Here’s our overview of some of the year’s most interesting recordings from queer and gender-defiant artists, judged by songcraft and sonic storytelling as well as political content, including Hercules & Love Affair, Planningtorock, R.E.M., Beth Ditto and Hunx and his Punx.
For our final episode of 2011, we’ve harnessed some of the year’s most memorable – and ignored – moments from the likes of Hercules & Love Affair, Austra, YACHT, Planningtorock, Aérea Negrot and Discodromo.
Homoground is a US-based site that’s like some gay podcast sweatshop for your music discovery pleasure. We’ve just contributed a 40-minute mix of music (un)released this year by queer-identified artists and performers based in our Techno Hauptstadt who craft music by electronic means.
R.E.M. recorded parts of their latest album Collapse into Now in our German capital, which is how they ended up with a song title like “Überlin” and a guest spot from Peaches. Now “Alligator Aviator Autopilot Antimatter” gets the remix treatment from another Berliner, Expatriarch Bookings roster member Dickey Doo, teaming up with electroclash founder Larry Tee and his co-producer A3 (Attack-Attack-Attack!). Currently, the remix is only available for streaming; stay tuned for news on an official release.
Expatriarch offers a musical moratorium on the oppressive gender binary system! Your mistress of ceremonies Joey Hansom gets dark and dystopian with Light Asylum, Kool Thing, G-DMOTHER (all performing at Mort à la Differénce on July 23 at Chez Jacki in Berlin), Planningtorock, SALEM, and other grimy, creepy femmes fatales, plus the bewitching Hazell Dean.
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