Left of the Dial is going down wet and windy this week in a Rotterdam – a 3-day showcase festival that brings together some of the finest new and upcoming artists from Europe and beyond: 150+ bands playing more than 300 shows, spread out over 15+ venues. We compiled a Poule d’Or selection from the lineup – streaming over on Spotify for now.
Curser here is a very charming group of people from South London. They are set to play three shows: Thursday, 23h40 at Rotown, Friday 17h30 at The Cube, and Saturday 21h10 at Perron Small. Attached below is their latest single The Leech, which came out in April, with a promise of a debut album before the turn of the year.
Left of the Dial is a 3-day showcase festival in Rotterdam that has featured some of the finest booking of new and upcoming artists this side of the Atlantic. This year’s edition takes place 23-25 October and with great enthusiasm Team Poule will be making the trip to cover the ins and outs of this famed occasion.
The lineup features no less than 150 bands playing more than 300 shows, spread out over 15+ venues around this pearl of a port city, mostly on land but on boats and swimming stages too. We compiled a Poule d’Or selection from the lineup – streaming over at Spotify for now.
Cistern then are an exciting new band out of Squamish, British Columbia up in Canada, just north of Vancouver. If have ever been to Squamish, you will know it’s a rocky place like no other. The group then plays a refreshing take of early 2000s indie pop and showcases a keen sense for melodies and tempos. Their latest single is titled Illusion and is attached below. It’s from their upcoming album Rhizomes which will be out this Friday via the fine label Tin Angel Records based in Coventy.
Cistern will play two shows: The Cube on Thursday night 22h10, and Worm 1 on Friday afternoon 17h50.
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Hamburg’s Reeperbahn Festival has grown into a massive industry gathering with more than 200 workshops and panels and over 600 concerts, orchestrating no less than 450 musicians and bands and 5.000 delegates. While also selling a load of “civilian” tickets – more than 43.000 people attended this year. In the past, this had led to smash packed venues and stressed out security personnel trying to manage expectations and realities at the door in realtime.
This year’s festival felt a bit different and more relaxed and Team Poule believes it was largely due to the phenomenal and diverse lineup they put together: a broad range of genres and popularities that kind of naturally enabled the masses to distribute themselves more evenly among the 70+ mostly small to medium sized venues.
To relive the experience, make sure to listen to the official Poule d’Or playlist. [continue reading…]
Reeperbahn Festival is about to take over the city of Hamburg this week. From Wednesday through Saturday, no less than 450+ concerts will turn the red light district of St. Pauli’s Reeperbahn into Europe’s biggest club festival. Another gem in the line-up comes in the form of four bands from Korea, that are going to be sharing the Spielbude XL stage on Thursday night for a special Korea Spotlight.
19.00-19.30: Wah Wah Wah (Rock)
20.00-20.30: Dabda (Indie / Rock)
21.00-21.30: Drinking Boys and Girls Choir (Punk)
22.00-22.30: Lee Seung Yoon (Indie / Rock)
Find Wah Wah Wah‘s gritty and driving single Dirty attached below – and also alongside many more from the lineup on our (only) official Reeperbahn playlist 2025.
Europe’s version of SXSW is set to return to the streets and clubs of Hamburg’s Reeperbahn next week, September 17 to 20. Reeperbahn Festival‘s music programming really is not holding back this year. They do not do headliners but the 450+ concerts include some big names like Pip Millett, Fuffifufzich, Alice Phoebe Lou, Surprise Chef, Dry Cleaning, Mø and others. While naturally Team Poule’s focus rests on a ton of exciting newcomers and we compiled the most exciting ones in this handy Spotify playlist.
One of the must-see performances should come by way of Dutch/Portuguese powerhouse Collignon. They play Prinzenbar on Thursday night, just after midnight. They released a great LP earlier this year titled Bicicleta, via Gris Gris Records. The three-piece band of Yves Lennertz on guitar (and bass), Gino Bombrini on drums (and percussion) and Jori Collignon on the keyboards surely will be one not to miss.
Well, August is a perfect time to start thinking about your fall schedule and pencil in some musical highlights for the second half of the year, the year 2025 in this case: and Zoot Woman here have been around for almost 30 years believe it or not, effortlessly floating around time since long before the so-called blog era and obviously long after, too. The dreamy electropoppers have been at it again, reinventing themselves while staying sharp on brand. Their latest album Maxidrama came out in 2024 and they are eager to take it on tour across the old continent.
Their first night of the tour in Hamburg is proudly co-presented by yours truly, Poule d’Or, when they will take the stage at the recently moved Molotow, on September 25th. Luckily, we managed to come into possession of 2×2 tickets for the occasion – all you need to do to call them yours is write an email with you name to us, and hope the dice will fall your way on Wednesday, September 10th, 12pm CET sharp, when the lucky winners will be drawn at random, and be notified immediately.
Their tour continues through the Bundesrepublik to Dresden, Berlin, Leipzig, München, Wiesbaden, Stuttgart and Köln, presented by the charming quartet of Rausgegangen, Byte.fm, Galore and Selective Artists – and would you look at this beaut of a poster!
Title photo by the one and only Paula Ekhart.
