Four years after her solo debut, I'm Good. The Crying Tape, Berlin-based musician Nalan releases her new album, 2009, Berlin-based musician Nalan has released her new album, 2009 — nine tracks created between Istanbul and Berlin. Drawing from her digital camera archive, Nalan presents a fictionalised version of 2009. Oscillating between nostalgia and darkness — from the wistful Everything Was Easy in 2009 to the sombre Ok — she creates multilayered images that evoke contrasting emotions. While referencing formative venues such as the now-closed Munich club 59:1 and collaborating with musicians from the Munich indie and punk scenes of the 2000s, Nalan's musical evolution is evident. She has expanded the futuristic alt-pop of her debut with a live-oriented yet electronic experimental sound characterised by sharp synthesizers, plucked guitars, restrained yet powerful drums and deep atmospheric production. The partly autobiographical, partly fictional lyrics deal with longing, class struggle, infatuations and creative emptiness. They pose the question of what it would be like to turn back the clock and simply start over in 2009 — why everything used to be easier and yet, in a way, it wasn't.
Eyries is an experimental project by Munich-based artists Jonas Dannecker and Johannes Ludwig. Drawing inspiration from their mutual fascination with woodwind instruments, synthesizers and various electronic sound generators, they spent five years crafting nine songs, each of which begins with a palette of wind instruments — sometimes arranged in a classical style and sometimes in a more daring manner — which blend together to create an elegant chamber pop sound. Subtle vocal melodies and unobtrusive crackling electronics refine these atmospheric masterpieces, creating a sound that sits somewhere between the refined pop of the 1960s and the edgy, experimental electronic music of the 2000s. To maintain this standard in a live setting, the duo is joined by three additional musicians, enabling Johannes Ludwig to recreate the overlapping brass tracks on stage.
The new songs by Die Sauna, a sextet from southern Germany, showcase artistic evolution. Their dark new wave sound, reminiscent of the retro-goths Interpol from New York, has been brought to life with impressive perfection by Germany’s star producer, Olaf Opal. More than on their previous albums, a pop sensibility is evident on their third album, tut bene (Hold Me). The heavy shadows have given way to a certain lightness, which can sometimes seem ironic—an enriching, identity-defining new facet.
Hailing from Berlin, Deutsche Laichen are undoubtedly the most distinctive voice in queer-feminist punk in the German-speaking world today. On their second album, they offer an assessment of their own scene that is as angry as it is self-deprecating, while simultaneously challenging it. The direct and aggressive sound was crafted by Moses Schneider, who is known for his work with Germany’s most important indie band, Tocotronic, as well as with Nick Cave and the Pixies. For the band, music and politics are inseparable; their songs oscillate between self-doubt and defiance, scene criticism, queer love songs and political commentary, and are as personal as they are public. Punk — and this is where the bipolar album title Punk ist scheiße, Punk ist geil (Punk is Shit, Punk is Awesome) comes in — is not merely a stylistic device or an answer to their questions for them, but a creative field of tension that must be endured. Consequently, the band's current commentary and anger are not only demanding and uncomfortable, but also vulnerable and ambivalent.
In early April 2026, British punk icon Vivien Goldman — author of Revenge of the She-Punks (University of Texas Press, 2019), journalist and musician — and the Berlin-based trio Cloud Management released a mini-album titled Whoops Wrong Planet, blending dub, post-punk and experimental electronic music across generations. Cloud Management's improvisational, krautrock-infused dub rhythms meet Goldman's unique spoken word and vocal style, deeply rooted in punk, reggae, and UK dub history. The stripped-down, hypnotic recording features circling rhythms in the finest sound-system tradition, combined with ever-present political undertones. This makes it a focused, timeless collaboration that gives equal voice to attitude, history, and the present.
