Welcome to the 18th edition of my mail-outs, all of which have been archived here. Please find an overview of my recent articles and radio features as well as some assorted/unsorted recommendations below.
As I’ve mentioned before, I have to part with a significant portion of my vinyl collection. I will throw up everything on Discogs in the next few days, but would prefer not giving that company even more money. I have put together a spreadsheet with everything I have for sale. Drop me a line if you are interested, it will be much cheaper than on the ‘cogs.
+++++ Stuff That I Published
— To say that my life has been shaped by what is sweepingly being referred to as disability and can take on a myriad of forms would be a crass understatement. Throughout my life, I have hence attended plenty of musical events with and for people with disabilities, but something has always felt off: In most cases, those were sheltered events that musically aim for the lowest common denominator while some family members and, typically, some random middle-aged couple with lofty altruistic intentions and absolutely no ties to anyone else in the room clap along and smile in that »A for effort« way that to me feels belittling. However, in 2018 I was working for Berlin’s Pop-Kultur festival and was delighted that they booked Choolers Division, an inclusive (i.e., featuring people with and without disabilities) Belgian noise rap/dub combo. It was the most remarkably unremarkable gig I have ever attended in my life, with regular festival-goers dropping in and out at random, some staying to enjoy the show and others leaving because it wasn’t their cup of tea—you know, as one does at a festival, regardless of the quote-unquote abilities of the people on stage besides their musical ones. It was the most normal thing imaginable in a world where such normalcy remains unimaginable on a larger societal scale—it was true inclusion for 40 or so minutes. Naturally, I sat down in a quiet corner afterwards and sobbed into a glass of white, and then a second one. Back then, I had already heard of a new Berlin initiative spearheaded by the KilleKill folks that set out to create more of such inclusive music acts and produce more inclusive events such as the one that I had just seen. Eight years later, IckMachWelle has given the world around a dozen new inclusive music acts that work in a variety of mostly electronic music genres and have released a slew of records, has turned the Krake Festival into an inclusive festival and got acts like Wellen.Brecher (whose »Tierisch Verboten« is an absolute banger) booked on the stages of different Berlin clubs and even festivals like Fusion and Nation of Gondwana, thus bringing inclusion to spaces that are inherently exclusive. I am telling you all this as a sort of disclaimer: While I do believe that objectivity in journalism cannot exist even though should always by approximated by all means necessary, my recent reportage about IckMachWelle for der Freitag (archived) as well as my discussion of the project on radio3 and my somewhat essayistic taz review of the latest IckMachWelle compilation Superbrains Vol. 2 are anything but objective—I frankly consider this one of the most meaningful and effective cultural and social projects to come out of music in a long, long time. However, doing truly inclusive cultural work costs a lot of effort, time, and thus money, and there is absolutely no financial reward if you want to make your events financially accessible to people—8.000 in Berlin alone—who work in sheltered workshops for an average of, hold on to your seats, € 1.46 per hour. IckMachWelle has so far relied somewhat successfully on a patchwork of fundings that, for a variety of reasons, have recently stopped coming. It is now under existential threat. You can support it through a crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe that currently stagnates at ~ € 2.000, buy or stream the compilation ad infinitum (personal favs: Für Elise’s »Crazy, Crazy, Crazy,« Der Blaue Schmetterling & Cobra Killer’s »Ein und Alles,« and Schprampfeinsatz’s »Runde blaue Klippen«) or come rave with them (and me) tomorrow at ://about:blank from 4 p.m. onwards at the inclusive Killekill & Krake Festival present: ALLE ODER KEINE:R event. And while I would like to ask you to donate, drop by, or just spread the word, I want to be clear that it is perfectly fine to not like the music that needs not and in fact should not be judged according to an »A for effort« logic, but based on how it really resonates with you, and that feeling somewhat hesitant to attend inclusive events is perfectly normal—a lot of people with disabilities lead their lives in almost complete isolation from mainstream society, and it is completely understandable if people who never had any contact with them do not want to make any mistakes when this finally happens. But rest assured that this, like everything else within the wider frame of inclusion, is a two-way street. So let’s mess this up and have a remarkably unremarkable time together.
— After this all-too-human intermission, let’s talk non-human slop. A new three-part study from the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel found that people generally like AI-generated music more than human-made stuff—until they find out how the sausage was made. I spoke about this on the radio over at NDR Kultur (not archived) and will be a guest at DLF Kultur’s Tonart next Monday at around 11.30 a.m., in the meanwhile you can read a summary I wrote for taz that puts this into the context of Deezer rolling a feature that lets users of other streaming platforms scan their playlists and libraries to find out how much slop is inside them. This is obviously a marketing stunt, but I do wonder if this will put more pressure on other DSPs to finally label AI-generated content like Deezer has been doing it for a while now. (If so, they can of course conveniently license the platform’s proprietary AI detection tool.)
— Speaking of other DSPs and how they deal with the slopfication of everything, or rather contribute to it: Over at Byte.fm’s taz.mixtape (accessible only for subscribers) hosted by Klaus Walter, I once more briefly explained what Spotify and the Universal Music Group’s goals are for the newly-announced AI »remix« feature that will likely be included in some sort of »supremium« subscription tier. Let’s just say I have a strong feeling that this is not because they want to make artists richer.
— Another newspiece regarding the slopification of everything that I have previously reported on is that the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu is now playing HNL-themed AI slop once an hour because of course. I turned this into a small radio feature for DLF Kultur’s Tonart that features some insights from Roger Bong, who through his Aloha Got Soul has released the beautiful protest compilation Music for the Airport.
— Besides all that, I have reviewed the new albums by Beatrice M. and Tujiko Noriko for the German Musikexpress while we’ve been busy over at HHV-Mag to prepare our biannual list with the 50 best vinyl records of 2026—that one should be out on July 2nd at the latest. Stay tuned, especially tuned in.
+++++ Some Unsorted Recommendations
Frances Chang’s been thinking bout confession, this German-language essay by friend and colleague Pippo Kuhzart (not his real name) about the Tara Clerkin Trio or more precisely about how we relate to the world and our own humanity through art, watching Kiarostami films to understand all the references in the movie Universal Language, impulse shopping at Korean supermarkets and a blanc de noir at your favourite bar while the sun sets, Druid Lord, and paying Freibad Pankow a visit at 7.30 a.m. in the morning (don’t forget your ID).
Thank you for your attention and until next time.