Welcome to the second edition of my somewhat irregular mail-outs. This one as well as all previous ones will be archived on my website, though I keep the bonus fortune cookies (yes, that’ll be a regular thing) exclusive to my mailing list—drop me a line at kricorn@konkrit.de if you want to become a member.
February 2025 was a relatively slow month, which was great. Please find an overview of my recent articles and radio features as well as a bunch of recommendations below. Again I specifically point it out if a piece is available in an official or my own English translation.
+++++ Stuff That I Wrote (or Said on the Radio)
— The latest edition of my Quartalsbericht column for DJ LAB came a little late because also Lucian Grainge took his time this year. I try to explain what the mysterious »Streaming 2.0« thing is that the UMG boss keeps banging on about, but I have to warn you: The explanation is positively underwhelming. For you audio-minded, German-speaking people, I discussed this two-banal-business-ideas-in-a-trenchcoat buzzword over at DLF Kultur’s Tonart with Marie König.
— Also for DJ LAB, I profiled photographer, DJ, and event curator Katja Ruge, whose Electric Lights series will return to Hamburg’s planetarium on the 12th of March with special guest Joyce Muniz, as well as Hanover’s Weltspiele for my on-going series of club portraits. The feature came out a mere few days before the club threw its last party, meaning it’s the first—and I fear it will not be the last—in the series that is now gone for good.
— Speaking of clubs, in my monthly column for Berlin Zeitung, I tried to unravel the local scene’s reliance or rather dependence on the alcohol industry as their main source of revenue. I will use this piece as a springboard for a more in-depth article on the matter soon.
— For HHV-Mag, I tried to make sense of the story of the—in both my personal and professional opinion—best rock band of all times, Les Rallizés Dénudés. This deep dive is available in both English and German in my own translation.
— Just for fun, I have recorded a mix with some black metal (and/or black metal-adjacent/informed) music. You can stream it and read my track-by-track commentary on my website if you feel like it, or just listen on Mixcloud. This is the first mixtape I’ve made in quite a while, and I’m looking forward to recording some more in the not-too-distant future.
— The new issue of Positionen, Germany’s punkest magazine on contemporary (as in, composed/classical, etc.) music is out and I coincidentally ended up editing a piece for it, and my translation work for some upcoming Haus der Kulturen der Welt as well as MaerzMusik has also trickled online. I am looking forward to the former’s Musafiri programme and look forward to performances by Pamela Z, Mazen Kerbaj and others at the latter.
+++++ Some Unsorted Recommendations
I love both amateur and advanced audio art. liu huirun 刘惠润’s firecracker 鞭炮 on Yan Jun’s ever-excellent Sub Jam label is mostly what it says on the tin, hissy recordings of distant fireworks, but it has the most surprising and beautiful ending imaginable. 描奏をきく (Kiku (sense) the [drawing + sound]) by ささきしおり (Shiori Sasaki) for zappak is an interesting album made solely with the sounds generated by the artist while drawing (well, sort of). It shares a certain conceptual and aesthetic kinship with the late Steve Roden’s lowercase masterpiece Forms of Paper, which has been remastered and reissued by Aurora Central/LINE in his memory, and Kunrad’s microsound-obsessed Kleine Geluiden on the ever-trustworthy sound art imprint Crónica. Those four albums find something special in the banality of everyday life, which is something we all need from time to time, don’t we? Speaking of which, there’s been little club music that really excited me in recent times, but Emily Jeanne’s Call of the Sea EP on the newly-minted quỳnh label was the outstanding exception to this rule—a stylistically varied, rhythmically intricate sound design masterclass. And while I also have never been an avid rap fan, I was excited to receive John Glacier’s debut album for Young in my inbox. Like a Ribbon partially sounds like an homage to the Clams Casino and Forest Swords era of hazy/murky/dubby beatmaking, and I did not have early-2010s nostalgia on my bingo card for this cursed year, but … it’s great! I also fell deeply in love with Manuel Zurria’s Fame di Vento, a massive 3CD collection of recordings of flute-centred compositions by composers such as Mary Jane Leach, Jürg Frey, Alvin Lucier, and others, with Riccardo Nova’s »Rudram Mantra / Kunti Mantra« being a particular favourite. I can also recommend Eric Drott’s Streaming Music, Streaming Capital if you think you need a solid, nuanced discussion of the technology, economics, and legalities of streaming. It’s quite academically-minded, but I think it does a pretty good job at synthesising a lot of writing that preceded it, which means it provides a pretty comprehensive overview on its topic(s). All in all, this is a good book to have on your shelf if you’re an academic with a heightened interest in music, a music journalist, or someone interested in the industry and particularly streaming more broadly who doesn’t know where to begin.