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Imagine the band Battles collaborating with the Dirty Projectors, Paal Nilssen-Love, and the choirboys from Stockhausen's »Gesang der Jünglinge«. Haha, yes, exactly. Got it? Great. This fantasy is something that actually exists IRL, in Berlin. It’s called Pranke and it’s made up of Daníel Friðrik Bödvarsson (guitar and vocals) and Max Andrzejewski (drums, synthesizer and vocals). The Icelandic composer and the German jazz drummer find common ground on stage somewhere between fickle math rock, charmingly warped avant-pop, and jazz shredding, and even transfer their cascading explosions from there all the way into the studio, as their 2015 debut EP proved. That was called »Pranke«, just like the band itself, and should be taken just as seriously.
Pranke on Facebook »Quinceañera Staatsakt«The most inspired German indie label to emerge since the mid-noughties is called Staatsakt. Founded in 2003 by Gunther Osburg and Maurice Summen, two members of the group Die Türen, hardly any time passed before they released their own first independent, i.e. ›indie‹ album, »Das Herz war Nihilismus«. Meanwhile, Summen runs the label alone, supported by Henrietta Bauer, who is also manager of the group Isolation Berlin; Markus Göres, who takes care of press work; and Sebastian Pobot, who is responsible for sales. For the label’s 15th anniversary, we’ve revived Die Türen, and they’ll play us all-new material (»Exoterik«). We’ll also converse with CEO Summen and flip through the Staatsakt music video clip collection (»Does Streaming Kill the Video Star?«) with various illustrious guests. In addition, we’ll present two new groups from the Staatsakt establishment that are off-the-cuff among the most interesting German-language rock and pop we’ve heard in recent years. Both of these bands, International Music and Swutscher, will release their debut albums this year.
Staatsakt on Facebook