Pomelo DJ _Mix 34

Rising, enigmatic Brighton songwriter Milo Korbenski delivers his debut album proper When You Gonna Tell ‘Em the Truth, Aaron?, a stunning collection of haunted, heavy, unique art-dream-indie-pop earworms.

Milo Korbenski is a shadowy, anonymous Brighton solo musician only publicly seen in a featureless white mask, Stetson and denim jacket. However, his deeply expressive take on lo-fi slacker indie invokes a heartfelt intimacy, singing straight from the soul. This new album - an official debut following a period of self-releasing - displays endless catchy-as-hell hooks, clever lyrical wordplay, and deceptively lean instrumentation that belies its own simplicity.

Across Milo’s new album, hooks spring up with colour and true joy, shining through a newfound love of gritty overdrive and dark themes. ‘Booksmart Hunny’ is a stunning example of this deft ability to weave the dreamily evocative and subtly melancholy with genuine riffs and a relentless driven tempo. Its chorus hits like an arena-filler, but retains the spectral, rarefied magic that makes Milo’s music so singular. “It’s a record of people who are stuck in a kind of spiritual void and don’t want to change. They become a sort of ghoul or phantom in their own reality,” we are told.

The music of WYGTETTA? (Milo’s own stylisation) crosses references points as broadly spread as Kurt Vile, Helado Negro, Black Sabbath, The xx, The Cocteau Twins, Siouxsie Sioux, Jagwar Ma and Calvin Johnson while retaining a vitally singular energy. Milo’s underlying unreality is more haunted than the indie-leaning acts mentioned here, and the readymade homespun cassette sonics lend a charm beyond the prettified sheen of his pop influences.

A true storyteller, Milo tells us “every song on the album is about a dysfunctional character enduring a relationship that isn’t really working.” Throughout the record, we are introduced to a series of surreal, mythologised narratives that make up a wide, interconnected arc. “There is a lack of honesty to the narrator's stories throughout the album, hence the title: When You Gonna Tell ‘Em the Truth, Aaron?”

Quickly becoming a formidable live act, Milo Korbenski performs live (in mask and Stetson) with a full band, and has played alongside acts such as Babii, Jeffrey Lewis, Art d’Ecco and others with a flourishing stage presence. A true auteur, and inexhaustibly prolific, Milo home-recorded, designed and self-released a number of albums on streaming platforms (and enjoyed staggering listening figures) without any backing, and only recently signed his first record deal. The fruits of this self-releasing period are collected on Vol. 1, released by Phantom Limb as a limited cassette in May 2023 - a record that sold out in minutes.

Milo Korbenski - Booksmart Hunny

Over the last ten years, Chris Imler's perhaps not quite as rapid but equally unstoppable rise has coincided with the world's free fall. “The Internet will break my heart” marks the steepest artistic stage to date. We see a man whose entire oeuvre is a late work, at the dizzying heights of his game. “So, the Internet, that's a really hot topic”, I can already hear blasé hisses here and there in the boxes. But the truth is that the topic is annoyingly topical. Because only now is the world wide web unfolding its full disappointing potential. All pipe dreams of an emancipatory power of the digital multitude (remember Negri/Hardt, haha) are as completely extinguished as the Arab Spring was swallowed up by the pre-nuclear winter. While they are capped from above in authoritarian states, social media in the so-called free world are primarily used by lumpen capital to undermine humanistic standards and by the remnants of the left for self-destructive polarization. But the cute animal videos! They too have their dark side, which Imler brings up in the title song: “The animals in the real world are under pressure”.

But what is an aesthetically adequate way of dealing with this new digital version of the frustration of progress? Can it still be the old cold sounds of defiant adaptation to alienation? In the announcement for the exclusive session that Imler recorded for the innovative London station NTS, the presenter placed him alongside Kraftwerk, DAF and NEU! That's not entirely wrong. But it's only half the truth at best. That becomes especially clear during your live shows. To a certain extent, they are public rehearsals. Sketches that he makes on his laptop on his long and numerous travels are tried out on stage on the same evening, with ad hoc cobbled-together lyrics and drum work that he himself describes as “sloppy-emotional”. His performance is deliberately chaotic, impulsive and, for all its Kreuzberg street toughness, heartfelt. And although Imler - even with his occasional trumpet interludes - never has direct jazz references, one can just as easily think of Thelonious Monk's unruly boldness or Ornette Coleman's aggressive dynamics as of those aforementioned representatives of Teutonic robotics.

One thing is certain: the improvisational charm of his concerts cannot be captured one-to-one on record. But perhaps this album succeeds for the first time in achieving the same intensity of experience by other means. For example, with “Let's not talk about the war”, which is almost forbidden to dance to by Imler's standards. The micro-social tensions and unrest in the face of the divisive debates of recent years are fizzled out here into something completely rousing. “Agoraphobia”, on the other hand, strikes the listener with an opium-intoxicated dimness. The sonic complexity is almost reminiscent of monster productions such as Talk Talk's “Spirit of Eden”, but the atmosphere is even more dazzling, more dangerous, and it is crowned by the enchanting voice of international underground shooting star Naomi Klaus. The most fascinating soundscape, in my opinion, was created by Imler and his brilliant co-producer Benedikt Frey with “Liturgy of Litter”. Although predominantly electronic, you have the feeling of being in the same room as the sound sources, as if you were standing in front of an otherworldly gamelan orchestra, whose iridescent tinkling drives you into the most beautiful, serious serenity.
But these are just three possible entrances into the labyrinth of what is certainly one of the most interesting albums of the year.

Jens Friebe 

The Internet Will Break Mt Heart

Chris Imler - Agoraphobie ( feat. Naomie Klaus )

Goat + human language – Goatnoggin

sagaVanga - A Stranger is Following Me in the Street!

@ratflak
Bandcamp: https://ratflak.bandcamp.com/album/2-4-anger
Release Date: November 28th, 2025
Info: Anger comes after Fear
The mind, unable to withstand the tension, shifts into defense. There is a need to reject the sound, to call it noise, error, or anti-music. This is not misunderstanding but a protective instinct an attempt to regain control over what cannot be classified.
Rhythm feels like mechanical violence, distortion like something alien, synthesis like aggression. Yet within this aggression lies power. “Anger” is the stage of confrontation, where inner resistance takes sonic form.
Anger becomes a point of accumulated energy, breaking old perceptual boundaries and clearing the path to the next stage.

Bandcamp

*PREMIERE* Facets - Paradox

https://soundcloud.com/snuffo
🛒 https://snuffo.bandcamp.com/album/embrace-the-arts
🔊 https://youtu.be/LnhVh4AQ_OY

Benedikt Schmidt loves the diverse forms of artistic expression. He sees art as a vital necessity.

For him, art is not only a form of escapism, it also carries the wonderful promise of making the world a better place. In creative ways, it can spark social developments, criticize conditions, enable resistance, and bring about positive change, both for the moment and in the long run.

Whether music, literature, theater, film, painting, photography, sculpture, performance art, or dance — the arts, especially those that go beyond mere entertainment and superficial consumption, touch us emotionally as well as intellectually.

They open our eyes. They liberate, inspire, encourage, comfort, irritate, and unsettle. And they can pose existential questions and provide surprising answers.

These convictions became the starting point for Benedikt Schmidt’s new album as Snuffo. Its title is more than just a name –- it is meant as a call to action: Embrace The Arts!

As an artist, Schmidt himself works across disciplines. In addition to producing and performing as Snuffo and Snuff Crew, he writes novels, poetry and radio plays. Under the alias Cellarkalt, the German guy also stages experimental performances and video installations.

With decades of experience, he knows all too well: creativity cannot be forced. It must come from within. Only then something of substance and impact can emerge.

That's also why imagination plays a central role for Benedikt Schmidt. It is origin, tool, and driving force at once.

After reflecting on the arts, he began to imagine how the new Snuffo long-player should sound like.

Soon a feeling was there. A vague inner image that gradually took shape. But only when he truly felt ready did Schmidt carefully begin to unearth it and translate it into music.

The very first tracks flowed almost on their own –- entirely intuitive and unfiltered. They paved the way for the sound of »Embrace The Arts«.

As with all his productions since the the pandemic, this album was also created live in the studio, in a direct dialogue with synthesizers, samplers, and drum machines.

The production sessions became a highly concentrated, almost spiritual experience, a kind of musical self-immersion. And they happened in the July and August heat of Mallorca, Schmidt’s current place of residence. 

Tracklist:

01. Pursuit of Happiness 
02. Escapist 
03. Cosmic Intervention
04. Dry Spell (Hang In There)
05. Every Now & Then
06. Rituals
07. Late Night Thoughts
08. Dissent
09. Whims
10. Balm

PREMIERE: Snuffo - Every Now & Then [Snuffo]

extract from our 6 hours long b2b at Bar "Schleuse Zwei", Düsseldorf on 14th Nov 2025.
it was nice they said

bufiman b2b simsonabim x Schleuse Zwei / 14-11-2025

cater

From her window she watched them laugh and drink on the green. She'd long imagined herself there with them, sipping champagne in their designer outfits, not giving a thought to the outside world. Perhaps it wasn't all it was cracked up to be, perhaps underneath it all they were sad and lonely, maybe she was better off with her low paid job and her second hand clothes. Maybe she was happier...

Berlin-based musician Chris Imler delivers the next release on Benedikt Frey, Nadia D’Alò and Markus Woernle's R.I.O. label. Marking the fourth release on the imprint, following instalments from the label bosses Nadia and last year's various artists EP, Country Club brings two original hypnotic cuts to the table and two remixes from INIT, the project of Benedikt Frey & Nadia D’Alò, and Nyege Nyege's Debmaster that take the productions into darker realms.

"Chris Imler, who alternates between eternal street boy and dubious
magician, has succeeded in upgrading to a prophet with his third
record. The 12-inch, completed in January and released on May 15th
on vinyl, is exaggeratedly up to date. Though it would never occured
to him in his wildest nightmares while doing it, Chris Imler produced
the soundtrack for the state of emergency. "I measure time in
catastrophes / The scale is open ended / The house collapses, the
city burns / A laser beam leads me to the Country Club" says the
chorus of "Country Club". The music itself sounds like an emergency
from the first second on. Synths like deeply pitched sirens, a beat like
ground troops."

PREMIERE: Chris Imler - Country Club [R.I.O.]

Chris Imler, who alternates between eternal street boy and dubious magician, has succeeded in upgrading to a prophet with his third record. The 12-inch, completed in January and released on May 22nd on vinyl, is exaggeratedly up to date. Though it would never occured to him in his wildest nightmares while doing it, Chris Imler produced the soundtrack for the state of emergency. „Ich mess die Zeit in Katastrophen / Die Skala ist nach oben offen / Das Haus stürzt ein, es brennt die Stadt / Ein Laserstrahl weist mir den Weg zum Country Club“ says the chorus of “Country Club”. The music itself sounds like an emergency from the first second on. Synths like deeply pitched sirens, a beat like ground troops. And also the second song with the again ridiculously contemporary title “Protect Myself” provides appropriate voodoo vibrations.

Imler couldn't have found better remixers than INIT (Benedikt Frey & Nadia D’Alò / two thirds of the R.i.O. label) and Debmaster (Julien Deblois / Nyege Nyege label), who consistently drive the sound into dark rotations.

With the best of intentions, the worldwide public sitting in their rooms cannot expect more than the cathartic distraction gathered in these four songs.

https://soundcloud.com/riolabel
https://soundcloud.com/initinit

cater

Monom

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