Il Carabinieri

The German band Tocotronic sometimes ends their live shows with a beautiful, noisy outro, during which the singer yells the phrase: “Music is the healing force of the universe.” I’ve always loved that on so many level – it’s beautiful, and it’s true.

I was even more moved when I found out it’s actually a quote from Albert Ayler, this wonderful human who brought so much beauty to experimental jazz.

The “Music” sample is my daughter Tilda, recorded when she was three (she’s now 18). Her birth was one of the reasons I didn’t have the time to make new music for a while. But I’d say she’s also the reason I came back to it—her appreciation for such a broad range of great music, and the sheer amount she listens to (including much of what I grew up with), constantly reminds me just how right Mr. Ayler was.

“Music” is rooted in improvisation, capturing a series of live sessions in my studio. I layered and complemented the sounds of analog and digital synthesizers to create material for further exploration.

Composed and produced by Christophe Stoll

EVERYTHING THAT IS NOT COUNTED WILL BE LOST

MUSIC (PART I + II)

This track came to life by combining three different early sketches into a single composition. It’s a perfect example of how sounds – or ideas in general – can serendipitously find each other and create something new through their constellation.

All three sketches began as sessions I had previously shared on Instagram. At some point, the song seemed to ask me to transform it into something else, and I was struck by a longing to shape it into what I imagined an unwritten Mogwai song might sound like.

Some early mixes included rather poor metal guitar riff samples, but they at least helped me carve out the core idea. Later, during an afternoon at Johannes’s place, we recorded guitars that went through several iterations and finally gave the track the soul it had been asking for.

Composed and produced by Christophe Stoll
Guitars by Johannes Schardt

NO HYMN FOR NOBODY

I was blown away when I first listened to „The Hum“, the solo album by producer and multi-instrumentalist James Ford, released on Warp Records in 2023. His work on Beth Gibbons’ „Lives Outgrown“ struck me even more. I couldn’t believe how something this compelling could be produced. I wanted to create something that contained at least 0.1% of that sheer beauty.

This inspiration was mainly about certain drum sounds: very warm, roomy tom-toms and expressive cymbal work. Ford’s solo album also led me to revisit numerous Krautrock bands while I was working on the record.

Another breakthrough came when I got stuck finishing the track, and Luca suggested to continue developing my original ideas and production. I couldn’t stop listening to the captivating analog synth lines he wrote, which created the perfect counterpart to the track’s distinctively digital arpeggios.

Composed and produced by Luca di Mira and Christophe Stoll

YOUR LANGUAGE, MY CONTROL

Around November 2023, I was listening to STURM’s record „Momentum“ almost daily, usually while walking outside on gray winter days. I love that record and wanted to incorporate a slice of his musical language into my new album.

That’s when I reached out to Jan Sturm, and we began exchanging sounds and ideas between northern and southern Germany. I love how this collaboration evolved into something that feels like a STURM song with a Nitrada twist. Or maybe the other way around.

It took a while before we finally met in Hamburg in 2024 for the first time. We then discovered how much we have in common, including a shared knowledge and appreciation of people and things.

Composed and produced by Jan Sturm and Christophe Stoll

FRAGMENTS OF LIGHT

This song is the result of a very quick session with just a single melody I played on a virtual felted piano. I immediately fell in love with something about it. If it reminds you of 90s true crime TV, that's a coincidence — but a pattern somehow. 

The title references a certain Billie Eilish song. I think Billie represents hope and is the future of so many things; I couldn't create a record in 2024 without acknowledging her work.

Composed and produced by Christophe Stoll

CLAIRE

This is the track where the album began. In late 2022, I spoke with Luca di Mira after a Giardini di Mirò live show in Berlin – their last performance outside Italy before announcing their hiatus. He told me about his solo projects, including building his own Gong Amp, which immediately fascinated me. I asked him to send over some recordings so we could try making music together.

In January 2023, he sent me beautiful piano and synth work, which I turned into a session for my Instagram account. That’s when I knew that this would be the beginning of a new Nitrada record. More back-and-forth followed, including the final part of the track, which Luca added in 2024.

When we mixed the record in January 2025, we added two field recordings to the beginning and end of the track, both of which, in my opinion, perfectly capture the essence of these dark and foggy times. The track opens with the distant honking of farmers entering Hamburg with hundreds of tractors. Walking through the streets, those sounds reminded me of the horns of the apocalypse (unsurprisingly, this demonstration was later exploited by right-wing groups).

The track ends with chants of “siamo tutti antifascisti”, recorded during an anti–far-right demonstration on those same streets, just a few months later.

These recordings express exactly what I wanted this record to stand for. Its creation and existence is a deeply antifascist act, and I hope its consumption and appreciation will carry that same spirit.

Composed and produced by Luca di Mira and Christophe Stoll

I remember texting Johannes about how much I’d love to hear music that blends the vibe and aesthetic of Blonde Redhead and Rival Consoles. It didn’t take long before he recorded some beautiful guitar phrases and built a compositional draft that sparked a lot of ideas in my mind.

Later, we got together again to record additional guitars to complete the ending of the track. I remember us both agreeing how stunning the guitar work is in U2’s Love Is Blindness. This song also serves as a kind of homage to Giardini di Mirò, one of our all-time favorite bands.

Composed by Johannes Schardt and Christophe Stoll
Produced by Christophe Stoll
Guitars by Johannes Schardt

IL ROMANTICISMO DELL'APOCALISSE

The only love song on this record! It began as a combination of my deep fascination with how Fred Again works with vocals and voice recordings, and my recurring attraction to four-on-the-floor beats. I combined these ideas with sessions from various digital synthesizers, which I wanted to sound warm, dirty, and analog.

I sampled the vocals sometime, somewhere – but have forgotten the source. Only thing I remember is that the original is very kitschy and sounds completely different. I don’t exactly remmeber why I sampled it, but somehow these words struck a chord with me, and I always wanted to do a halfway danceable love song.

The melody conveys how I imagine love and affection would sound. I’m especially happy that Luca noticed something was missing – something we ended up adding together during our mixing session in Il Bocco on a beautiful winter afternoon.

Composed and produced by Christophe Stoll

EVERY MOMENT (I SPEND WITH YOU)

I first came across Landobe on Instagram, where he posts wonderful experimental synthesizer sessions. We started talking about music and production, but I also remember a short exchange about childhood sweets we both loved. 

We started exchanging sound files and ideas back and forth, and when Marco sent me his Krautrock Rave interpretation of a Nitrada song based on a percussion/bass pattern I had created, I was awestruck.

When I invited Patrick to contribute his voice and lyrics to the album, he chose this track – and I don’t think it could have turned out any better. His performance brings a whole new emotional layer to it.

Dancing in the chaos – maybe that’s the only way to stay sane and resilient in a world like this.

Composed and produced by Marco Heinle and Christophe Stoll
Lyrics and Vocals by Patrick Siegfried Zimmer

Lyrics

In the silence of night, whispers take flight,
Shadows of tomorrow, lost out of sight.
A light on the horizon, but hope fades away,
Time ticks softly as the void starts to sway.

The rain falls cold, like tears carved from stone,
Searching for answers, yet forever alone.
The wall of silence, our hearts turned to bone,
A last breath escapes, turning dust into moan.

Cities are burning, the sky’s draped in gray,
Echoes of screaming, no refuge, no way.
A final promise, in the fog it will play,
We dance in the chaos, like ghosts gone astray.

WE DANCE IN THE CHAOS

The voice is taken from an old vinyl record made for secretary training. I sampled hundreds of words that I found interesting, but only these three ended up in the initial mix—and I somehow love how they relate to the album title in their own way:

Understand, Out of stock, Information

Beyond that, there’s not much to say about this track, except that it’s based on an idea and a collection of stems I originally created for a live performance. One night, I recorded an arrangement and bounced it flat to my hard drive. Later, I couldn’t find the original “open” project file. I don’t remember how many hours I spent searching for it. Since there was something in that recorded version I simply couldn’t recreate with the original stems, I decided to stick with it, only adding a few cello parts afterwards.

I’m a big admirer of Alva Noto and his minimal sound aesthetic, and I’ve always wanted to borrow elements from his outstanding work. Being more of a musical maximalist, I typically fail whenever I try, but I still attempted to find a balance between emptiness, highly processed artificial sine waves, and what I’d call naturalistic expression.

Composed and produced by Christophe Stoll

UNDERSTAND INFORMATION

Start Today

A live set that had been recorded by some radio station. I loved that festival so much (Kangding Ray played after me!), and I love the introduction you can hear at the beginning, never felt so flattered during a liveshow. When listening to it from distance, I have a considerable feeling I was using my monome and FX a bit too heavily – but I hope that's just typical headaches when looking back at something you created yourself (I would actually like to re-record all of my records today!)

Live at Seefa Berlin, 2007

Bücherverbrennung

Dark / Paper / Feedback (Auferstehung Reprise)

E.S.A. Anthem (Radio Transmission)

voice: <a href="http://bendanieljoehnk.de">Ben Daniel Jöhnk</a>

In Don's Head (Auferstehung Reprise, Outtake)

Nitrada aka Christophe Stoll is an electronic music producer from Hamburg, Germany. Active since the early 2000s, his work often features intricate soundscapes and hypnotic rhythms, blending elements of acoustic, ambient, and experimental electronic music.

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