Messer

Messer are considered forerunners in the revival of smart AND casual German-language pop music. The band’s interest in post-punk, minimalist New Wave and in French literature blends to form an artful, sharp-edged sound – buffeted by an awareness that although rock-music can be bleak, punk music is nevertheless the best thing in the world. After excursions into the theater world and a great Boris Vian homage concert at Kampnagel in 2016, Messer now return to the Summer Festival to once again reinvent themselves, as they do at almost each of their concerts (drummer Manuel Chittka is also playing with Pantha Du Prince). The last two Messer albums were produced by Hamburg super-producer Tobias Levin, who is also playing as a guest with Blumfeld and is currently working in the studio with Soft Grid, who are opening the evening. The three-person powerhouse is influenced as much by Werner Herzog as by Kanye West and assiduously ignores the borders between pop, noise-rock and hauntology-folk.