Lido, Berlin, Germany5th April 2025
Dark Spring Festival 2025 with Agent Side Grinder, Desperate Journalist, Golden Apes, Funhouse, Bedless Bones
Arriving in Berlin in full sun feels like stepping into a city that knows how to carry both memory and promise in its bones. The streets were alive, buzzing with music, paint, and people in full bloom - a lively, defiant symphony of cultures, dreams, and languages. It’s a place I always return to with lungs ready to inhale something freer. Gentrification may have clawed its way in - with high-gloss towers glaring at my beloved Warschauer Straße like they own the place - but Berlin still whispers its truths to those who know where to listen. And every time I return, I feel something in me unclench.
Dark Spring Festival has long been a marker of the turning seasons for me - a portal from the grey of winter into something alive and pulsating. It’s not my first time at the fest, and yet each visit feels like a rediscovery. The Lido, nestled in Kreuzberg’s ever-vibrant heart, remains the perfect setting - intimate, drenched in history and warmth. And once again, the line-up didn’t disappoint. The organizers, hosts, and the devoted crowd created an atmosphere that was both electric and deeply human. A communion of sound and shadow.
Bedless Bones
BEDLESS BONES is the solo project of Estonian artist Kadri Sammel, an alchemist of dark electronic textures, glacial melodies, and magnetic rhythms. Emerging from Tallinn’s vibrant underground, she crafts a sound that bridges the ethereal with the mechanical - weaving together elements of Industrial, Darkwave, Ambient, and experimental Pop. Since their debut in 2019, BEDLESS BONES has gained international recognition for her unique sonic identity: ritualistic, cinematic, and emotionally arresting. Kadri’s background in visual arts and philosophy seeps into her music, giving rise to immersive performances that feel like spellbinding ceremonies - part dream, part exorcism. With each release and live act, BEDLESS BONES reshapes the dark electronic landscape, whispering secrets through crystalized synths and summoning primal forces with every beat.
Music & Performance
Every BEDLESS BONES concert is both an awakening and an submersion - a rare fusion of kinetic energy and intricate mysticism that leaves the audience suspended in a web of sound. What unfolded at Lido that evening was no different: a hypnotic ceremony of light, shadow, and rhythm, led by Kadri Sammel with the poise of someone who conjures, not merely performs. The set began with an excerpt from ‘The Iron Bough’ - a quiet, breath-like invocation that felt less like a song and more like the soft hum of an ancient spell being whispered back into the world. And then the current surged. ‘Revelations’, ‘Dead Woman’, ‘Litha’ - each track layered like silk and steel, glistening and sharp, soft and defiant. The soundscape was crystalline and enveloping, threaded with spectral beauty and undercurrents of power.
Kadri’s voice wrapped around the room like silver smoke, luminous and exacting. There’s something about the way her vocals move - never ornamental, always elemental. As if each breath carries fragments of stories you almost remember but never lived. Her delivery doesn’t pierce; it envelops. Like a spiderweb spun from crystal, glass, and starlight, delicate yet unbreakable. The stage itself mirrored that duality - leaves of ivy adorning the mixer, her presence wild and untamed, both grounded and otherworldly. She moved like a bacchante guided by pulses and shadows, in a choreography that never asked for attention but effortlessly held it. Songs like ‘Burying the Carnival’, ‘Sad and Alone’, and ‘Solar Animus’ unfolded like dream-sequences with rhythm - introspective, precise, and emotionally charged. The breathlessness - an exquisite awareness of space, timing, and atmosphere. With ‘In Omnia Paratus’, ‘Tongue and Rhythm’, and ‘Ostara’, the set deepened into something almost trance-like. It didn’t demand movement, but it stirred the body to respond. Every note, every flicker of light, every beat felt sculpted, charged, and alive.
What BEDLESS BONES offers is not spectacle but communion - an electric, emotional conversation between sound and soul. A mirror in which you see your shadow self, but also the luminous threads that hold you together.
Setlist
01. Intro (excerpt of The Iron Bough)
02. Revelations
03. Dead Woman
04. Litha
05. Burying the Carnival
06. Sad and Alone
07. Solar Animus
08. In Omnia Paratus
09. Tongue and Rhythm
10. Ostara
Funhouse
FUNHOUSE is a Swedish Alternative Rock band known for blending Post-Punk energy with Gothic atmospheres and anthemic melodies. Formed in the late 80s, the band quickly carved out a space in the European Dark Rock scene, bringing a distinctive mix of driving guitars, emotional vocals, and a raw yet melodic approach to songwriting. With deep roots in classic Goth and a flair for dynamic live performances, FUNHOUSE has remained a compelling presence on stage and in the studio for over three decades. Their shows are praised for their infectious energy, heartfelt delivery, and strong connection with the audience - proving that authenticity and passion never go out of style.
Music & Performance
FUNHOUSE brought a wave of pure, vibrant energy to the stage at Dark Spring Festival. From the first strum of ‘Stay With You’ to the final note of ‘What Can I Say’, their set was a lively, emotionally charged ride - open-hearted, dynamic, and entirely absorbing. Their performance was marked by an infectious vitality. The band’s presence felt both unpretentious and fully in command - a group clearly at ease with each other and with their audience. The atmosphere they created was one of warmth and connection, underpinned by a confident professionalism that let the music breathe and shine on its own terms.
The guitar work was sharp and bright, effortlessly flowing between drive and delicacy, while the vocals carried a gritty emotional charge that added weight and soul to every song. Funhouse didn’t hold back - they poured their energy into every beat, and the crowd responded in kind. Their interaction with the audience was natural and sincere, building a sense of togetherness rather than spectacle. Standouts like ‘Blue Light’ and ‘Sometimes I Wish’ shimmered with emotional depth, while ‘Second Coming’ and ‘Voices’ delivered powerful, memorable hooks. Each song felt carefully placed, building momentum without losing the ease and spontaneity that made the whole set so enjoyable.
Setlist
01. Stay With You
02. Second Coming
03. Dark & Stormy
04. Blue Light
05. Hate You
06. Care For You
07. Forever True
08. Sometimes I Wish
09. Do You Love Me
10. Voices
11. What Can I Say
Golden Apes
GOLDEN APES are a Berlin-based Dark Rock band whose sound bridges melancholic Post-Punk, Gothic Rock, and poetic introspection. Since their formation in the late 1990s, the band has cultivated a distinct musical identity marked by atmospheric guitars, brooding basslines, and the warm, expressive baritone of frontman Peer Lebrecht. Known for their evocative lyrics and emotionally immersive live shows, GOLDEN APES create music that feels both timeless and deeply personal - weaving themes of memory, loss, and longing into lush sonic landscapes. With a loyal following and a discography that spans over two decades, the band continues to evolve while remaining rooted in the dark elegance that defines their art.
Music & Performance
As the hosts of the evening, GOLDEN APES didn’t simply take the stage - they claimed it like a slow-burning revelation, unfurling their sound in the dim-lit haze of a room suspended between time and shadow. Smoke curled sensuously across the scene, as if summoned by the first notes - not decoration, but a living presence in dialogue with the music. From the very first beat, it was clear: this was a performance rooted in both warm sensuality and unrelenting emotional gravity. The basslines pounded like heavy wings brushing against ribcages, while the drums and guitars carved vast emotional architectures in the dark. The sound wasn’t just heard - it pressed itself into the room like velvet soaked in memory. There was weight to it. Texture. Like grit and silk dancing in slow rotation.
GOLDEN APES don’t aim for spectacle in the traditional sense - instead, they cultivate atmosphere like ancient gardeners of gloom. The club felt transformed into a lost place, a hidden room between yesterday and tomorrow, where melancholia doesn't weigh you down but lifts you - gently, knowingly - into reverie. Peer Lebrecht moved through the stage like a figure woven from both smoke and resolve. There’s a stately restraint to his presence, but it’s the kind that pulses with concealed intensity - like someone telling secrets in the middle of a thunderstorm. His voice, always rich with dark poetry, carried lyrics that blurred the line between pain and beauty, distance and desire. His delivery never felt theatrical; it felt lived-in. Experienced. A whisper with the weight of iron.
What GOLDEN APES offer isn’t nostalgia, though it brushes up against memory with reverence. It’s not drama, though every note aches with significance. Their music inhabits a space where melancholy becomes a language - not to escape, but to navigate. The songs feel like nicotine smoke - biting, clinging, comforting. Or like warm rain falling on an open palm - tender, persistent, and oddly cleansing. In a night already rich with sound, it was GOLDEN APES who held the deepest silence between their notes - and somehow made that silence sing.
Setlist
01. Strangers
02. Light (Inside Us)
03. From The Sky
04. Hole
05. The Highest Point
06. Ash Trees
07. Shine
08. Verity
09. Our Ashes At The…
10. The Moment I Fell
Desperate Journalist
This London-based Post-Punk band is known for their razor-sharp intensity, emotional depth, and dynamic live presence. Since their debut in 2013, the quartet - led by the captivating Jo Bevan on vocals - have carved out a reputation for blending driving rhythms, shimmering guitars, and raw lyrical honesty. With a sound that nods to classic post-punk influences while forging a distinctly modern edge, DESPERATE JOURNALIST deliver music that is both urgent and elegiac - moody yet melodic, fierce yet vulnerable. Their performances are a surge of contrast: elegance and grit, precision and abandon.
Music & Performance
DESPERATE JOURNALIST didn’t so much perform at Dark Spring Festival as they detonated. Their set was a charged collision of emotional voltage and sonic precision - sharp, fervent, and wildly expressive. There was no room for neutrality in that room; every note, every movement demanded attention. What defines their stage presence isn’t volume or spectacle but intensity - a restless, kinetic tension between restraint and release. One moment tight as a clenched jaw, the next uncoiled into something feral and electric. The contrasts within their sound - melodic intricacy shadowed by lyrical disquiet, angular guitars undercut by Jo Bevan’s aching, defiant vocals - gave the entire set a fractured beauty. This wasn’t noise for its own sake. It was calibrated, sculpted disorder.
From the seething pulse of ‘Everything You Wanted’ to the poignant undercurrents of ‘Cristina’ and ‘Underwater’, DESPERATE JOURNALIST moved with precision and abandon in equal measure. The performance carried the rawness of post-punk but filtered through something more vulnerable, more literary - rage with nuance, grief with sharp corners. ‘No Hero’ and ‘Cedars’ hit particularly hard, their dynamics perfectly timed to rupture just as the tension reached its threshold. In ‘Be Kind’ and ‘Personality Girlfriend’ the band pushed emotional weight through riffs and refrains, capturing something unspeakable between sadness and resistance.
The encore - ‘Control’ and ‘Satellite’ - wasn’t a return to calm but rather a distillation of everything that had come before. Urgency, vulnerability, menace, and melody folding into one final surge. DESPERATE JOURNALIST proved once again that emotional clarity and sonic chaos are not opposites, but dance partners - each feeding off the other to create something unforgettable.
Setlist
01. Everything You Wanted
02. Why Are You So Boring?
03. Afraid
04. Hollow
05. Silent
06. No Hero
07. Cedars
08. 7
09. Be Kind
10. Underwater
11. Fault
12. Cristina
13. Unsympathetic Parts 1 & 2
14. Personality Girlfriend
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15. Control
16. Satellite
Agent Side Grinder
The Swedish electronic band AGENT SIDE GRINDER is renowned for their powerful fusion of Post-Punk rawness, Industrial edge, and synth-driven precision. Since emerging from Stockholm’s underground scene in the mid-2000s, they’ve built a reputation for combining analogue synths, pulsing basslines, and emotionally charged vocals into a sound that’s both cold and deeply human. With their commanding stage presence - especially frontman Emanuel Åström’s intense, theatrical delivery - AGENT SIDE GRINDER delivers Darkwave anthems with mechanical discipline and emotional volatility. They remain one of Europe’s most compelling live acts in the electronic Post-Punk sphere.
Music & Performance
AGENT SIDE GRINDER deliver impact with the precision of a perfectly engineered machine - and, I must admit, they were one of the magnetic forces that pulled me back to Berlin this spring. This project has always had the rare ability to merge synth-driven electronic structures with something far more visceral - a kind of emotional charge that simmers beneath the surface, occasionally flaring up in wild, unexpected ways. Much of this raw allure rests in the presence of Emmanuel Åström, whose vocal delivery is a study in contrasts: controlled yet volatile, icy yet charged with barely-contained electricity. His performance walks the tightrope between restraint and theatrical abandon, without ever tipping into excess.
It’s expression stripped of vanity - distilled, urgent, alive. They operate like a precision instrument. Each beat lands with calculated force, each synth pulse carves out space, and each track unfolds with a kind of architectural discipline - yet nothing about it feels sterile. There’s movement here. There’s tension. There’s electricity crawling just beneath the skin of the sound. They understand dynamics like few others do, balancing minimalism and fullness, Coldwave chill and Post-Punk heat in a way that never ceases to astonish. Their Berlin set confirmed what longtime followers already know: AGENT SIDE GRINDER don’t just perform - they construct cathedrals of rhythm and mood, made not of stone, but of wire, voltage, and breath. And every time, they deliver with stunning consistency and detail.
Setlist
01. Decipher
02. Waiting Room
03. Love at First Sight
04. Giants Fall
05. Bloodless
06. The Archives
07. Mag 7
08. This is Us
09. For the Young
10. Stripdown
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11. Into the Wild
All in all - stellar line-up, absolutely amazing audience and venue and terrific atmosphere. Dark Spring Festival is definitely the one to attend if you are a fan of guitar sounds and dark soundscapes.
All Pictures by Karo Kratrochwil
