A conversation about cultural ownership, collaboration and why “the source matters” By the time Ria Boss stepped into the audience at the Palais of Kulturbrauerei, the distance between stage and crowd had almost disappeared. Models moved between the people, wearing contemporary designs made in Ghana from traditional fabrics. They danced, sang along and became part of the performance. Behind them, visuals shifted from distorted images that evoked Ghana into abstract forms. On

Dreamy guitars, honest feelings and the memories behind Sesame Girl’s new EP Interview Feature There’s something very personal about the way Sesame Girl write. Their new EP, "Butterfly Wing in a Silver Locket", holds onto memories, friendship, insecurity and love without trying to make any of them bigger than they are. Instead, the Australian band lets those feelings sit alongside dreamy guitars, fuzz and softer moments, giving the songs enough room to breathe. Photo credit:

Album Art by Dummy This week’s Artist of the Week is Dummy. The Los Angeles band are entering a new chapter with "do you love the color of the sky?" (out 16th of October), their first album for Polyvinyl Record Co. and their follow-up to 2024’s "Free Energy". Where that record drew from the optimism of Madchester and rave culture, the new album moves into a more uncertain space, bringing together post-rock, drone and bright pop influences without losing the restless character

Distorted guitars, restless synths and a song that somehow manages to put everything in the same room. Artist Feature | New Release “Full Spectrum Dominance” doesn't ease you into Dummy's new era. It starts with distorted guitars, then immediately puts a synth pattern right at the front of the mix. The pattern keeps returning throughout the song, almost like an anchor, while everything around it continues to change. Site note: I initially heard far more synthesizers in this t

Heavy riffs. Dark atmosphere. No wasted moments. Editorial Review | Partner Feature When "The Walls Breathe" begins, EPTA7 doesn't waste any time. The opening guitar riff comes in almost straight away, followed by heavy drums, breathing sounds and dark synths sitting underneath everything else. It's loud. It's dark. And within a few seconds, I already wanted to hear that riff again. Photo by EPTA7 That's really what carries the whole track. Every time it comes back, it gives

Thirty Years Later, the Underground Still Speaks Sorry About Your Daughter live at Wild at Heart Berlin marked the band's long-awaited return to Germany, three decades after their last tour. The Washington, D.C. quartet arrived in Kreuzberg not simply to revisit the past, but to see how songs written in the 1990s resonate with a Berlin audience in 2026. Photo by Sorry About Your Daughter A Venue That Never Pretends Wild at Heart Photo by Indienoxzine Sorry About Your Daughter

Memory, Time and the Music We Carry With Us In 2001, at fifteen years old, I stood inside Berlin's Velodrom watching Marilyn Manson perform one of the most unforgettable concerts of my life. The show was chaotic, theatrical and larger than reality itself. Manson arrived late, wore extravagant costumes and transformed the stage into a spectacle that felt almost unreal. Twenty-four years later, I found myself standing in Berlin again, this time inside the Columbiahalle. Manson

On attention, visibility and cultural resistance in the platform age Editorial Review | Partner Feature Political music often struggles with a familiar problem. The stronger the message becomes, the easier it is for the music itself to disappear behind it. Panda Clan largely avoid that trap. On "Leave Your Shit Out Of My Brain", the Milan collective use electronics, dub and metal not simply as vehicles for political commentary, but as tools for creating tension, unease and co

The Art of Remaining Two I’m Not a Blonde on partnership, privacy and creative coexistence Editorial Interview | Partner Feature In our review of "11 (The Art of Being a Couple)", we described the album as a record built around coexistence rather than fusion: a collection of songs navigating the space between intimacy and individuality, structure and vulnerability. While the album itself explores these tensions through sound, language and repetition, the creative process behi

The questions nobody escapes. Because music is never really just about music. This first edition of The Thing About Us #1 brings together Alex Amen, Sylvan Esso, Graham Hunt, Carlotta Schmidt and The Healing Power of Horses, five artists wrestling with the same persistent questions: Who are we becoming? What do we hold onto? And what happens when certainty disappears? People spend an alarming amount of time pretending. Pretending to know where they're going. Pretending to hav

On rhythmic electropop, emotional coexistence and the tension between minimalism and vulnerability Editorial Review | Partner Feature With "11 (The Art of Being a Couple)", I’m Not a Blonde approach relationships less as emotional fusion and more as a continuous negotiation between two distinct identities. Rather than presenting love as the disappearance of individuality, the Milan-based duo frames intimacy as coexistence: unstable, reflective and constantly shifting between

From acoustic vulnerability to festival-sized pop moments, Tyler Shaw’s Berlin debut balanced precision with intimacy. An Evening Built on Intimacy Some concerts are designed for scale. Others gain their strength from proximity. At LARK, intimacy shapes the evening long before the headliner enters the stage. Situated near the Spree and framed by warm light reflecting through the venue, LARK transforms live music into something deeply personal. It never feels distant. It feels

A Space That Doesn’t Need to Explain Itself SO36 is not full on this night. But it doesn’t need to be. What matters is not density, but alignment. As part of his first European headliner tour, Ryan Cassata arrives in Berlin with a body of work shaped as much by activism as by music. For over a decade, his career has moved between performance and public visibility, grounded in queer and trans representation that extends beyond the stage. In a space like SO36 - defined by its h

Interview Feature With "Above Chaos" set for release on May 8, 2026 and the start of their first extended headliner tour, Bird's View enter a phase that moves beyond early momentum into structural reality. What might appear as a milestone moment; a new album, a tour across Germany and Austria; also reflects broader tensions within independent music: between expression and economics, visibility and substance, energy and sustainability. Photo by Bird's View Rather than treating

Interview Feature Independent music has long functioned as a space where personal experience becomes part of collective expression. In recent years, conversations around mental health, body image and recovery have increasingly entered songwriting, expanding the emotional vocabulary of genres traditionally associated with protest or confrontation. Photo by The Eradicats Kansas City bubble-grunge band The Eradicats approach these themes through a lens that combines humor, vulne

Choosing intensity over certainty There is a particular kind of clarity that comes with knowing something might not last and wanting it anyway. Ava Franks ’ " Good Scar" builds precisely within that space: not around the illusion of permanence, but around the conscious decision to embrace emotional risk. Photo by Ava Franks Rather than framing love as either idealized or destructive, the track situates it as an active choice. The awareness of a possible ending does not weake

A narrative-driven rock track built on contrast and character. Independent rock has long relied on storytelling as a way of constructing identity beyond pure sound. Rather than focusing solely on personal confession, many artists draw on fictional characters and cinematic fragments to create meaning. With “ Undercover Bitch ” , Minneapolis-based collective Hallaballoo position themselves within this narrative-driven tradition, delivering a track that blends everyday imagery

Interview Feature Artificial intelligence has increasingly entered the cultural conversation around music production, creativity and authorship. While AI tools promise efficiency and experimentation, they also raise broader questions about artistic identity, creative labor and the future of human expression in music. The Lovekiller Photo by Patrick Jelen With their release “ Stop Prompt Music ”, Düsseldorf-based alternative dark rock duo The Lovekiller position themselves

Interview Feature Following their Berlin performance at FluxBau , previously documented in our live review , we spoke with Bombargo after the conclusion of their Disco Surf Rodeo Eurotour about touring realities, audience cultures and the enduring role of live music in a platform-driven era. What emerged from the conversation was not a recap of shows, but a reflection on how live performance functions as a social practice: a space where communities form, identities are neg

A Garage Rock Lifeline Across Decades The Woggles From The Bongo Room at Camp Tamarack! For more than three decades, The Woggles have operated within the international garage rock circuit as a working band rather than a heritage act. Their music draws on the raw vocabulary of early rock ’n’ roll, rhythm & blues, and ’60s garage, yet the group’s longevity reveals something broader: how underground genres persist through scenes, touring networks, and shared musical traditions