Mary Ocher

[INT]

Mary Ocher is "possibly possessed by demons, perhaps by ghosts of deceased prophets". Born in Moscow in 1986 and raised in Tel Aviv, Israel, she has become a prominent performance personality in Europe over the past six years, creating garage-influenced avant-pop and participating in a freewheeling sweep of creative initiatives. 

At age 14, Ocher recorded her first song, produced by Israeli musician Idan Raichel. Upon moving to Berlin several years later, her band Mary and The Baby Cheeses produced a handful of DIY releases, including Analog music for a digital generation, followed by a 2011 solo release, War Songs on Haute Areal, a compilation of "acoustic and apocalyptic" politicized folk songs. Her second album, EDEN, produced by Canadian rock&roll guru King Khan (Black Lips) was released via Buback in 2013 and named an Album of the Year by Intro Magazine.

Ocher has directed many of her own music videos, as well as videos for German/Spanish folk singer Fee Reega and international collective Lemercier and The Lala By. She has also directed "All of my problems are imaginary (but my friends are real)" and "13 conversations about love" (in-progress) documentaries. In 2008, she began working on the documentary "The Sounds of Softness", which was later joined by Julien Binet - on the subject of the late 70's avant-garde movement.

She has collaborated with electronic producers such as Snax and TUSK, and has toured with German indie band 1000 Robota, Ned Collette + Wirewalker, The great Han Unstern Swindle and the cult act Die Goldenen Zitronen, as well as German bestseller author Sibylle Berg in promotion of Berg’s book "Vielen dank für das Leben" ("Many Thanks for Life").

Ocher organized The Queens and The Rebels (of Unpopular Culture) Festival for theatrical music, performance art, and multimedia in Berlin, and the 15 Minutes Festival in Tel Aviv. She is a member of the conceptual artist collective Autodiktat and frequently collaborates with an array of visual artists such as Hadas Hinkis or Anto Christ of the Australian Colour Parade. Exhibitions of her work include “The Origins of Evil“ photography project, and she has participated in group exhibitions at the Neurotital gallery in Berlin and in Arras, France.

In 2015, Ocher released her fourth album to date, on Hans Joachim Irmler's (Faust) legendary Klangbad label — Mary Ocher + Your Government is a synth-heavy psych-bomb, consisting of various elements of old school industrial music as well as cumbia, a variety of tribal rhythms and no-wave.

Un Tell

Berghain Kantine, Thu 30.01.2014, 22:00

Phoebe Kiddo, Grumbling Fur, Mary Ocher