From classical composers through to Krautrock and electronic music pioneers, Germany continues to support music scenes that flourish within all genres. The city of Berlin has been an especially strong attractor for artists coming from surrounding areas, as well as for those that come from far away to make the city their home.

This edition of CTM features a sampling of upcoming, young German talent, starting with Samuel Kerridge, who will perform Friday 1.2. as part of the Rave Undead II program at Berghain. Originally from the UK, Kerridge has made Berlin his home base, where he co-founded the irregularly occurring Sunday afternoon “Contort” event series as a way to explore people’s perception of club culture. His debut EP, Auris Interna, came out in 2012 on Powell’s Horizontal Ground label, and presents the artist’s own take on rave music today.

On Saturday 2.2., CTM presents a collaborative program with the Berlin-based Purge/#gHashtag collective at Stattbad. Formed by US expats Brandon Rosenbluth (aka xorzyzt, Bl4ck M4g1ck) and Daniel Jones (BlackBlackGold, Gucci Goth), as well as Tomas Helmstadt (Tom Ass, Gegen), the collective first came together as a unit in September of 2011. Through DJing together, the trio entered into an inevitable collaboration, and from that day the collective has birthed two namesake parties with the aim of ending party apathy.

With all three protagonist performing at the Stattbad evening, the event also hosts Berlin-based band Sun Worship. Founded in 2009, Sun Worship channel the spirits of black metal, with a notable influence from Scandinavian black metal of the 90s. The band, however, do not dedicate themselves any one genre, and consciously reject any tags imposed on them as much musically as by avoiding any kind of dress-code or insignia.

Charged with the grand gestures of Thelemic ritual magic and pursue an endlessly cumulative ecstatic dramaturgy, Berlin-based band reliq blend worlds of shoegaze, black metal, noise, and ambient during powerful live show. Similarly to Sun Worship, the influence of black metal on the reliq sound is evident, but it is merely one of many. Making use of bold interdisciplinary hooks to eschew standard genre tags, the band has been made up of a revolving cast of characters; current and past members have been or are art students, and the band itself developed out of the A/V performance art collective dev01ded in 2010. Performing on as part of the Causic Neverland program at Berghain Kantine on Thursday 31.1., reliq are themselves also linked to Purge/#gHashtag via their drummer, Brandon Rosenbluth, one of the collective’s founders.

HERKULES from reliq on Vimeo.

For further reading into reliq and Sun Worship, check this special feature article by Andreas Richter.

The presentation of young German talent at CTM.13 is supported by Initiative Musik.