Kiki Bohemia Record Release Concert feat. João Orecchia & Sicker Man at Kantine am Berghain / Monday, 23.10.2023

The music of Karla Wenzel aka Kiki Bohemia is a constant balancing act. It oscillates between power and intimacy, without ever settling on either of these poles. It’s this mix of nonchalance and big dramatic gestures that makes her music so special.

„Those Are Not Songs“, the second solo album by Kiki Bohemia, starts with a lie. For these are not just songs which Bohemia has collected here, it is no less than great song-writing. When disarmingly simple melodies emerge from a dirty base, when a piece soars into a refrain, it shines in all its splendor. But there is always another side to see, ambiguity and doubt are ever present.

Bohemia plays with the dialectic of proximity and distance, resilience and vulnerability with great mastery. Sometimes she sings as if revealing the most intimate secrets. Then she distances herself, becomes unapproachable and cool. She makes no secret of her inclination towards the morbid. Nor does she hide her enjoyment of exhaustion, catharsis, and hymns.

Over the years her live performances have undergone a continuous evolution. In the beginning Bohemia played psychedelic folk-miniatures with a loop station, organ and dictaphone. Over time her concerts have become more extravagant and her pieces more hypnotic creating performances somewhere between real time composition and psychedelic Krautpop.

João Orecchia and Sicker Man have been working together since 2003, when they met through a classified ad in a Berlin newspaper. They immediately connected through improvisation and analogue electronics, forming a vast and intricate musical communication style.

Throughout the pandemic, separately from each other, they engaged more and more with artists like Ornette Coleman and Bennie Maupin, which presented as a lucky surprise in the recording sessions. João had been learning the bass clarinet and working to incorporate the instrument with his modular system. Tobias had specialised on multiphonic and glitch-orientated effect pedals with his electric cello. The next step for the duo became obvious when they met in 2022 to record their new album Parallax. Parallax sounds like to two planets orbiting different galaxies, meeting at intervals to resonate and interchange. Two different points of view which make a unique and precise vision together.