photos by Aylin Sengül
“…KARLA KVLT carries the listener to their own musical vortex with ease.” – Everything Is Noise
Everything Is Noise is hosting the exclusive premiere of a new video for “Karma,” from new German sludge metal/post-rock trio KARLA KVLT. The song marks the lead single from the band’s impending debut LP, Thunderhunter, nearing release through Exile On Mainstream Records.
KARLA KVLT marks the return of Markus E. Lipka, the driving guitar force behind 1990s German alternative/noise rock heroes Eisenvater, here joined by his son Johann Wientjes on drums and his daughter-in-law, Teresa Matilda Curtens, on bass and vocals – both also in Melting Palms. Together, the trio delivers a raw and monolithic debut album that is unique in style and approach with Thunderhunter.
The beats and riffs on Thunderhunter are unfathomably heavy, the vocals bell-like, fragile, and intense. KARLA KVLT’s music is dense, immersive, but also beautiful – like a plant fighting its way through a concrete slab, like the tides, following a precise and unstoppable rhythm that can be as destructive as it is capable of revealing beauty in the next moment, offering a view of something new. Based on drone, doom, sludge, noise, and post-rock, the band creates monolithic and hypnotic tracks on Thunderhunter, which was recorded in a strictly D.I.Y. manner in Hamburg. Here, the band infuses seemingly incompatible styles of sludge/doom and dream pop; Both concepts come together within KARLA KVLT in an amalgamation of brutal beauty.
The new video for “Karma” was directed by bassist/vocalist Teresa Matilda Curtens, the band writing about the track, “With ‘Karma’, we tried to create an interplay of driving rhythms, spherical vocals and a dark ambience that oscillates between attraction and unease. The song is accompanied by a handmade shadow theatre, staged by Teresa, in which the mystical figures on the album cover are brought to life.”
Everything Is Noise writes in part, “‘Karma’ opens up with a brooding build-up based on a steady, percussive drum pattern and seeping feedback noises, establishing the musical frame quite well right from the get go. Amassing flesh around its bones constantly, the droning ambiance turns quickly into a quite hypnotic one after Curtens’ vocals chime in, and KARLA KVLT carries the listener to their own musical vortex with ease. The walls of sound cave in towards the end without a clear intent of letting go, concocting a positively torturing mood only emphasized by effected vocals that beckon you to descend somewhere murky and lightless alongside them. The accompanying video is also a breath of fresh air, as the leisurely advancing shadow theatre is both magnificent to look at and unbelievably ominous as it is, providing further punch to the music itself.”
KARLA KVLT’s “Karma” video is now playing exclusively at Everything Is Noise RIGHT HERE.
Thunderhunter will be released on LP w/ bundled CD and digitally on February 21st. Preorders are live at the Exile On Mainstream webshop HERE and Bandcamp HERE, and digital presaves can be found HERE.
Be on the lookout for additional videos/singles from Thunderhunter to post shortly alongside news of live shows across Europe and more.
The alternative music scene in the 1990s vibrantly questioned traditional listening approaches and came up with some of the most interesting concepts in that sense. While it was bands like Melvins, Unsane, Swans, and Cop Shoot Cop on the US side of the pond, on the European side, one of the bands was Eisenvater, and the guitar-based orchestra Rossburger Report that evolved from it. Eisenvater’s live shows remain legendary, transcending gatherings, which among lovers of the extremes have a cult status and are of the kind that everybody claims to have been there.
Music is always also the search for transcendence. It transports emotions, captures them, and mediates between the comprehensible and what lies beyond. This can especially happen in collective musical experiences like concerts or rituals. Music can help the artist themselves in shaping their identity and resolving or addressing inner conflict. Here, it is about the transcendence and transformation of the ego – ultimately, the prerequisite for art, especially when it is collectively created. This is the beginning of an exploration of KARLA KVLT – both musically and thematically. For the band, founded in 2023, this is the foundation: the radical dissolution of the ego. Art does not emerge according to a precise plan. It arises when one lets go – of thoughts, expectations, ideas, and even personal desires. As long as the mind is involved, the ego blocks the possibility of a collective experience. This letting-go, this intuitive approach, is what defines the music of KARLA KVLT. Thunderhunter is the invitation to become part of it, and Exile On Mainstream is overjoyed to release the debut album of this new band.
https://www.instagram.com/karlakvlt
https://karlakvlt.bandcamp.com
https://www.mainstreamrecords.de
https://www.youtube.com/@exileonmainstream3639