INTERNATIONAL MUSIC REVIEWS & NEWS
Last month we introduced readers to Urban Homes, a German dance outfit composed of four musicians from Cologne. One of the musicians, Benjamin Riedl, has another act that is garnering copious amounts of attention from Germany and abroad, called PTTRNS. Riedel must have been busy in the last year because as of April 12, both [...]
It’s impressive when a band is able to significantly evolve within its genre over an extended period of time and keep an audience interested, but when the band traverses genres and still preserves its reputation, there’s real promise in the band’s musical potential. There are very few post-punk remnants left in Cologne’s Urban Homes‘ new [...]
Henrik Freischlader is a German blues guitarist, singer, songwriter, producer and self-taught multi-instrumentalist from the North Rhine-Westphalia area of Germany. He was born in Cologne, and began his musical journey as a drummer. When he was 14 he heard “Cold Day in Hell” by Gary Moore on the radio, which inspired him to play blues [...]
Traveling outside of Canada can be a bit overwhelming, especially for a Canadian musician who has never left his Continent before. But all it took was one click on the Lufthansa website and I was on my way. Oktoberfest was almost over and I was told that if I missed this Bavarian festival I would [...]
As I walked through the backstage poster-ridden corridor of Beatpol in Dresden, Germany, I could hear Chuck Ragan’s growling baritone voice warming up along with tenor Jay Malinowski, who sung as he fixed his hair. To my left was the band’s work station, with computers meant for updating websites and coordinating the next half of the tour. [...]
There are classic attributes assigned to the “Western” genre in entertainment. Western-themed television shows, movies, and art all tell stories of the 19th century and America’s raw beginnings, replete with war, financial struggle, sickness, and everyday life on the range. With any good era and its treasured artifacts, it is generally frowned upon when individuals [...]
The following is a prose poetry narrative inspired by both Purity Ring‘s debut album, Shrines, and a trip I took to Berlin’s infamous electronic music nightclub, Berghain. It seemed apt for Berlin that Berghain was more or less in the middle of the city, yet in the middle of nowhere. The labyrinth of residential streets [...]
A while back we profiled a new and upcoming musician/photographer in Berlin, S ND Y P RL RS (Malte Cornelius Jantzen). The artist just released his latest work, a seven-track, sharp but droney, shoegazey record called REX (Umor Rex Records). When we spoke with him for the last article, Jantzen told us that the poppier sounds of [...]
In order for non-English-speaking bands to be heard and reach audiences outside of their respective countries, they need to have some kind of tangible, universal sound. Unsurprisingly and overwhelmingly, such a musical objective is met when a band writes and plays songs in English. Since its formation, the German band Me And My Drummer has [...]
Hallo. (That’s how people say “hello” in German.) This article is meant to provide a sampling of information about some of the best labels in Germany. There are small ones and bigger small ones included, but there are no beasts. A beast is a label that makes too much money by ripping people off. There [...]
