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.

There is a great novel that came out in 2017, by Czech author Jaroslav Kalfař, that goes like this: a cloud of “intergalactic dust” turns Earth’s skies purple at night and only the Czech Republic is willing to send an astronaut into space on this dangerous mission to collect samples and determine its origins, putting the country in the center of the global stage. The story is quite philosophical and dreamy as the reader follows the point of view of cosmonaut Jakub, the Spaceman of Bohemia, on his eight month solo-mission to Venus.

Listening to the new album Nebula by Danish mastermind Jens here, better known as Rumpistol, almost feels like going on a solo-mission into space too. He has been making and composing music for more than two decades and his latest work beautifully combines his talents from jazz and electronic music into a vast soundtrack that feels at times like the score to an eerie Netflix crime show and then again like pre 808s Kanye banging on his drums. It’s a wonderful listen through ten tracks and 44 mins. Find the accessible Pale Blue Dots, right here.

His accolades include various solo works as well as the atmospheric Rumpistol Ensemble and a solid Poule d’Or favorite in the genre-bending Kalaha. From later this week, he will take the stage with the Ensemble, across a few cities in Denmark: Kolding on Aug 28 and 29, Vejle Aug 30 and Rødding Aug 31, before heading into Copenhagen Sept 3, Aarhus, Sept 4 and Aalborg Sept 5.

Now, all this was reason enough to sit down with the man himself and hear his thinking behind the beautiful new album Nebula, out now to stream and on a limited edition vinyl print, on New York’s The Rust Music.

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How did you come up with the idea that Nebula should be a “space journey” or about the universe? 

During the winter of 2024 I was invited to participate in [continue reading…]