Preview: the week ahead (12th May to 18th May)

Wow, what a busy week. There are seemingly more interesting shows taking place in the upcoming seven days than during most of the winter altogether. This makes the choice of where to go not really easy. To help you with that here's a preview of what we think might be worth visiting.

Monday

• Tim Kasher + Al Burian at Schokoladen: Tim Kasher is probably better known for his bands Cursive and The Good Life. If you’re a fan of those, you’ll probably want to visit Schokoladen this Monday. Quite a nice opener for the week! Support will be Al Burian (ex-Milemarker) who will do a solo performance.

Tuesday

• Powder Blue at Roter Salon: Canadian ladies are rocking Berlin this week, with Powder Blue and their poppy psychedelic post rock at Roter Salon tonight, followed by White Lung at Magnet tomorrow. Good.

Wednesday

• Pleasure Leftists + Totenwald at bei Ruth: Pleasure Leftists play nice 80s influenced wave punk. They sound like a modern and more melodic version of bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees or even Malaria. Support will be Totenwald from Berlin who basically take a similar line, they sound like early raw the Cure. A pretty nice line-up for all you 80s punks.

• White Lung at Magnet: White Lung still get lots of media attention and rightly so. They’re an energetic and wild punk/hardcore band consisting mostly of women and their last show at bei Ruth was fantastic! I wonder if Magnet is the right place for a snotty punk show like this but White Lung seem to have gotten used to bigger stages and audiences in the recent past.
• tUnE-yArDs + Sylvan Esso at Berghain: Read about C*’s undying love for tUnE-yArDs here and go to this.
• The London Dirthole Company at Monarch: Rock’n’roll, raw, garagey and wonderful, will make Monarch feel very hot this Wednesday. Mid-week treat.

Thursday

• Stadtfischflex Orchestra + Psykisk Tortur + DJs at bei Ruth: Uwe Bastiansen, former guitar player for Abwärts, founded his project Stadtfischflex somewhen in the early 90s. He invites guest musicians to play live with him, for this show at bei Ruth those are (ex-) members of various noteable bands. The whole list reads like a collection of early experimental and Krautrock bands: Uwe Bastiansen (ex-Abwärts), N.U. Unruh (Einstürzende Neubauten), Zappi Diermaier (Faust), Kakawaka, Hoshiko Yamane (Tangerine Dream), Luca Andrioli (Ulan Bator) and Kim Kiesling form the Stadtfischflex Orchestra. Also playing will be Psykisk Tortur, a Norwegian experimental duo that’s also been around since quite some time now. Could become a memorable night.
• Sean Nicholas Savage at Privatclub: Canadians in da house this week. Sean Nicholas Savage quirky numbers are very en-vogue just now. Deservedly so.

Saturday

• Bohren & der Club of Gore at HO Berlin: Bohren return to Berlin earlier than expected, their last show took place only a couple of months ago (read our review here). By now you probably all know them anyway so we won’t introduce our favorite dark/drone/ambient jazz band any further. If you’re in for a musically melancholic but at the same time entertaining evening, there’s no way around this.

Sunday

• Sleaford Mods + Ill Till at bei Ruth: I’ve been very much looking forward to this, especially since I missed Sleaford Mods last Berlin visit at West Germany. They just released their second record and everybody’s going wild about it. They play minimalistic music, a simple bass line combined with a drum-machine beat, completed by snotty spoken word rants is all it takes to create a driving feeling with hints to the Fall and other early post-punk bands. It sounds somehow hip hop related without being hip hop, at the same time it’s punk without being punk and this refusal of being categorized or even categorizable just makes them more relevant. They’re definitely one of the most interesting new bands from the last years and bei Ruth is probably going to be packed, so make sure to be there early enough. Here’s a nice article about the band from the Jungle World and if you haven’t yet done so, check out the video for one of their new songs below.

• The Julie Ruin + Hospitality at Bi Nuu: Kathleen Hannah and Kathy Wilcox back together in one band? A wet dream come true for Bikini Kill fans. Hospitality are a very fun opener of the Merge Records family. C* and Gary have their tickets at the ready. Oh yes. We’ll head to Bei Ruth afterwards for some Sleaford Mods action. See y’all around town this Sunday.
• Big Up’s + Superspaceproject at West Germany: Read more about this great show and win tickets for it in our competition. If you’re into melodic and noisy punk with a hint of Shellac, this might be right down your alley!