Fahr weg
Auf gradem Weg ins Meer
Den Möwen hinterher
So weit weg, wie es geht.
[Drive away. Straight into the sea. Follow the seagulls. As far away as possible.] Isolation Berlin, "Fahr weg"
Two hundred months and episodes of the Goethe-Institut's popcast, two hundred times five new acts from Germany, far from the charts and mainstream, fine gems, surprising successes and also terrible flops, daring experiments and overwhelming earworms, lovingly compiled from hundreds of hours of diligent listening to the latest releases from German record companies of all stripes. This calls for a big party, so in preparation for this anniversary episode, we conducted a survey and asked fans and participants for their favorites. The result is not only a fantastic playlist of musical favorites, but also original sound bites from fans and participants.
The nihilistic pop anthems of Isolation Berlin, for example, have been well received with their escapist masterpiece Fahr weg from 2017. Countless guitars accompany the world-weary quartet from Germany's capital on their escape. Most recently, however, they were guests on Popcast in November 2024, where they presented their sixth album, Electronic Babies, a complex work compared to earlier albums, full of small details in the arrangement, effectively supported by subtle touches of electronic influences.
Next up is Chris Imler, darling of the Berlin music scene and proverbial beat poet, who was last featured in April 2025. The apocalyptic horseman of the electric Kreuzberg underground chanson, revered by fans and the Popcast editorial team alike, returns here with his hit The Internet will break my heart, a typically dark, technoid track, distant and haunting.
For Derya Yildirim and her group Şimşek, folk music is not nostalgia or mere tradition, but rather a living art form with roots that run deep. It represents movement, change, expression, and tells stories that are passed on, reinterpreted, and redefined with each voice. She was featured in our popcast back in August 2019 and has since been spotted several times on the North American continent, whether at gigs in San Francisco, Chicago, Brooklyn, or at the Montreal Jazz Festival. This March, her new album Yarin Yoksa will be released on the New York label Big Crown.
In May of this year, we presented the new album by Stella Sommer's one-woman band Die Heiterkeit. However, an older piece made it into our list of the best: Für den nächstenbesten Dandy, less gothic than the latest pieces, but closer to the dreamy folk for which the former trio became known in Germany. What has remained the same, however, is the ostentatious inner calm of the vocals, the introspective wisdom that inspires the sparse acoustic arrangements.
Fresh off the press, yet straight into the top tracks of Popcast fans, Dota Kehr has sung her way to fame. Her little fresh pop gems, brimming with wisdom and moments of self-awareness, wander musically between chanson and jazz, pop and flowing electro sounds. Full of enthusiasm, we repeat here Im Springbrunnen baden mit nackten Milliardären (Bathing in the fountain with naked billionaires), which we already presented last month, one of those ironic observations of everyday life for which she has become known.
The Cologne trio Kratzen, inventors of what they call "Krautwave" and guardians of minimalist reflection, have also made it onto the Popcast fans' list of the best. You could call it a logical continuation of the first "real" German sound in pop history, which in the 1960s represented a German counterpoint to the flowery musical language of the hippies. However, the last album, released in March 2025, offers more: ethereal and questioning, embellished with touches of echoing guitars and pianos, they have modernized the classic sound and added musical references from new wave and post-punk.
Other highlights, besides various sound bites from the Popcast environment, include the Munich quartet Pirx, whose energetic 2020 song Hot Cell about what remains of nuclear power has won the hearts of Popcast fans, and Hamburg rock veteran Udo Lindenberg, who presents his classic chanson Vopo in a duet with Nina Hagen.
We hope you enjoy this special edition of our Popcast and would like to send a big thank you to everyone who has faithfully followed our pop music blog over the past few years and helped to bring gems of German pop music to the world with their interest and curiosity!
