SLEAP-E (Indie/Anti-Folk/Punk, IT) + CAROLINA LEE | Berlin Show @ Kulturhaus Insel

In the organizer's words:

Live:
SLEAP-E (IT)
-- Indie/Anti-Folk/Bossa Punk --
+ Special Guests:
CAROLINA LEE
-- Indie/Folk/Dreampop --

Kulturhaus Insel Berlin
Admission: 7 pm
Start: 8 pm

SLEAP-E is reclaiming herself. The Italian singer-songwriter's second album, 8106, captures the spirit of play; the child-like instinct to pursue what you love without compromise - and here it is, that particular magic that rarely survives adulthood, remarkably intact. Though her sound has shifted from the tender bedroom pop of her 2020 EP Mellow and her 2022 debut album Pouty Lips which was bedecked with jubilant brass and Mediterranean rhythms, it's her self-belief which endures. 8106 is Sleap-e's most raucous, unpolished and playful offering to date, steeped in the influence of "egg-punk", an internet-grown genre which seeks to satirize the tropes of punk with its danceable irreverence. There is joy to be found, Asia Martina Morabito feels, in refusing to conform, and it has brought her closer to herself than ever before.

8106 was the number of the hotel room she felt confined to, alone and adrift from comfort when she was working away from home. Sometimes you have to be removed from something to realize how much you miss it. She decided to return home to Bologna, and there she began recording the album in residency at the Bronson Club: a hive of like-minded creatives and mentors who helped it take its final form. At home, her own music was played freely and instinctively - and with fun. The artwork for 8106 is by Noemi Vola, a prolific Bolognian illustrator and author who specializes in designs for children, which reflects the "funky, fairytale mood" of the record itself. "Poetry" is an ode to sharing halloumi fries with a close friend over literature, speaking to those particular moments and relationships in our lives which nourish us; "Leave My Bum Alone" arrives as an explosion of mischief and frivolity. It also leans into tenderness and sharp sincerity, and in the album's closing title track Asia speaks to herself: "It's about sadness and rage, but more than that, this need to live: to go away and change things - to love myself."

The four-piece Berlin band CAROLINA LEE arranges the lyrical songs by singer Nadja Carolina to create a minimalist sound. This is reminiscent of female singer-songwriters of the 70s and the dream pop of the 90s. Carolina Lee's songs combine guitar, bass, drums and keyboard instruments to create slow, dreamy, perhaps even hypnotic compositions.

Behind singer Nadja Carolina's melodies, delivered with a dark timbre, lie rhythms that are sometimes remotely reminiscent of early 90s hip-hop or 70s soul music, a psychedelic guitar whines delicately and an old rhythm machine keeps popping up. A Casio keyboard plays sounds that could have been borrowed from a John Carpenter soundtrack and a discreetly leaning bass holds everything together.

The music creates a maelstrom that draws you into a time warp between yesterday and today. Despite all the melancholy, the new songs sound more playful and hopeful than the debut album 'Haunted Houses' (2021).

'It's still now' is also a personal album. The lyrics are about loss and new beginnings. About walks through the sometimes seemingly strange hometown of Berlin, about new love, care work and lonely nights in half-empty bars, where you are not prepared for the hope that suddenly hits you.

'It's still now' was recorded in collaboration with musician and producer Max Braun in an old farmhouse in northern Germany and will be released on December 20, 2024 via Marzipan Records.

Line Up
Nadja Carolina - Vocals, electric & acoustic guitar
Simon Grote - electric guitar, keyboards, piano, percussion, vocals
Leah Corper - bass, vocals
Lutz Oliver - drums, percussion, electric guitar

www.carolinalee.band
www.instagram.com/carolinaleeband