{"key":"9471","name":"The Notwist","bio":"The Notwist is a German indie rock band. Formed in 1989 in Weilheim, Germany, the band moved through several musical incarnations despite maintaining a relatively stable lineup. While their early records moved through hardcore into dark indie rock, their recent efforts, for which they have received the most attention, have been very strongly influenced by the electronica scene, along with the other groups of Morr Music.Markus and Michael Acher formed the group together with Martin Messerschmidt in Weilheim, near Munich. In 1990 they recorded their self-titled debut The Notwist, a grunge-metal oriented LP. 1992 saw the release of Nook, which has an indie rock sound, while their 1995 album 12 contains their first flirtation with electronica. Martin Gretschmann (aka Console) joined the group in 1997. Shrink, released in 1998, is a jazz-electro-rock album. The album Neon Golden (released in 2002) put them on the map for American listeners.In 2003 the band started their own record label Alien Transistor and released a soundtrack for the movie Lichter by Hans-Christian Schmid. On September, 6th 2004 the EP Solo Swim came out, a collaboration between The Notwist, Console and Klimek, which is also the soundtrack for the documentary Kanalschwimmer by J\u00f6rg Adolph. Both EPs are only available on vinyl as is the latest EP by Rayon (Markus Acher), released in spring 2006.Some of The Notwist's songs have been remixed by Four Tet, Manitoba, Console, Loopspool, and others. Singer Markus Acher collaborated with Anticon rapper\/producer Alias on the song Unseen Sights.The Notwist recently formed a supergroup with Themselves named 13 & God, whose eponymous debut was released in 2005. Other acts in which members of The Notwist are participating include Village of Savoonga, Tied & Tickled Trio, Lali Puna, Ms. John Soda, Potawatomi, Alles wie Gro\u00df, Ogonjok, Rayon, 3 Shades of Blues, Hometrainer, Bolzplatz Heroes, Alien Ensemble, and Schweisser. In 2006, Messerschmitt left the band on friendly terms. Markus Acher stated that \"it just didn't work anymore\". The Devil, You + Me and was released in Europe in May, 2008. On June 17, 2008 the album was released in North America on Domino Records.2014 saw the release of Close to the Glass released in the US on Sub-Pop.http:\/\/www.notwist.comMembers * Markus Acher - guitar, vocals * Michael Acher - bass * Mecki Messerschmidt - drums * Martin Gretschmann (aka Console) - programming","featuredImage":"https:\/\/assets.allamericanmusic.com\/images\/9471_h_0.jpg","feeRange":"please contact"}

{"key":"8521","name":"Lali Puna","bio":"Lali Puna are from Weilheim, Bavaria, Germany. The band was brought to life in early 1998 by Valerie Trebeljahr who sings and plays keyboards. Having a lot of time on her hands after her all-girl-band L.B.Page had split up, she used the four-track-recorder as a kind of band replacement. Then came Markus Acher, relaxing from his The Notwist and Tied & Tickled Trio duties (and from living in a house with Mr. Morr) and thus he became Lali Puna\u2019s second member. After some of those early four-track-recordings were released on the beautiful Snooze- 7-inch-ep on Hausmusik, it became clear that this music should also be played on stage. And so drummer Christoph Brandner (Tied & Tickled Trio, Console) and keyboarder Florian Zimmer (Iso 68, Fred Is Dead) completed the band\u2019s second incarnation. The band worked with Tim Simenon aka Bomb The Bass resulting in the release of the Clear Cut-EP on Morr Music. Lali Puna did some remix work with Two Lone Swordsmen and Lowfish as well. Being the great live act they are, Lali Puna played in places as distant as Bratislava, San Francisco, Moscow, St. Petersburg and Barcelona\u2019s Sonar festival. Most of 2001 was spent working on their second album, which finally appeared as Scary World Theory in September of that same year. Artistically as well as commercially, this album was even more successful than its predecessor. They also released a remix-7-inch for Morr Music\u2019s \u201ea number of small things\u201c-label and they have been touring Germany and Europe extensively at the end of 2001. In the fall of 2002 Lali Puna went on their first US-tour and shared a van with Morr Music label mates and friends Styrofoam and Opiate. A few months later Florian Zimmer left Lali Puna in order to focus on his main project Iso68. The new keyboarder is named Christian Hei\u00df. In the summer of 2003, Lali Puna released their Left Handed-EP on Morr Music, which displayed a significant musical progression as Lali Puna started using electric, distorted guitars which could not be heard on earlier releases. This helped shaping a yet more diverse and dynamic sound without neglecting Lali Puna\u2019s past regarding their fragile and beautiful electronic compositions. All the way through 2003 Valerie Trebeljahr and Markus Acher have been busy writing new material for their third full-length album, which was recorded at the Uphon Studios and eventually has been mastered at famous Abbey Road Studios in London in December 2003. Faking The Books, as it is called, will be released in April 2004 on Morr Music, followed by an extensive European tour. Plans for the future include a remix 12-inch featuring some of Lali Puna\u2019s most favourite artists as well as their second North America tour in fall 2004.The story of Lali Puna is inextricably linked to that of the Morr Music label itself. The band's classic Tridecoder album was the second ever release on the imprint back in 1999 and set a new template for electronic rock music that's remained in place ever since. In parallel, Morr and Lali Puna have evolved from humble, experimental beginnings before eventually coming to represent the vanguard of modern pop.Fronted by singer and keyboard player Valerie Trebeljahr, Lali Puna's line-up is completed by drummer Christoph Brandner (also of Tied & Tickled Trio), keyboard player Christian Hei\u00df and Markus Acher - an artist already highly regarded for his work as part of The Notwist. Over a decade of recording together this band have continued to grow in strength, confidence and studio expertise, cuing up a triumphant return to full operational capability on Our Inventions. The album's title was in place early on, helping inspire the sonic template for what's surely Lali Puna's most sophisticated and emphatically electronic collection of work to date. More than ever these songs place the group at the cutting edge of their art, facing up to the onset of an abstract, digitised future whilst retaining a timeless sense of musical ingenuity and endeavour.It took fellow Weilheim luminaries The Notwist until their sixth album to finally reach worldwide recognition, breaking through with 2002's Neon Golden. Now, with Our Inventions, Lali Puna seem poised to crossover in a similarly incendiary fashion. In an age when the very notion of an album seems like an outmoded conceit, Lali Puna are a band that both demand and amply reward the investment of their audience over a full-length narrative. Our Inventions is a defiantly complete listening experience - one that exudes craftsmanship and captures the band at the peak of their powers as songwriters.December 2009","featuredImage":"https:\/\/assets.allamericanmusic.com\/images\/8521_h_0.jpg","feeRange":"please contact"}

{"key":"9508","name":"Ms. John Soda","bio":"A side project of sorts, Ms. John Soda are Stefanie B\u00f6hm and Micha Acher, both part of the Weilheim\/Landsberg scene (Bavaria) which has spawned albums by Lali Puna, The Notwist and Tied & Tickled Trio, amongst others on the Hausmusik and Morr Music labels. Micha Acher is an integral member of The Notwist, 13 & God, and Tied & Tickled Trio, while Stefanie B\u00f6hm plays keyboards with Munich-based instrumentalists Couch. Their first album No P. or D. was released in 2002 with their follow-up Notes and the Like being released in 2006.","featuredImage":"https:\/\/assets.allamericanmusic.com\/images\/9508_h_0.jpg","feeRange":"please contact"}

{"key":"1182","name":"Masha Qrella","bio":"Masha Qrella is a founding member of two Berlin-based bands, Mina and Contriva, who caused a stir beyond their city (and country) limits between 1997 and 2002. Both bands boast two albums, a slew of singles, countless of compilation contributions and several European tours with Stereolab, The Notwist, Calexico, Die Sterne, Stereo Total and Blumfeld.In 2002, Gudrun Gut's label Monika-Enterprise released Masha's first solo album, \"Luck\", followed by a string of European concerts, a tour with Calexico and collaborations with a. o. Rechenzentrum, ISO68, Kissogramm and Knarf Rell\u00f6m. Together with Mina guitarist Norman Nitzsche, Masha went on to build her own studio, \"Villa Qrella\", a popular haunt of Berlin's finest, among them The Whitest Boy Alive, Jim Avignon vs. Neoangin, Frank Spilker or Die T\u00fcren. Never one to rest on her laurels, she also composed a number of soundtracks (e. g. for the German feature film \"Kleinruppin Forever\"), released a range of remixes and sampler contributions and created yet another outlet for her musical musings with NMFarner (two albums in 2005 and 2006).In 2005, Masha Qrella's second solo album, \"Unsolved Remained\", appeared on Morr Music. Around the same time, she started to perform with a full line-up, taking her new band across Europe and the United States. On her return, Contriva emerged from their lengthy hiatus to record another studio album.Two years later, in 2007, the Berlin-based \"House of World Cultures\" commissioned Masha Qrella to interpret several New York Broadway songs by Kurt Weill and Frederick Loewe \u00ad a project that took on a life of its own. Inspired by the material, she decided to record these songs with her own band. The result of this collaboration, \"Speak Low\" (2009), is now available on Morr Music. Inspired and inspirational, Masha already has her next projects in sight. Keep your eyes peeled for an upcoming solo album and a collaborative project between her band Contriva and American experimentalists Chessie.","featuredImage":"https:\/\/assets.allamericanmusic.com\/images\/1182_h_0.jpg","feeRange":"please contact"}

{"key":"29988","name":"To Rococo Rot","bio":"To Rococo Rot was a mostly post-rock trio from Berlin, Germany. Members are bassist Stefan Schneider (also of Dusseldorf group Kreidler) and brothers Robert (guitar, electronics) and Ronald Lippok (drums, effects). Ronald Lippok has also gained praise for his work in Tarwater. The band's name is a palindrome.The group's d\u00e9but was released in 1996 in the form of an untitled picture disc (subsequently reissued on CD by Kitty Yo), with the more widely distributed \"Veiculo\" (released by UK indie label City Slang) appearing the following year. In 1997, the group recorded an album's worth of material with producer David Moufang. Following a move to Mute Records, the band released \"The Amateur View\" in 1999 and \"Music Is a Hungry Ghost\" in 2001, and \"Hotel Morgen\" in 2004.The band announcend the end of To Rococo Rot in 2014","featuredImage":"https:\/\/assets.allamericanmusic.com\/images\/29988_h_0.jpg","feeRange":"please contact"}

{"key":"9613","name":"Barbara Morgenstern","bio":"After a long period of playing in bands, singing in an acapella-band and having bad experiences with major-label-deals Barbara Morgenstern started to concentrate on her own songs. An old friend (Joe Tabu) started to organize concerts in his living room (in 1996) to create a more concentrated and intimate atmosphere during the performance, keep the focus on the music and to have the possibility to perform without being well known or having much publicity.As a member of the so-called Wohnzimmer-Szene (livingroom scene) Morgenstern did her first record Enter the Partyzone - a cassette with 6 trash keyboard songs on it. After that things developed slowly but constantly. She did a tour with all the bands who got known by their concerts in the living room and \u201cthat was the point when we realized that the whole thing was over cause although playing in clubs was not the main idea, we wanted to play and reach people.\u201dBarbara Morgenstern did a second album in 1997 - Plastikreport -on a small german Label called Klub der guten Hoffnung a label based on the idea of networking, selling the records at concerts and supporting each other (e.g. organizing concerts for labelmates). Parallel to this Gudrun Gut founded her label Monika Enterprise a small independent label. She released the first Wohnzimmer Compilation and a lot of the bands of the Wohnzimmer Szene (Quarks, Contriva, Komeit). Barbara released her first full-length album in 1998 on Monika Enterprise - Gudrun Gut had discovered her at a Wohnzimmer concert - and from this moment on she started touring through Germany, Austria and Switzerland.Morgenstern\u2019s next album was Fjorden (Monika Enterprise) in 2000 and after that Nichts Muss on Monika (2003) - in collaboration with Labels because she started to play throughout Europe as well (UK, Spain, Portugal, Italy , Scandinavia, Poland\u2026). She did lots of concerts with the fabulous Berlin electronic band To Rococo Rot and Stefan Schneider\u00b4s Mapstation - with them she discovered the european audiences. In April 2002 Morgenstern released an EP on Domino Recordings (Series 500), including 4 Tracks together with Robert Lippok (To Rococo Rot).Barbara was invited by the German Goethe Institut to do a World Tour with Maximilian Hecker. They played in Berlin, Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires, Porto Allegre, Sao Paulo, Johannesburg, Tel Aviv, Ankara, Athen, Madrid, Brussels, Milano, Paris, Copenhagen, London, Stockholm, Glasgow, Tallinn, St. Petersburg and after a christmas-break kept on playing concerts from january 2004 in New York, Toronto, Chicago, San Francisco, Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul, Bombay, Tashkent , Jakarta, Bangkok, Hongkong, Shanghai, Peking and Sydney. Of course that was exciting. Having started in Berlin living-rooms and now having the chance to travel around the world.Before the World Tour Morgenstern took part in a recording session with Bills Wells, a wonderful musician from Scotland. His style is between Jazz and Post Rock, very gentle music. He invited Stefan Schneider and Annie Whitehead (a Trombone player who played with Robert Whyatt) to record an album with him. The album Pick up Sticks was released in April 2004 on the Leaf Label.The next thing that happened was the release of an album Morgenstern did with Stefan Schneider (To Rococo Rot) and Paul Wirkus a polish experimental electronic musician under the name September Collective on Geographic\/ Domino Records in September 04. We played concerts in Germany, Poland and UK in spring 05.The Tesri album with Robert Lippok is finished and was released on Monika Enterprise in May 05. One highlight of the following gigs was a concert in Tokyo as part of an oceanclub night on october 9th 2005. They also played a lot of live shows in Europe during the year 2005.Barbara\u2019s fourth album the grass is always greener (monika47) was released last year. US tour dates are planned for fall 2007.Barbara Morgenstern International press quotes:\u201cFor some this music is a trip into their true self, for others it is just the best that the electro-pop scene has currently got to offer. And for some it\u2019s both.\u201dDie Zeit 11\/03\"She successfully resists the do and dont\u2019s of the moment. And of course there\u2019s that nonochalant voice which, no matter how sad the words are, always suggests a smiling face.\u201dSpex\"Beyond all cliches and categorisation remains a wonderful voice, hypnotic lyrics and a light, melodic sound scape. - this is music for autum walks thourhgh the park, preferably with the sun low in the sky and a fresh breeze.\u201d www.woldingwacht.de\u201cThe good thing about Barbara Morgenstern is that she does everything right. She magically radiates energy and composes melodies that take you to giddy heights and leave your heart pounding.\u201d Goethe Institut\u201c\u2026You could have called that work Indietronic, but the term didn`t exist at the time. Even now, two years later, it won`t fit. yet it comes to mind, because `Fjorden` has obviously been recorded with new equipment and new technique. Still working out of her own studio, using sampler and sequencer in her instrumentation, Barbara Morgenstern tells us stories. Her wonderful, heartbreaking voice, adds context to the beats and sounds. \"Fjorden\", with its warm analog sound, is like a good friend visiting - rotating in your cd player. You are not alone. Barbara Morgenstern is there with her music. And it`s wonderful that she`s there!\u201d Jan Ole J\u00f6hnk, 8\/2000 \u201c\u2026she captures odd sounds in her net \u2013 cello draughts, a fly buzzing through a room, electric guitars that blast like gridlocked trucks \u2013 and flows them seamlessly into the pop\u2026\u201c Other Music NY, 10\/2000\u201cBerlin-based electronic indie-pop artist Barbara Morgenstern's vocals may not pirouette like Bj\u00f6rk's or haunt like Tracy Thorn's, but they're still perfect. This is evident on her new recording, The Grass Is Greener, a collection of songs inspired by a recent Goethe Institut-sponsored world tour. Although she's been recording fine material since 1997, the dreamy, piano-constructed ballads of Grass should prove to be her breakthrough.\u201dearplug, April 2006\u201cthere\u2019s barely a dud to be found, not even as the album takes on a busier and slightly more industrial aesthetic near the end. Confident, crafted and feminine, this is Morgenstern\u2019s finest record yet - let\u2019s hope she gets the audience she deserves.\u201dPitchwfork Media, Mark Pytlik June 20, 2006Links:http:\/\/www.monika-enterprise.dehttp:\/\/www.barbaramorgenstern.dehttp:\/\/www.myspace.com\/barbaramorgensternhttp:\/\/www.discogs.com\/artist\/Barbara+Morgenstern","featuredImage":"https:\/\/assets.allamericanmusic.com\/images\/9613_h_0.jpg","feeRange":"please contact"}

{"key":"81931","name":"Valentin Stip","bio":"http:\/\/soundcloud.com\/valentinstip\/tracksMy name is Val, I was born in Paris, France. I started playing piano when I was seven and continued in the classical music wave, picking up guitar on the way, until i got out of high school.Missing my piano too much in Montreal, I started playing around with the musical abilities of my computer, and have been producing computer music since then. No specific genre, only what pleases my mind.","featuredImage":"https:\/\/assets.allamericanmusic.com\/images\/81931_h_0.jpg","feeRange":"please contact"}

{"key":"9125","name":"Mouse on Mars","bio":"Mouse on Mars formed in 1993 when Andi Toma, from Dusseldorf, and Jan St. Werner, from Cologne, met at a speed metal festival in Stockholm and decided to form a band.With eleven albums and eleven e.p.'s Mouse On Mars have gained a reputation as one of the most innovative and productive bands of today's popular music scene. \"the true inheritors of kraftwerk's mantle\" (MUZAK Magazine). The band itself never encouraged this comparison. They rather consider their efforts as fragmented and always reforming ideas which are not after the clean design of pop aesthetics but offer a broken and profound criticism on a \"one world one sound\" equalisation. \"Nothing is decided in the music itself but its construction as a statement: even intervals and odd power chords arrayed in polistic structures, keyed in through micro-blasting tirades of resistance, display a world of madness and diversity\" (the HUB, 12.01)Their first release in 1994 was a single: \"Frosch\"- \"lfo \/ krautrock toytown toonz\" (NME). So fresh were the sounds that critics were at a loss for words \"One Man's thingy is another man's wotsit.\" (melody maker). Their debut album \"Vulvaland\" went straight into the UK indie top 5.Musically Mouse On Mars create densely layered tracks with the intended results being grounded between radical experimentalsism and timeless pop appeal. Designed to yield more with repeated listens, songs are minutely detailed. Drum tracks, for example, often contain over twenty different layers: live drums, programmed, digitally processed and various combinations and\/or mutations of the aforementioned.Fills and breaks are set, arranged, and placed individually as opposed to being looped. The results are rich, deep, wonderfully varied. \"Mouse on Mars combine so many sounds from myriad genres, asking the listener to discard their preconceptions, wherever possible, and have what jazzbos in Tennessee call \"big ears.\" Mike McGonigalOr to quote Rob Young from the WIRE: \"Mouse On Mars tracks are lush mini adventures or sound movies in multiple dimensions: densly layered vertically, constantly changing horizontally in time, it's a fully articulated body of music.\"Since 1997 Mouse On Mars have run their own record label Sonig. Being fully independent from major record companies they have established their very own platform to spread their ideas. Over the last couple of years their concert tours have extended from Europe, Japan and the USA to South America, East Europe and Asia.They have also produced records for Stereolab and members of Kraftwerk, they made music for an ill-fated Tony Danza film, and worked on remixes for the High Llamas, Cibo Matto, Pram, Anne Clark, the Pastels, Merz, Towa Tei, Oval and others. They recently worked together with house luminary Matthew Herbert and still find the time to let St.Werner work with Oval's Markus Popp on the digital off-shoot \"Microstoria\".Mouse On Mars have paved the way for a continuously growing gang of German and international sound villains to weave analogue and digital, electronic and non-electronic sounds in a totally new, organic fabric. Not without reason have great swarms of independent and other tinkerers, post-, kraut- and general rockers, techno types and avant-garde scoundrels included this darned modern stuff in their daily menu.","featuredImage":"https:\/\/assets.allamericanmusic.com\/images\/9125_h_0.jpg","feeRange":"please contact"}

{"key":"9470","name":"Dntel","bio":"Dntel is the solo project of Jimmy Tamborello. Dntel is known for mixing glitch and cut-up electronic techniques with instruments like acoustic guitars, accordions, and symphonic instruments. Dntel is also the project that spawned The Postal Service.He started working as Dntel, pronounced Din-tell, in 1994. A collection of tracks created between 1995-1997 (Early Works For Me If It Works For You) was released on the Phthalo label in 1999, followed by the release of an EP recorded in 1994 (Something Always Goes Wrong) in 2000. After contributing a song to Plug Research's Voices In My Lunchbox compilation he was invited to do a full length for the label, preceded by a 12\" EP (Anywhere Anyone).Dntel released his full-length album Life Is Full Of Possibilities in 2001. The LP featured vocal contributions by many artists, including Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard on the breakout track (This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan, which led to a single in 2002 and later, the formation of the band The Postal Service with Gibbard. With vocals buried in static, cut-up acoustic guitars and sampled symphonies struggling to find somewhere to settle, Life Is Full Of Possibilities reserved Dntel's spot as a pioneer of contemporary glitch, electro-pop, and indietronica. Tamborello is currently working with The Postal Service and continuing his solo work, including remixes for various artists. As Dntel, he is releasing a compilation, Early Works For Me If It Works For You II, which will feature unfinished instrumental tracks from when he was working on Life Is Full Of Possibilities in 1998-2001, to be released on Phthalo. He released his newest full-length LP, titled \"Dumb Luck\" on April 24, 2007. \"Dumb Luck\" is his first LP on Sub Pop records.","featuredImage":"https:\/\/assets.allamericanmusic.com\/images\/9470_h_0.jpg","feeRange":"please contact"}

{"key":"9612","name":"Schneider TM","bio":"Schneider TM is the name used for the solo electronic music projects of Dirk Dresselhaus, a former rhythm-section member for several German indie rock bands. He released his first single under this name in 1997, but his most notable piece to date was a track named \"The Light 3000\" on the 2000 EP Binokular (a collaborative EP with KPT.michi.gan). The track is an electronic music cover of \"There Is a Light That Never Goes Out\" by the Smiths and was recently voted by Wire Magazine as one of the best cover versions ever recorded. In May of 2006 \"\u0160koda Mluvit\" was released and contains the single \"pac man \/ shopping cart.","featuredImage":"https:\/\/assets.allamericanmusic.com\/images\/9612_h_0.jpg","feeRange":"please contact"}