Brutalismus 3000 Are Turning Techno On Its Head
Brutalismus 3000 is Europe's hottest new electronic band, a Bavarian duo that has been lighting up Berlin's wildest and grooviest rave music since the 90s, calling the modern techno scene a hotspot. Boring and "old". Lyrics about horror movies and 9/11, talking to Rick Owens, the lord of dark fashion, performing in front of thousands, doing serious numbers on TikTok and (apparently) drinking blood. Bringing an unpleasant spirit. In a long-overdue tech scene, Victoria Vasiliki Daldas and Theo Zeitner are comically cute, almost scary.
Or if they're not beautiful. Daldas and Zeitner met in 2018 at 2 a.m. in a bar in Neukölln, southeast Berlin. Zeitner was at a party when she got a message from a new Tinder match asking if she wanted to meet them. They almost exchange pleasantries, but she spontaneously accepts the first date.
More than Rolling Stone
"I said, 'Do you want to meet me?'" Daldas said. I told him "Then he came in and I saw this nice guy asking for vodka. We used to speak English..."
"...I thought it was Russian..." Zeitner said.
"...Then I heard him say 'vodka soda' and immediately knew he was German," says Daldas.
"I was a little scared, but at the end of the day he was a good guy," Zeitner said.
"Not registered!" Daldas laughs.
In one of two previous interviews with Berlin's Playful magazine , Daldas and Zeitner wore neon yellow suits (presumably Balenciaga) and lamented the contemporary art scene, particularly in Berlin. "They take it very seriously and talk about things like the 'techno revolution,'" Zeitner said. "I don't think so... it's not like that. Going to Berghain is not a revolution... the techno scene is very old.
When they met me at the luxury duplex in Neukölln the day after I left, they finished their sentences and laughed appreciatively between drinks, showing a mutual understanding that matches musical chemistry. Cosmopolitans have been handpicked by their managers. The place is still empty, with a few chairs and a coffee table, but it is on the top floor of a modern-looking apartment building and enjoys the sun and the leafy streets of Berlin's most popular districts. .
Although they deny the revolutionary qualities of techno, they represent a radical change in electronic music. Once defined by subtle, gritty techno made by white men in straight black shirts, Brutalismus 3000 was loud and stylish, straddling Euro trance, 2000s electroshock and all-American EDM. They dress in Technicolor and sing to the queer, female community of the Berlin club scene Daldas ("They're your kids," Zeitner tells him).
They also oppose it. They may seem niche, but they cover a lot of the mainstream, expressing their love for pop stars like The Weeknd and EDM DJs like David Guetta. Their music is irreverent and intensely referential: dig through their catalog and you'll find hints of Kraftwerk, Iggy Pop, Soundcloud rappers, David Cronenberg and vampire superheroes. They say they're not influenced by the art scene, but they cling to the quarter like a teenager clings to their phone.
And despite their raw power, their music is often beautiful, subtle in its psychedelic melodies and haunting in its nuanced depiction of the world. This is the paradox I'm here to explore: is Brutalism 3000 as cold and uncompromising as it seems, a dark icon of Berlin secrecy that shuns mainstream society and worships the devil in its spare time? Or are they really human?
"You could say we worship Satan," Zeitner said.
On that first date night, Zeitner and Daldas discovered a shared love of horror movies and hardcore dance music from artists like DAF (Deutsch Americanische Freundschaft), a popular 70s and 80s electro duo from Dusseldorf. Stuff - singing groovetronic adventures about Hitler and Mussolini. Zeitner started making music in garage bands after watching his friends make simple techno music; He decided to learn how to prove himself stupid. Dildash rarely sang except in school plays, but he forgot his lines.
Less than a year after meeting, they started recording together. Zeitner produced hellish beats and Daldas sang through a distorted microphone in a mixture of German, English and Slovak. No matter what your understanding of one of these languages is, their words are a challenge to decipher, fragments that represent a distorted and uncertain view of the cities they live in and the world they were born into. Mysterious, obliquely political and truly magnetic, paying little attention to the genre most often found, Daldas Death Grips is the techno of hip-hop mastermind MC Ride: you may not realize it - they're not the only ones screaming, but they probably aren't.. I can't stop listening. .
In August 2020 Brutalismus 3000 released their debut single "Horíme" ("we are burning" in Slovak) to the world at the mercy of the pandemic. By the time the clubs started up again, they had a few singles and a couple of EPs to their name, as well as a huge online following that caught the eye of some TikTok kids. Their first real show, in Paris 2021, attracted 2,000 people. The song titles of the first works were "No Sex With Cops", "The Devil Was A Baby Boomer" and "Die Umwelt Macht Bum" ("The Environment Goes Boom"). Several album covers show the group bleeding from the lips.
In February they composed the soundtrack for the release of Rick Owens' Moncler "The Sarcophagus", and in April they released their debut album Ultrakunst ("Ultra Art"), which reached number 11 on the pop charts. German Amidst loud trumpets, trance riffs, drums and the occasional jingle, Daldash sings lines like " we drink your blood and sit on your head". As she approaches him, she jots down words and ideas on her phone, she says: "It's a complete mess. Then Theo helps me sort it out." Zeitner wrote songs to sing with his partner, including the lyrics to the amazing ultrapunk song "Gewalt Gewalt". Daldas then complains in German: "And there are 20 people in the corner / Violence and violence".
Like most of their music, it is shrouded in an air of confusion about Berlin as a free and loving place. In 2022's "Romantica", Daldas depicts sweet romance in the sweet atmosphere of a Berlin nightclub: "Fuckface bouncer, let me go to the club / Wanna kiss my skin baby ". But at Safe Space, any club that claims to be safe is targeting its customers.
"Everybody we know is on drugs or something," Zeitner said.
"They drugged me twice," Daldas said. "Nothing bad happened, but ... it's also a comment about the party you say is a fun place, and then you look at [the DJ's] line-up and . . ."
Zeitner said, "... there's a lot of alleged abuse, or it could be a weird party, mostly straight people, they're wearing weird clothes, and they're harassing women. That's what we see. We put a song on it... A lot of people We see that he has problems." Here." The mental illness is worse here because it's a very stressful and very demanding city, but we love it."
"When I arrived in Berlin, I felt at home for the first time," says Daldas. Growing up in rural Bavaria in southern Germany with a Greek father and a German-Slovak mother, he "didn't really fit in" in a conservative environment. He always had a romantic relationship with his parents, but he left home when he was eighteen, and soon after they told him: "We've never seen you so happy."
Zeitner grew up in the small Bavarian town of Coburg and describes his upbringing as "upper middle class". He was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 12 and "there were all kinds of problems," he says. "I think I suffered a lot as a child but I had a very secure childhood.
Zeitner and Daldas often say things that contrast with the shy and humble personalities of typical electronic musicians.
"We both knew we were going to be famous when we were little," Daldas said.
"Yeah, that's the only thing I want," Zeitner added. "Very funny. You can put him on The Idol. " They haven't been bullied on the street yet, but when they move to a new place they are recognized by their neighbors, which is apparently awkward. He spoke to me on the first day of their 30-date European tour in just over a month. Despite being on planes most weeks, Zeitner still has a fear of flying. He wears the same T-shirt every time he gets on the plane and plays the same song before takeoff: "Hit the Waves" by the Glass Creatures, timed so that the chorus plays as the wheels leave the runway.
Since his 27th birthday, Zeitner has had the unfortunate fate of Michael Keaton's character, sitting behind George Clooney in Birdman , about to crash during a storm. Clooney's face was in the papers the next day, not hers. "It would be so boring to die at 27," Zeitner said. "Because who am I in this club? I'll die at 28, then I'll be in a new club."
Daldas won't reveal his age, but anyway, Brutalismus 3000's fan base is Generation Z. Their last tour was open to anyone over 16, and they estimate the average age at their shows to be 18 or 19. Really young,” says Zeitner. "People hate what young people like, but I love it. The younger generation is always the best generation."
They're millennials, Zeitner says, and they think of a pre-Internet childhood defined by Offspring Games and Tony Hawk's pro skaters . But it's easy to understand why they appeal to young people. Their favorite lyrical themes feature David Attenborough's samples and atmosphere on the 2022 song "3ISBÄR", where Daldas sings "Eisbär", a reference to the 1981 song " Eisbär " by the Swiss new wave band Grauzone. "n müssen weinen " ("The polar bear must cry").
"Many would say it's an activity," said Daldas. "But it's definitely something that our generation and even the younger generation struggle with, and it definitely affects us." Zeitner points out that traveling around the world going to a different concert every week isn't environmentally friendly, but they hope to at least take that feeling away from the audience.
But they are showing their age with the UltraConst title "CRY BABY". Between Apocalypse and Woodstock '99, Daldas sings (in German): "Two buildings, two planes / They will never be the same." "I remember sitting in front of the TV," he recalled of 9/11. "I think it's similar to what's happening now. We're celebrating and this and that and then you read the news and what's happening. It fails. Then you read it and think about what you can do to change it."
"It's definitely provocative in some ways," Zeitner added. "But it's also very neutral. It's not really a joke, but it's not normal for a dance floor. We always like it to be more than a dance floor."
All of this—rejecting the ubiquitous minimalism of electronic music, calling out troubled club bands, "more than just a dance number—is a techno revolution, right? I don't want to go that far," says Zeitner. it's been a long time I find it strange to be in this unique position in what we do. We did it in this club, all clubs continue but in different ways. Surprisingly, we were the first to think of it.
According to Spotify, his second biggest fan base is now in the US: "I think it's probably going to be more disruptive there," Daldas said. "Bringing this loud, loud, hard rave culture will be something new for them." Students in both studies noted that although techno was born in Detroit, most Americans did not experience rave culture the way Berlin and London did in the 1990s. They don't have any US shows planned yet, but they're giggling with excitement at the prospect of playing an EDM festival in Las Vegas with Daldas, who shoot confetti balls, fireworks and rockets like Jackass.
In 1977, David Bowie commissioned Iggy Pop to write a song about "Walking Like a Ghost in the Night". They wrote "Night Club" together in a studio in Berlin. Grace Jones and the Human League covered the song. On Brutalismus 3000's version, over rave cries and fuzzy bass drums, Daldas affirmatively replies, "Найтклаб, אמר ניטכלב / אניטלךב אמר יאניטכלב / אמר יא טאשעשר".
And now, at least in Europe, they are. It remains to be seen whether the rest of the world can withstand Brutalism 3000's multi-sensory onslaught. Will they be intimidated by their masculine personality or seduced by the humanity at the heart of their music? After all, they don't really drink blood. What are they?
Daldas said, no. "Okay, maybe baby blood. You know, to be young."
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