No Fear of Pop at Torstraßen Festival 2013

03 May 2013 — Tonje Thilesen

As the fine folks over at Torstraßen Festival announced a few days ago, we are very happy to take part as curators for our own little NFOP 'showcase' at the festival this year, taking place in different venues and cafés running along the Tostraßen street in Mitte on August 31st. After last year's wonderful line-up (including our out-of-town friends The Townhoses, Wintercoats, Dent May and more), the link to Berlin once again proves to be an important direction for the artists at Torstraßen, as we would perhaps even claim it to be one of the best new festivals to discover experimental pop music from our dearest city, which it seems to be a lack of here in general. Below are the first three names ready for the NFOP stage at the end of August (with words in courtesy of Henning), with one more to be announced later. Other confirmed acts to the festival includes Halasan Bazar, Millennium, CRIME, Black Cracker, Jaakko Eino Kalevi, Allie, Banque Allemande, Easter and Nadine & The Prussians.

Iberia (Berlin/SE)

Since ABBA or let’s say since Ace of Base at the latest, the catchiness, perfection or at least the superiority of Swedish pop music may have become a cliché of the feuilleton. But, having said that, counter-evidence is yet to be adduced. Also Iberia won’t help shattering the image of those sublimely chanting vikings. Gothenburgians Maja Mathé Milner and Alexander Palmestål (known for prior involvement with Makthaverskan and Pistol Disco) divide their time between Berlin and their Swedish home town in which they are loosely connected to the legendary Service label. Which means: sounds oscillating between sugar pop and balearic beaches, one foot in the 90-s, sailing dangerously near the winds of kitsch without ever loosing their compass. One may add a dash of Crystal Castles-esque aggression to complete this grand and presumptuous mixture, foredoomed anywhere beyond the borders of Sweden. Most certainly.

케이프 (Cape) (Berlin)

K-Pop, Bauhaus, Grimes – those are roughly the self-chosen coordinates within which this Berlin-based duo ranges musically. May the reference to a certain art school from Weimar run dry beyond the will to follow the maxims «form follows function» and «learn from the old master», referring to a couple of phenomena of the absolute now in music culture is much more than a slogan. Cape’s future-focussed present age pop music most likely finds a counterpart both in the hyper-real sounds of the Montreal scene, which with Claire Boucher aka Grimes has found its first international figurehead and secondly in the preposterously commercialized high gloss pop culture of Seoul, which got first dibs on understanding music as a mere accumulation of promotional hooks. Emerging from Berlin while sharply reinterpreting and repositioning this curious melange of influences is one of the most exciting aspects of Cape.

Yule FM (Berlin)

Reducing the songs of Berlin-based Yule FM to lonesomeness would be short-sighted. But one would have to be emotionally blind not to see every single song saturated with the feelings of desertion and distance. Although the music of Yule FM deals with the world and its perils, with the people out there and their abysses it is made in a paradigmatic situation of almost complete isolation, alone and behind closed doors. The slightly end-of-the-pier term bedroom pop was rarely as to the point. Occasionally the songs evoke the work of famous american loners, whose influence Yule FM was certainly under: a little Bon Iver, a bit of Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, still his angle is completely distinct and unprepossessed. The resulting miniatures, often short etudes or broken fragments of composition, illustrate a world view all too familiar to us.

RSVP here, and read more about the festival via their website.