Tag: Dusseldorf Germany

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Us and I Share Melancholy “What’s There to Dream”

Formed back in 2018 in  Bangalore and currently based in Düsseldorf, synth pop duo Us and I — Bidisha Kesh (vocals) and Guarav Govilkar (production) — features members who come from very different backgrounds and who bonded over having similar musical sensibilities. As the story goes, when teh pair started to work together, they quickly realized that they shared a unique way of crafting songs: deeply personal lyrics paired with the melancholia of the orange and yellow colors leaking from their synthesizers.

Th duo then spent the next two years developing a sound that they believed acted as a bridge between the synth-driven work of Chromatics and the slow-burning, dream pop of Beach House — with subtle nods to darkwave and post-punk. Thematically, the duo’s material generally draws from everyday life and the relationships around them. 

The duo’s debut EP, 2021’s Loveless thematically focused on a deeply universal subject, love — in particular, a past love, and how the nostalgia and grief of that past love can hit us like a wave hitting the shore. Since the release of Loveless EP, the duo relocated to Düsseldorf — for work and for potentially better opportunities for their music. 

The Düsseldorf-based duo begins 2026 with their latest single, “What’s There To Dream,” a slow-burning and melancholy song that continues a run of material that to my ears sounds like a synthesis of Still Corners and Beach House — but while evoking a mix of nostalgia, reverie and creeping doubt.

“We all have days when we question the meaning of this quiet banality of life. Moments where everything feels soft, heavy and strangely beautiful at once,” the duo explain. “This song is an invitation to sit with those thoughts. To dive into existentialism in colour. . . “

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: RIP Florian Schneider/Kraftwerk Forever!

Co-founded by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in Düsseldorf in 1970, Kraftwerk initially began as part of West Germany’s krautfock for a handful of years before fully embracing electronic instrumentation. With the release of their seminal and commercially successful albums 1974’s Autobahn, 1977’s Trans Europe Express and 1978’s The Man Machine, the act honed and developed a self-described “robot pop” sound centered around hypnotic rhythms and minimalist arrangements. Copious amounts of ink have been spilled about Hütter, Schneider and company and their massive influence, including how the act has managed to influence a number of genres and styles of contemporary music including hip-hop, synth pop, post-punk, ambient, techno and EDM.

The fact that Kraftwerk isn’t in the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame while Hall & Oates is, is criminally stupid and shows how bankrupt the thing is in the first place. So fuck you, Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fane. 

Personally, Kraftwerk has been the soundtrack during my two trips to Europe. The first flight I ever took was a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt-am-Main — and on that long flight, I played their Minimum Maximum album on my iPod and while on commuter train rides between Frankfurt and my hotel in Bad Soden. Trans Europe Express was the soundtrack of my trip to The Netherlands. And oddly enough, over the past year I’ve been madly obsessed with the Tour De France album. 

Today has been a weird day emotionally. My mom had to have a hysterectomy as part of a course of treatment for uterine cancer. Because of COVID-19, I couldn’t stay at Mount Sinai with her, which had me feeling a deep and unrelenting sense of anguish.  I kept thinking of the fact that she was alone in that hospital. Thankfully, the procedure went well and she’s back home now. Before I picked her up, I learned that Kraftwerk’s co-founder Florian Schneider died after a brief battle with cancer. So I’m also a bit heartbroken. But i wanted to pay homage to Florian and his work; work that has meant quite a bit to me over the years. I stumbled across live footage of the band from the Minimum Maximum. Kraftwerk forever! Florian Schneider forever! 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Breezy Tropicalia of Santiago de Cuba’s Septeto Santiaguero

With the release of 8 full-length albums, the 3 time Cubadisco Award-winning, 2 time Latin Grammy-nominated Santiago de Cuba-based septet Septeto Santiaguero have developed an internationally recognized profile for a sound that draws from the […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

The founding members of Kraftwerk, Florian Schneider and Ralf Hutler met as students Robert Schumann Hochschule in Dusseldorf in the late 1960s and had taken part of the German experimental music art scene that has […]