Two ultimate highlights of this year’s Donaufestival were The Bug & Dis Fig and the solo performance of Dis Fig. We met Felicia Chen for an interview.

After nine years, a new Paavoharju album has been released. Reason enough to talk to the head of the group, Lauri Ainala, about the new album »Happiness«, a collaboration with Folk-Singer Joose Keskitalo, and to seek some answers about that ever-mysterious thing from the cold north.

Her new album dropped. Then the war started. Katarina Gryvul is a Ukraine-born, Graz-based sound artist, talking about the current situation in her home country — and why there’s still hope.

Wolfgang Bill Price wrote this text about the inauguration of the Shoah Wall of Names Memorial in Vienna shortly before he died in hospital of a heart attack on November 24, 2021, having survived Corona in intensive care a few weeks earlier.

In the midst of the Corona pandemic, The Beths released a new album and skug asked them a few questions and promptly got answers. Although their statements have been reproachfully glancing into the interviewers’ eye from the editing desk for about two months, their meaning hasn’t changed a bit.

We had a lot of fun writing, practicing, and performing our duets together and we used to spend a lot of the time that we should have been working in fits of laughter. That was how many of our songs were born. A personal obituary for Elinor Mora.

Thalia Zedek hat mit ihrer Band E mitten in der Corona-Krise ein neues Album herausgebracht. Mit skug sprach die Gitarristin und Sängerin über die Umstände der Veröffentlichung und die Realität in Zeiten von Trump und COVID-19.

In a time where seclusion and privacy are the new norm and no one can go out and get wasted, let’s – at least in theory – rave about the utopian potential of self-destruction in clubbing. How can the excess of rave culture be understood as an ecological practice in times of environmental collapse?

Eine paradoxe Katastrophe entwickelt sich durch die Corona-Pandemie, weil auch steigende Opferzahlen scheinbar bedeutungslos bleiben. Das Massensterben der Tierarten zeigt, dass es zur »Masse« kaum Bezug gibt, der Handeln erzeugt. Es muss vielleicht ein anderes Verhältnis zum Tod gewonnen werden.

Jakub Šimanský just released his second album »Face To Face Against American Primitivism In Eastern Europe Vol. 2« as well as the album »Tance Neznámé« with Tomáš Niesner from Unna. Together, they tell skug what this is all about and how it works in the Czech Republic.

Jason Honea is a member of the groups TPK (Teenage Panzerkorps), The Knit Separates and Dysnea Boys. He spoke to skug about his origins in the Californian hardcore scene and his work in Berlin.

Tucked away in a little Viennese cafe, actor Massimo Rizzo spoke with skug about his experience, from a performer’s perspective, in what he considers is a historic event, the Premiere of »Orlando« by Olga Neuwirth, currently running at the Vienna State Opera.

A comment on the recent production of »Thyestes Brüder! Kapital« by Claudia Bosse / theatercombinat from a non-German speaking viewpoint.

The trio Haino/Merzbow/Pándi released a new record on RareNoise called »Become the Discovered, Not the Discoverer«. How it sounds, in a description about the work on the album in an interview with drummer Bàlász Pándi.

The sounds are pounding heavily, as if foreshadowing something doomful: it’s the monsters lurking under our bed, and they’re coming for us. Blank Manuskript, arguably Austria’s most precious art rockers, have released their new concept album »Krásná Hora« (the name of a small Czech town that is best translated as »beautiful mountain«) on September 19th…

Utrecht, NL, September 27th, 2019: Baer Traa and Garrett T. Capps provided for an evening filled with folk and country music – until something went decidedly wrong.

We met Yosi Wanunu and Roland Rauschmeier for an interview ahead of their performance of »The Deadpan Dynamites – The Art of the Gag« at Impulstanz Festival and talked about the universality of comedy and life as a performance.

Finland is to be envied: It gave the world the gifts of M. A. Numminen and the Humppa. And now, the label Svart Records is releasing a whole bunch of music from Paavoharju, a project rightfully sitting among the ranks of those other famous Finnish curiosities.

Australian multi-instrumentalist Oren Ambarchi releases a new solo album, »Simian Angel«, with Brazilian Cyro Baptista contributing the percussion. In an interview with skug he talks about himself, his work and music in general.

Once again, Park Jiha thrills with her style, which skilfully helps to implement South Korean classical into the modern music of the present. skug examined the album and questioned her accordingly in an interview.

Antisemitism, fascism, retrogressivity are again most relevant today. Before the release of Trupa Trupa’s new album »Of the Sun« and their upcoming tour which includes dates in the US, we interview singer and poet Grzegorz Kwiatkowski about Poland, the Shoah, and art in general.

In a world where desert has spread over Italy’s south entirely, a hot breeze wafts gently through the abandoned streets and between antique buildings. A robotic Bedouin riding a cyborg dromedary gazes into the distance and seems to be waiting for something to happen. His mount is nervously pawing the ground, making metallic squeaking sounds….

Gérald Kurdian is a musician, performer and radio artist. He uses electronic live music, performance, videos and mockumentary post-porn photography art to relive the metamorphoses of the 20th/21st century’s sexual revolutions. A skug interview from Tanzquartier Vienna.

Before her freak out concert for Salon skug on Saturday, March 9, 2019, at rhiz Vienna, the Swedish musician MAG, who is already on tour in Italy, responded to our interview questions by typing her answers into her mobile phone. Respect!

Die Band Motorpsycho macht seit Jahrzehnten äußerst veritablen Rock und veröffentlicht Heißen Stuff am laufenden Band. Ein typisches skug-Gespräch, in dem Bassist und Sänger Bent Sæther den Bogen von der zusammenbrechenden Nachkriegsweltordnung bis zur Melancholie in der Musik spannt.

Donna Gaines, die-hard fan, Doctor of Sociology and author of »Teenage Wasteland: Suburbia’s Dead End Kids« (1991) and »A Misfit’s Manifesto« (2003), wrote a book on one of the greatest rock’n’roll / punk bands ever, »Why The Ramones Matter« (University of Texas Press). Here is our online-interview.

Sonic Youth sind Geschichte – es lebe Lee Ranaldo! Der nämlich tritt erneut mit Musik im Gepäck in Erscheinung, nun ist es ein Live-Album. Mehr dazu und zu vielem anderem im skug-Interview.

This autumn, editor Evelyn McDonnell released »Women Who Rock« (Black Dog & Leventhal), an extensive collection of more than 100 essays and articles about female pop stars, written by female critics. Time for an online-interview.

Shohei Amimori, japanischer Experimental-Artist, bringt sein neues Album »PataMusic« auf dem arrivierten Label Noble heraus. skug hat den superben Tonträger genauer unter die Lupe genommen und mit dem Künstler gesprochen.

Trupa Trupa from the Polish city Gdańsk played a fantastic gig at Waves Vienna this year. A mix of rough post-punk and free art rock with melodic hooklines and furious lyrics. This interview had an ironic touch, dealing with subjects like their DIY philosophy, politics, and democracy in and outside of the band.