BARTEES STRANGE

In the organizer's words:

Sometimes music is like a haunting. It comes unexpectedly, robs you of sleep, demands to be heard. This is how Bartees Strange describes the moment when the idea for his new album "Horror" came to him. Not as an inspiration, but as a visitation: "I was living my life and then - BOOM - there it was," he says. The music that called to him was raw, dark, demanding. It forced him to enter spaces he had avoided for years: childhood memories, old injuries, fears that never disappeared. "Horror" is the result of this confrontation - an album that both disturbs and liberates. Bartees Strange, born in 1989 as Bartees Leon Cox Jr. in Ipswich, England, knows what it means to move in strange worlds. His childhood took him from Europe to Greenland, through various US states to Mustang, Oklahoma - a conservative small town that offered little room for queer, black identities. The fact that Strange nevertheless became one of the most exciting voices in contemporary pop there is almost like a counter-magic. Before devoting himself entirely to music, he worked as communications director for an environmental NGO in Washington, D.C. In Brooklyn, he played post-hardcore, released his first solo works in folk style, covered songs by The National and impressed with his debut "Live Forever", a daring mix of hip-hop, indie and jazz. "Farm to Table" followed in 2022, earning him praise from critics and tours with Phoebe Bridgers and Courtney Barnett. But "Horror", his work from 2025, is different. It is not an album for quick consumption. It is a dissection of the soul. Together with Jack Antonoff and producers such as Yves and Lawrence Rothman, Strange created a sound that defies any genre: House, funk, guitar pop, tender R'n'B: everything flows into one another, carried by songs that dare to be ugly beautiful. "I wanted to make an album that scares," says Strange. And doesn't just mean others, but above all himself. In August 2025, Bartees Strange will be coming to Germany with "Horror" for two exclusive dates. A live experience that will probably be as memorable as the music itself. 18.08.2025 Berlin - Kantine am Berghain 20.08.2025 Hamburg - Molotow - Top Ten Bar This content has been machine translated.