Welcome to the third edition of my mail-outs. As usual, 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.
I’ve been pretty busy throughout the month of March, I guess.
+++++ Stuff That I Wrote (or Said on the Radio)
— My friend Christian Blumberg tipped me off that someone uploaded an alleged lost Detroit techno gem to YouTube, but that the entire album and most of the other stuff that the account has been uploading were AI-generated. To top it all off, the uploader also sells that stuff through Bandcamp. I probed a little into the whole thing over at DJ LAB, and further contextualised the whole thing on the airwaves for WDR’s COSMO, which unfortunately hasn’t been archived.
— Also for DJ LAB, I profiled Dortmund’s Tresor.West and its recent attempts at battling an economic crisis by not charging entry fees for a while for my on-going portrait series of clubs all over Germany.
— What’s a club without its bouncers? The two-part documentary »Türsteher – Wächter der Nacht« (»Bouncers – Guardians of the Night,« lol) by ZDF with some SPIEGEL TV help sets out to explain this job to its audience, but really only tries to bait you into clicking (yes, there’s a four-minute-long Berghain section and yes, it’s stupid). I reviewed it for Berliner Zeitung (archived) and have yet to respond to one of the writers request to hop on a phone call with them.
— Also for Berliner Zeitung (archived), I used International Women’s Day to interrogate the status quo of gender parity and diversity in the city’s club scene. You’ll never guess what I found out.
— Speaking of frustrating number-crunching, I discussed Spotify’s recent »Loud & Clear« report over at DLF Kultur’s Tonart with Andreas Müller, and for der Freitag (archived), I took the recent publication of Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine. The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist as a starting point to highlight that even scathing critiques such as Liz’s are not putting a dent in the SPOT stock performance, and argue that it’s high time we invest in alternatives—a few of which I briefly present towards the end of the piece.
— Somewhat relatedly, the latest instalment of my Found Sounds column for field notes (English / German), the last one before an extended summer break, looks at new records and print publications that are marked by the spirit of collaboration and cooperation.
— By the way, what even *is* music (and what isn’t)? Christopher Hunold and I tried to answer that question in the 50th feature episode of his and Melanie’s wonderful Track 17 – Der Musikpodcast. This is my fourth time as a guest on the ‘cast and I appreciate the fact that I can now officially call myself a Friend of the Channel.
— I also have been obsessing a little over the Apple shows Silo and Severance (who hasn’t!?) and took the latter second season’s finale as an opportunity to place their stunning successes in the context of a broader revival of the so-called mystery box genre and what it says about our relationship with reality these days that we obsess so much about shows that hinge on conspiratorial thinking for ZEIT Online (gift link).
— It feels sort of related to point out that I tried to give an overview on recent developments in the German far-right music scene for DLF Kultur’s Tonart with the help of Dr. Thorsten Hindrichs, an expert in the field. For all you non-German speakers with a dance music background: yes, also the neo-nazis are now indulging in the Eurodance fad.
— Anything else? Well, I’ve been on the radio a couple more times to discuss »Streaming 2.0« once more at NDR Kultur (they played the Jurassic Park theme before I came on, which felt kind of epic because it’ll always remind me of Graf Orlock’s take on it) a few hours after I’d recommended Wellen.Brecher’s debut album »Liebeserklärung.« Those have not been archived because that’s not a thing in the year 2025, but I whole-heartedly recommend you check out Wellen.Brecher and especially their song »Tierisch Verboten.«
— By the way, something that I also do and which I haven’t mentioned in my previous mail-outs is that I usually pick five out of ten Upcoming Tracks & Releases for DJ LAB on a monthly basis. Check out the March edition here, and the April edition here. I can also recommend new releases by Berend Intelmann on Karaoke Kalk as well as forthcoming albums by Aaron Landsman / Norman Westberg, Elisabeth Klinck, and Anthony Pateras on Hallow Ground. I’m biased, of course, because I’ve written the blurbs for all these projects. Speaking of recommending things that I like …
+++++ Some Unsorted Recommendations
I’ve belatedly fallen in love with Éliane Radigue’s »L’Île re-sonante,« a massive electroacoustic composition that’s one of the best you can find out there. AOKI Takamasa’s »Sound for Photo Exhibitions,« the 100th release on the ever-fantastic Muzan Editions, is a similar invigorating listen—think mid-1990s Oval by way of, I guess, Éliane Radigue!? Banu goes a little deeper with her »Pink Noise« album for Unrush, by which I mean that she has inserted a microphone into her vagina in order to make some recordings. Far more than just another take on the Nymphomatriarch formula, the record is to be understood as a critique of the German health care system’s handling of HPV, which can broadly be categorised as »very American.« It sounds great, too. Anyway, for reasons unbeknownst to me, I was recently overcome by the need to listen to early toe albums recently and, because that made sense, went a little further and dug up two progenitors (and former split partners) of their noodly take on math rock, Pele and the consistently underrated Collections of Colonies of Bees, whose »GIVING« remains one of my favourite albums precisely because nothing about it is in any way special. If you like your post-ish takes on rock music to be more contemporary, I recommend the new Mess Esque (Mick Turner of Dirty Three and Helen Franzmann) album »Jay Marie, Comfort Me« on Drag City as well as the new IZ digital release, »回忆 Memory« on Old Heaven Books—live recordings made between 2010 and 2023 with some highlights from the Kazakh sort-of-rock-band that (in)fuses traditional material with new ideas in the most idiosyncratic ways. Another record that follows a similar approach and absolutely floored me was Mohammad Mostafa Heydarian’s tanbur-led »Noor-e Vojood« for Radio Khiyaban. I didn’t watch a lot of (good) movies this month, but left the cinema thoroughly impressed by the Swiss production Heldin (less cringe-inducingly titled Late Shift internationally) because for 90 minutes straight I was trying to keep track of the protagonist’s (outstanding performance by Leonie Benesch) ever-expanding to-do list while she’s nursing her way through the evening. A true exercise in humility, a film that leaves you with sweaty palms. On the food side, I’d like to remind you that fennel and oranges make for a winning combination in the warmer months, and here’s a quick and simple pasta alle lenticchie recipe.
You’ll need:
- a bit of olive oil
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 red onion, finely diced
- salt and pepper
- 3-4 small carrots and 2-3 celery stalks, either finely diced or grated
- 2 tins of brown lentils, rinsed
- a couple of bay leaves, some thyme and rosemary, chili if you like it a little spicy
- a pack of pasta (ditali/ditaloni are the classic choice, but I prefer conchiglie)
You’ll do:
- Start cooking the pasta (make sure you use a lot of water)
- Heat the oil, add the garlic clove for aroma (remove after a couple of minutes) and the diced onion
- Once the onion is translucent, add carrots and celery, salt and pepper, and sauté for a few minutes until soft
- Add the herbs and bay leaves and lentils, mix everything well, then add pasta water until fully covered—let simmer for a few minutes
- Once the pasta is al dente or close to it, add to the pan (it makes sense to put aside some pasta water in case you need to add more fluid) and let simmer until the pasta is fully cooked
- Enjoy, and apologies to all Italians reading this