Welcome to the fifth edition of my mail-outs, all of which have been archived on my website. 

Today is a somewhat special day for me. On May 28th, 2020, and thus half a fucking decade ago, the last-ever Spex article was published. For the uninitiated (i.e., non-German) readers, Spex was a magazine whose first issue came out in September 1980, featuring articles about Joy Division, Fehlfarben, Gang of Four, Östro 430, and The Cure. In the following four decades, it became far more than your usual post-punk fanzine. It is hard to ascertain how big the magazine’s influence really was, and I think nobody would argue that the German mainstream ever took notice. But Spex served as a germ cell for the country’s subcultural discourses, a petri dish of ideas presented by authors drawing on, among other things, French theory, cultural studies, the various waves of feminism, and much more while engaging with pop culture. I would argue that, in the best possible way, it was the magazine for hip German-speaking intellectuals. Of course though, many have accused the magazine and its writers of snobbery and elitism throughout its history. In fact, when I first read a copy in the mid-2000s, I thought it was the most pretentious nonsense I’d ever come across. Less than a decade later, I became a regular contributor and, in the fall of 2019, one of the editors of its online iteration after the print magazine had been discontinued. We were all informed by our publisher in April 2020 or so that the magazine would be discontinued, and I took that as an opportunity to finally write that damn article I had been talking about in editorial conferences for more than half a year. It was a piece about how the battle royale genre had become pervasive not only in gaming, but also YAD novels, film, and TV. Though that was never the plan, it very fittingly became the last piece ever to be published by Spex, a magazine that had lost its own struggle for survival. I profoundly miss Spex because it was one of the only outlets in the German-speaking world in which pop culture was taken this seriously; that encouraged writers to write about context and not content; that served as a platform for discussions around pop, culture, societal issues, and thus politics in ways that could be both thought-provoking and, yes, fun. I can’t quite express just how influential Spex ended up being for me as a person and a journalist, and I am very biased, but I think its loss left a gaping hole in the German media landscape. What I’m trying to say is, please support independent cultural journalism. 

And if you’re now interested in that final article, you can find it on my website (PDF direct link) or access it through the Wayback Machine. Unfortunately, you can’t run either through the usual autotranslation sites, but I made a lot of the same points in my 54books piece (Google autotranslation) on Squid Game afterwards, and might make this article as well as a few others available on my website whenever I find the time in the near future.

Anyhow—as usual, please find an overview of my recent articles and radio features as well as some assorted/unsorted bonus 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)

— In May last year, a video of some preppy kids singing along to Gigi d’Agostino’s »L’amour toujours« at a bar on the island of Sylt went viral in German. The kicker was that these bougie folks, i.e. not your usual skinhead neo-nazis, changed the lyrics to »Ausländer raus, Deutschland den Deutschen« (»Foreigners out, Germany for the Germans«). The public prosecutor looked into this as well, however the case was recently dropped and only one of the people—seen showing the Elon Musk salute—was fined mere peanuts for someone who vacations on Germany’s most expensive island. Over at DLF Kultur’s Kompressor (ARD Mediathek) I commented that this, in context, was perhaps legally justified but sets a rather concerning precedent.

— Besides that, two more radio appearances—for WDR’s COSMO, I argued that the chart success of German Christian rap duo O’Bros was more or less temporary and mostly artificial, while over at NDR Kultur I tried to explain the issue with flooding of DSPs through massive amounts of AI-generated music—weren’t archived. But buy me a drink next time you see me and I’ll re-enact them for you! 

— For my on-going series of club portraits for DJ LAB, I profiled the Geheimclub in Magdeburg.

—Speaking of clubs, truly inclusive events—i.e. those that bring together people with and without disabilities—are difficult and expensive to organise. For Berliner Zeitung, I gave an overview on the hurdles that people with disabilities have to generally face in the club scene and of course the inclusive Spaceship party series as well as the IckMachWelle workshop programme that has, among others, facilitated the founding of Wellen.Brecher, whose new album Liebeserklärung still slaps. This was my last piece for the paper after one and a half years as a contributor.

— In unrelated news, I seem to have become the resident metalhead at MDR Kultur these days, and wrote a quick listicle about six notable metal and hard rock acts performing at this year’s Wave-Gotik-Treffen. 

— For the new issue of Positionen, I’ve contributed a comparative review of two book anthologies about early electronic music studios, the bilingual Radio Cologne Sound. Das Studio für Elektronische Musik des WDR (edited by Harry Vogt and Martina Seeber, Wolke) and the English-language Subcontinental Synthesis. Electronic Music at the National Institute of Design, India 1969–1972 (edited by Paul Purgas, Strange Attractor).

— I normally don’t write many record reviews these days, but made a few exceptions for HHV-Mag. My latest two dealt with a Black Truffle record with two new pieces by Annea Lockwood (German/English) and one of the two new Cicciolina compilations (German/English), which made for quite an insane juxtaposition. 

— A few records for which I have written the press blurb have been released or at least announced. Surprisingly, my little accompanying text for my friend The Marx Trukker’s wonderful weirdo-pop tape On Cue to Conclusion has even been turned into proper liner notes available as a fold-out poster!? I also recommend his The Constantly Inevitable, an ultra-limited, previously friends-only CD release showcasing his more techno-adjacent side that sounds great on the autobahn. Both are out now on NOORDEN. Also already available is Burkhard Beins and Angharad Davies’ Meshes of the Evening on Ni Vu Ni Connu, one of the best improv/echtzeitmusik releases I’ve heard in recent years. Also Hallow Ground keeps delivering the goods, with a new soundtrack by Anthony Pateras for the film Reise der Schatten already out and Giuseppe Ielasi & Riccardo D. Wanke’s brilliant improv record with time we learned to ask less and Amosphère’s label debut Cosmogonical Ears both set for a mid-June release, the latter being one of the strongest records the label has put out in recent years—which is saying something.  

+++++ Some Unsorted Recommendations

One of the newest members of this mailing list (hi!!!) is involved in the label subsidized time. Their next release is Sugar by alt-pop artist Lene Geue and the release show for it takes place on June 13th at Berlin’s Flutgraben, but I’d also like to draw your attention to Drum Therapy by Kush K, jointly released last year with Irascible—a wonderfully muted, but sometimes post-punk-adjacent weirdo-pop gem that also made my, erm, modest 2024 EOTY list. Another member (hi!!!) brought me the new Dreamlogicc EP from the US, a vinyl-only, tour-only release with four live recordings—a brooding piece of ambient soundscaping and three wonderfully imaginative, rhythmically intricate techno cuts. I enjoyed this as a reminder that not all music is indeed freely and instantaneously available, and that this is not at all a bad thing. Also, the record sleeve was sealed with a sticker, meaning that I had to devalue it as a commodity in order to extract personal value from it, which I also liked—the pay-off was huge, too. Please check out the artist’s work, for example this recent remix EP. Speaking of lovely gifts a.k.a. getting stuff for free and great techno … remember Irdial? That record label that put out that incredible numbers station compilation back then? Here’s your friendly reminder that they threw up their catalogue on the Internet Archive 20+ years ago and that records like Neuropolitique’s Large Spoon still slap. Also noisenik Michel Henritzi went on an uploading spree recently and put up a lot of gems from his deep catalogue online for free, including his 2012 „live/death“ Les champs brûlent album together with Junko. Wall-of-sound lapsteel noise and unhinged, high-pitched screaming never sounded that psychedelic before or after. If you like your noisy guitars and screechy vocals a bit more structured and a lot bleaker, I’ve got some black metal for you. I belatedly discovered that everybody’s favourite 90s-style-but-decidedly-non-fash black metal one-person project Lamp of Murmuur also offers large parts of their discography (including a few side projects) as a free download through Bandcamp. Another black metal band I can get behind in ideological terms is Leipzig’s Dolchstoß, whose new album Propaganda der Tat I picked up at Hamburg’s Fischkopp record store on a whim. There really is no reason for any band to sound this scrappy in the year 2025, but I appreciate the effort that must have gone into making these killer tunes sound like they were recorded in 1993 on a broken four-track machine in some Oslo basement. Another new release you can get for free is Arash Azadi’s Universe in Prayer – فَلَک در ذِکْر, a stunning short EP combining non-tempered scales and some pretty sick rhythm work. A lot of Azadi’s previous works are also available for free and I recommend you give them a spin, truly forward-thinking modern composition in both the acoustic and electronic sonic realms. Speaking of which, I’m happy that Kiezsalon season has finally come. I will kick it off with Merope (featuring, didn’t have that one on my bingo card, Shahzad Ismaily) and Ann Annie on the second night of the nomadic Berlin concert series’ opening weekend on the 31st of May at Schloss Britz. Since it’s also Spargelsaison, my recommendation is the same as every year: Ignore white asparagus and rather toss the green kind with some oil, salt, and pepper before putting it in the oven with some lemon slices on top for 15 to 20 minutes (you can also fry it, just don’t forget the lemons). A perfect side that goes with every vaguely Italian main dish and a nice, cold glass of white wine or five.