EXBERLINER Issue 170, April 2018
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WHAT’S ON — Music<br />
Editor’s Choice<br />
We shall overcome<br />
Whether you’re commemorating ‘68 or raising the flag<br />
for #MeToo, get in the protest mood at these <strong>April</strong> shows.<br />
By Michael Hoh<br />
Oskar Omne<br />
MUSIC NEWS<br />
Boom chak<br />
As the drum kit<br />
turns 100, HKW celebrates<br />
“100 Jahre<br />
Beat” with screenings,<br />
installations<br />
and performances<br />
by N.U. Unruh, Theo<br />
Parrish, Goat, Karl<br />
Bartos, Tony Allen<br />
and more. Apr 26<br />
We’re doomed<br />
Berlin’s doom metal<br />
outfit Choral Hearse<br />
releases new album<br />
Mire Exhumed<br />
(Bandcamp) with<br />
alt-rock and grunge-y<br />
sprinkles on top.<br />
Out Apr 16<br />
Bye Bye Bassy<br />
After 12 years,<br />
rock’n’roll hotspot<br />
Bassy Club closes<br />
its doors for good<br />
on May 1. Does that<br />
mean Prenzlauer<br />
Berg as a party hotspot<br />
is finally dead?<br />
Looks like it. RIP.<br />
It’s been 50 years since the infamous<br />
1968 revolts – you won’t<br />
be able to open a newspaper<br />
this month without reading about<br />
the anniversary of Rudi Dutschke’s<br />
shooting on <strong>April</strong> 11 of that year.<br />
And it seems people across the<br />
globe are finding themselves in a<br />
similar mood to – pathos alert –<br />
take to the streets and fight against<br />
the wrongs in this world. (Of<br />
course, if you live in Berlin, crafting<br />
witty demo signs is practically an<br />
everyday activity for you anyway.)<br />
Whereas it was mostly students<br />
who were the centre of attention<br />
in the 1960s, fighting for women’s<br />
liberation and against war – or, particular<br />
to Germany, getting rid of<br />
leftover Nazis comfortably watching<br />
over said students from behind<br />
their uni desks – <strong>2018</strong> sees a more<br />
diverse crowd from all kinds of<br />
social backgrounds attending rallies<br />
from #MeToo to #BlackLivesMatter.<br />
It’s not just students anymore<br />
(if you disregard a puffed up debate<br />
about an apparently sexist poem on<br />
some Berlin uni wall), and naturally<br />
that goes for the musicians who<br />
deliver the soundtrack to these protests.<br />
Suffice it to say, it’s no longer<br />
just folk-y answers “blowin’ in the<br />
wind”. With boundaries between<br />
mainstream and subculture practically<br />
nonexistent, protest anthems are<br />
spread across all genres these days.<br />
One of the best examples this<br />
month: Emel Mathlouthi, who rose<br />
to fame during the Arab Spring<br />
with her 2012 song “Kelmti Horra<br />
(My Word is Free)” and has since<br />
been called the “voice of the Tunisian<br />
revolution”. After her first<br />
attempts at protest music with<br />
a goth-metal band, she switched<br />
to a more nuanced pop sound<br />
influenced by trip hop and other<br />
electronic genres, singing in<br />
Arabic and English.<br />
Other protest culture out there<br />
is still sticking to tried-and-true<br />
formulas. If you attend the Punk &<br />
Disorderly Festival <strong>2018</strong> with The<br />
Boys, Peter and the Test Tube Babies<br />
and The Exploited this month,<br />
for instance, things will probably<br />
seem a little more “orderly” on the<br />
protest front, safety pins in place<br />
and all. Apart from excellent punk<br />
music on two consecutive days,<br />
does the festival’s lineup of ageing<br />
UK rockers provide a voice for current<br />
protest? On an abstract “fuck<br />
society” level, for sure. Punk’s<br />
never been a genre to address<br />
the subtle nuances anyway.<br />
What about Tocotronic? Seems<br />
like just yesterday that the boys<br />
were performing at the radical-left<br />
Rote Flora squat in Hamburg, demanding<br />
to be part of a new Jugendbewegung.<br />
Twenty-odd years later,<br />
their latest album Die Unendlichkeit<br />
is being advertised on mega billboards<br />
all around town, and their<br />
core fanbase of 1990s indie kids will<br />
have to hire a sitter and pay €32.50<br />
to hear “Stürmt das Schloss” live.<br />
But it doesn’t always have to be<br />
the big capitalism critique, which<br />
is difficult to navigate for recordselling<br />
musicians anyway. After addressing<br />
her battle with cancer on<br />
her last album Demand the Impossible!,<br />
Swede Jenny Wilson (photo)<br />
just released Exorcism, an impressive<br />
contribution to the #MeToo<br />
debate. On the record, Wilson<br />
tackles her personal experiences<br />
with sexual harassment with<br />
uncompromising lyrics mixed with<br />
occasional four-to-the-floor beats<br />
that’ll make it difficult for you to<br />
decide whether you want to dance<br />
all those injustices away or join the<br />
next protest outside. n<br />
Emel Mathlouthi Apr 15, 20:00 Lido, Kreuzberg | Tocotronic Apr 16-<br />
17, 20:00 Columbiahalle, Tempelhof | Punk & Disorderly Festival <strong>2018</strong><br />
Apr 20-22, 18:45 Astra Kulturhaus, Friedrichshain | Jenny Wilson Apr 26,<br />
21:00 Ritter Butzke, Kreuzberg<br />
30<br />
<strong>EXBERLINER</strong> <strong>170</strong>
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