Listening to industrial EMB duo, Schwefelgelb, the bass hits you first. Intrinsically functional and designed to provoke movement, the Berlin-based project’s approach is as precise as it is relentless. Their dissonant sentiments act as a modern homage to the brutalist architecture of electronic body music laced with the raw intention to reinvent and defy. This modus operandi leads to an exploration in sound design experimentation that is deeply felt in their 2017 EP Dahinter Das Gesicht, 2010 album Das Ende vom Kreis, and most recently 2023 album Ich Bin Wach, wherein the bridge of tension and release is explored, stripping back into a skeletal framework, allowing the synthetic melodies to writhe and evolve in the foreground.

Ahead of their stint at Los Angeles’ And Always Forever this November at The Echo/Echoplex, Schwefelgelb, releases a live performance from their set at Lithuania’s Lizdas. Facing each other, thrashing basslines and razor-sharp synths converge where the thickened air vibrates with urgency, teetering on the edge of endurance and ecstasy. The duo shares, “It was a live show in early 2024 at an amazing club called Lizdas in Kaunas, Lithuania built in an extraordinary museum space. The dancefloor is aslope so you feel a bit as in an amphitheater on stage–surrounded by the other people you’re kind of within the crowd while performing which makes it quite extraordinary and intense.”

And Always Forever will also feature heavy hitters the Swirlies, Marie Davidson, Loveliescrushing, Astrobrite, Croatian Amor, and more at the Echo/Echoplex on Saturday, November 9th. The first of its kind, AAF is a love letter to the Los Angeles music scene, wherein dense, turbulent, and exposed soundscapes of shoegaze will marry into the pummeling percussion and pervasive force of today’s experimental techno. 

You can find tickets at andalwaysforever.com.

What do you hope listeners take home with them after AAF, and what are you looking forward to? 

Joy and inspiration. Our intentions are humble, so is our music. It’s supposed to make you move and indulge in the moment; it’s supposed to tease your senses and release dopamine. That said, music–reportedly even our music–has great power, and it can cause significant changes in people’s lives. However, our live performance can be experienced as an energetic trip and it should be a satisfaction to undergo that. We’re looking forward to a perfect setting to transmit this and, of course, we’re always curious to see the audience and receive feedback. Every audience and every place is unique.  

What can you say about music and its longevity?

Hypes come, hypes go, hypes return. As an artist, you need to be patient. We don’t want to adjust our music to fashions. Even though it naturally happens due to being exposed to them, we always decide to do what we admire, no matter what number of people likes it. It feels good to see a continuous thread in your work even if you’re the only one seeing it. To cut this thread and to only follow the path of current fashions instead wouldn’t be very sustainable. Nevertheless, it’s important for an artist’s evolution to proceed and always look out for new challenges. 

What do you hope lasts forever? 

It has always been stunning that communities have this strong will to set up more kind of underground or less commercial events where it’s not primarily about money making but keeping the scene vibrant. In this term, we hope the belief in the subculture and the commitment to the authentic niche will always overcome the competitive pressure.