. Electronic sounds meet live instruments, while the film introduces natural forms and dreamlike images. There is a clear thread running through Eddna's work: music is rarely treated as something that has to stand alone. A song can become part of a film, a performance can become part of a larger visual environment, and a concert space can turn into something closer to a cinematic experience. That makes "»Equinox«" a natural extension of what Herrmann has been developing since "Cut in Half" - an artistic practice where experimental pop is only the starting point, and where sound, image and performance are allowed to shape each other.
🎧 Stream “Cut in Half” on Apple Music
Avalon Emerson & the Charm
Avalon Emerson has spent much of her career refusing to stay in one place musically. She came out of San Francisco’s warehouse scene, moved to Berlin in 2013 and became known internationally as a DJane whose sets could move from house and techno to disco, New Wave and less obvious corners of dance music without settling into one formula. But DJing is only one part of what Emerson has been doing in recent years. In 2023, she formed Avalon Emerson & the Charm and began exploring a more direct form of songwriting. Their self-titled debut marked a shift from the dancefloor towards indie and electronic pop, with Emerson still finding her way into her own voice as a singer and songwriter. The band's second album, "Written into Changes", feels more assured. Released this year on Another Dove, the label Emerson runs with Nic Tasker of AD 93, it moves between abrasive electronic passages and much quieter, stripped-back songs. There is a clear connection to the freedom of her DJ sets, but the focus has shifted. Instead of constantly moving between other people's music, Emerson is now building the songs herself. That transition is interesting because it doesn't feel like a reinvention for the sake of it. Songwriting seems to have become another natural part of the way Emerson thinks about sound. The album can be energetic and restless, but it can also leave plenty of space around her voice. There is a sense of movement running through "Written into Changes". Emerson has never seemed particularly interested in repeating herself, and the album continues that approach in a different format. Electronic music, indie songwriting and pop sensibility can exist alongside each other without needing to be separated into neat categories. Her own description of the album is perhaps more revealing than any genre label: “I feel so blessed to have this life on Earth, and therefore I should make the most of it.” It is a simple thought, but it fits an artist whose career has been built around following her curiosity rather than staying with what is already familiar.
🎧 Stream “Written into Changes” on Apple Music
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VÍZ & Tekla Valy - “I WILL NOT DISAPPEAR IN YOUR FEARS”
What happens when folklore stops being something from the past and starts behaving like a living memory? For VÍZ (Réka Csiszér) and Finnish artist Tekla Valy, traditional stories become the starting point for something much less familiar. Their work draws on Székely-Hungarian and Finnish folklore, but rather than recreating these traditions, they use them to explore memory, fear, instinct and the subconscious. “I WILL NOT DISAPPEAR IN YOUR FEARS” moves between music, moving image and theatrical installation. Forests become living beings, houses seem capable of remembering and childhood games take on the character of rituals. Voices emerge from darkness and fog, while fragmented images make it increasingly difficult to tell what is actually happening and what might only be imagined. Horror is an important part of that atmosphere, but the work is not simply interested in frightening its audience. VÍZ and Valy approach folklore as something psychological: a place where inherited fears and desires can still surface in the present. That makes the performance feel closer to a dream than a conventional concert. There are elements of opera, ritual and film, but none of them completely explain what is happening. Instead, they overlap until the boundaries between them begin to disappear. At Pop-Kultur Festival, that uncertainty became part of the experience. The audience wasn't simply watching a performance from a distance. The freely accessible space allowed the work to unfold around them, turning the room itself into part of its strange, shifting world. VÍZ and Tekla Valy show what can happen when folklore is treated not as nostalgia, but as something that is still alive and perhaps still living inside us.
🎧 Stream “VÍZ” on Apple Music
Blake Harley
Blake Harley's music sits somewhere between the dancefloor and the darker side of pop. Living between Berlin and London, the musician combines post-punk with Dark Pop, synthwave, Goth and the sound of Berlin's industrial clubs. The result feels familiar without sounding like a simple throwback. There is plenty of nostalgia in Harley's influences. The Cure, Joy Division, Xmal Deutschland, Boy Harsher and Siouxsie and the Banshees all point towards a certain kind of dark, melodic music. But Harley uses those references as a starting point rather than trying to recreate them. Her songs deal with longing, vulnerability and an attraction to darker emotions, while still leaving room for something more playful. That combination is particularly noticeable in tracks such as “Extreme”, where melancholy and club energy sit next to each other instead of pulling in opposite directions. Harley's first EP, "happy tears", was followed by the self-titled "BLAKE HARLEY" in 2025, released through Duchess Box Records with support from Musicboard Berlin. She has since played as a support act for artists including Gwen Dolyn, Lobsterbomb and Naked Cameo, building towards her debut album, which is scheduled for release at the end of 2026. There is something fitting about Harley's music coming out of the Berlin scene. Her sound has the coldness and atmosphere associated with dark wave, but there is also a clear pop instinct underneath it. The songs are made to be felt on a dancefloor as much as listened to alone. At Pop-Kultur, Blake Harley represents a side of Berlin's current music landscape where post-punk nostalgia, electronic production and contemporary pop can comfortably exist in the same song. Dark music doesn't have to be solemn. Sometimes it is simply music you can dance to while feeling everything at once.
🎧 Stream “happy tears” on Apple Music
Toshín
Toshín grew up in Dundalk, Ireland, after being born in Nigeria, and started singing in a church choir. It was there that she found her way into music, long before Soul, R&B, Funk and Afropop became the mix she performs today. Her influences give some idea of that range. Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin are part of her musical background, as is the unmistakable energy of James Brown. But Toshín doesn't sound like she's trying to recreate any of them. Her own songs bring those influences together with African elements and stories drawn from her own life. Storytelling sits at the centre of what she does. Her songs deal with personal experiences, identity and empowerment, but there is plenty of room for rhythm and movement, too. Funk gives the music its drive, while Soul and R&B leave space for her voice to take over. She has already shared stages with Gregory Porter, Macy Gray, Madness and Tank and the Bangas and performed at festivals including Electric Picnic and All Together Now. These days, she is based in Berlin and performs with her band, Toshín & The Teleporters. That move to Berlin feels like another chapter rather than a change of direction. Toshín can play a small club just as well as a festival stage, with the band giving her music enough space to become something bigger in a live setting. There is a lot of experience behind Toshín's music, but it never feels overly complicated. A strong voice, a good groove and a story are often enough to pull people in. And perhaps that's what makes her such an easy artist to connect with: you don't need to know where every influence comes from before the music starts making sense.
🎧 Stream “Toshín” on Apple Music
These five artists are only a small part of what we encountered during our first two days at Pop-Kultur Festival. From experimental sound and visual performance to dark pop, electronic music and soul, the festival kept changing its shape from one room to the next. There is still much more to discover. And that is probably one of the best reasons to keep looking.
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