The first time I visited Berlin was for its annual Film Festival, there was still the infamous wall, the eastern part of city was grey, bleak with poor lightning, long and wide darkly deserted avenues at night, a gloomy fascination and a decadent appeal, at least for me.
I came back at the very end of the 90’s, after years in the shining London, the wall finally had fallen, but that feeling was still there with the addiction of a powerful free anarchic creativity, even if gradually stranded by money, hype, gentrification and shopping malls throughout the years.
If there’s a sound, besides techno, that closely recall me and embodies that feel is the provocative and dissonant cold post punk of bands like Malaria!, Neubauten, Carambolage, Die Tödliche Doris.
The new Berlin‘s based trio AUS has released today an impressive 7-track demo that seems to follow that legendary music legacy.
‘Abgemacht’ epitomizes the stark urgency and sharpness of that unique post-punk sound, a direct, powerful, skewed and minimalistic approach in a sort of physical relationship with the instruments, made up of obsessive and tribal rhythms, rumbling bass lines, abrasive angular guitar layers, icy synth and wound-up expressionist vocals, stiring up heaps of pure emotion, angst and desire.
It’s fresh, imaginative, unsettling, highly infectuous, this is the true DIY cold post-punk sound of Berlin right now.