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Music Montag: Best of Berlin 2014

by James Glazebrook

There’s nothing like a Music Montag end of year playlist to make you realise just how diverse the Berlin music scene is! Bookended by classic Zoë favourites that drive home the dominance of the city’s clubbing industry, elsewhere this year’s Best of Berlin runs the gammut of genres. There’s electro pop, indie, weirdo synth explorations, progressive metal, a healthy chunk of Bowie covers… even a hilarious advertising jingle and a track from a rock opera for kids! Hope you enjoy this pick-and-mix of the most interesting music (mostly) produced in Berlin this year. Boom.

Want to walk your ears down memory lane? Check out the Music Montag: Best of Berlin 2013 and the best of 2012.

Win guestlist to Peaches, Ellen Allien and more at SchwuZ!

by James Glazebrook

Peaches by Alexa Vachon

[EDIT: this competition is now closed. Click here to see if we’re running any open competitions]

OUTRAGEOUS LINEUP ALERT! This Friday, Peaches is joined by Ellen Allien, Aerea Negrot and many more awesome artists at SchwuZ. This utter treat of a club night is the 100th edition of London Calling vs. Expatriarch Generations, with a special performance by Ziur AKA Mika Risiko of CRIME fame.

Peaches hand picked Risiko for this showcase as part of the Expatriarch Generations project, which hooks up emerging artists with established acts for personal mentoring, support and career advice. Each month, Berlin Community Radio airs a conversation between the two, like this fascinating discussion between Sasha Perrera (Jahcoozi) and Bella Cuts. We can’t wait to hear the Peaches edition! Or see her live!! Scroll down to win!!!

HOW TO WIN 2 X TICKETS FOR LONDON CALLING VS. EXPATRIARCH GENERATIONS AT SCHWUZ ON FRIDAY OCTOBER 3RD (full event details):

Just leave us a comment below with the answer to this easy question:

(apart from Peaches and Ellen Allien) Who is the fiercest female ever to make music in Berlin?

You have until midnight on Thursday 2nd October to enter. GOOD LUCK!

The Boring Bit (yawn, RULES):

1. You must be 18 years or older to enter.
2. ONE ENTRY PER PERSON!
3. We will keep a record of each comment in a database and then a random number generator picks the winner.
4. Remember to include your full (real) name and email address, so we can contact you if you win.
6. We will notify the winner via email on Friday 3rd October.

Music Montag: Billie Ray Martin and Aerea Negrot

by James Glazebrook

Billie Ray Martin and Aerea Negrot

Two of our favourite divas together on one track! “Off The Rails” unites legendary house singer Billie Ray Martin with Aérea Negrot, one of Hercules and Love Affair’s rotating cast of characters, on an old-school, dance-around-the-handbags club track. If you like this, you should buy it on BRM’s Bandcamp, and also check out this great Electronic Beats conversation between the two singers.

Music Montag: Aérea Negrot

by James Glazebrook

Aerea Negrot
Venezuelan transgender diva Aérea Negrot first appeared as a guest vocalist on Hercules and the Love Affair’s last album, Blue Songs, before finding her home at Berlin’s bpitch control. Her incorporation of abstract vocals into hypnotic minimal owes much to label head Ellen Allien and sometime collaborator Miss Kittin, but Negrot has an identity all of her own, musically, visually, and, well, sexually. Gender politics are not our forté, but it’s pretty obvious what she’s referring to 11 minutes into the below live set (recorded at Watergate) when she starts chanting, “This is not the wrong body”.

Debut album Arabxilla (out on September 19th) folds techno, abstract electronica, piano house and opera into a heady, hedonistic mix – think Nôze meets Grace Jones in a Berghain bathroom. Our highlight is a German-language lounge song called “Berlin”, which we can’t wait to drop into a self-indulgent themed DJ set, but for now you’ll have to settle for an exclusive track, “Love You From The Brain”, streaming at the bottom of this post.

“Love You From The Brain” (click through to download):

This article originally appeared on Bang Bang Berlin.