Club From Hell, Erfurt, Germany 1st to 2nd November 2025
Fourscher Festival 2025 with Zalvox, From Syntech to Greyhound, Oszy Layter, Synapscape, ner\ogris, Emmon, Fix8:Sed8
It was my second time at Fourscher Festival this year, and what started in 2024 will very likely become a tradition - that every first weekend of November is booked for Erfurt. And it happens so for a reason - Fourscher is a unique blend of great music, venue, absolutely stunning audience, and amazing hosts. Two days filled with energy, socialising, getting to know new people, and simply having fun in an absolutely welcoming, warm atmosphere - it’s definitely something worth experiencing.
Saturday
Zalvox
ZALVOX is an Electro-Pop / Synth-Wave project based in Leipzig Germany, founded by sound-designer Ribi and vocalist Dorain. Their sound is created exclusively with hardware synths, groove boxes, and samplers, resulting in a minimalist yet atmospheric mixture of machine precision and expressive vocals.
Music & Performance
There are performances that entertain, and there are those that seem to open a quiet portal inside you. ZALVOX’s concert at Fourscher Festival belonged to the latter - a moment suspended in blue light, where sound and emotion merged into something close to transcendence. What Ribi and Dorain create together defies easy definition. Their music is a delicate conversation between pulse and presence - between the precision of machines and the trembling honesty of the human voice.
Built entirely from hardware synths, groove boxes, and samplers, Ribi’s sound design feels tactile, sculpted rather than programmed. It breathes, shivers, and reacts. Against this living architecture, Dorain’s voice unfolds like light through fog - expressive, unpredictable, and utterly sincere. There was no spectacle here, no visual excess - only a minimalist stage, bathed in cool blue hues, where every gesture mattered. The restraint made the emotions sharper. Each note seemed to rise from silence, travel through the body, and dissolve again, leaving an invisible trace in the air.
ZALVOX’s music cuts deep. It doesn’t impose itself - it simply finds you, quietly, insistently. There’s something profoundly human in its composure, a calm intensity that draws you in without demanding attention. Even the cover of ‘Ice Machine’ felt like an act of reverence - stripped of nostalgia, reshaped into something more intimate, fragile, and new. When Tino Claus (TC75) joined the duo, the energy shifted - grounding the ethereal textures in raw emotion, bridging weight and air, strength and surrender. It was one of those rare festival moments where collaboration felt inevitable, not arranged.
What lingers after ZALVOX is not just the sound but its afterglow. The feeling of having witnessed something sincere, something that refuses to shout but still speaks volumes. Their music moves with an instinctive freedom - unrestrained yet composed - and touches that subtle string in the soul where fragility and beauty meet. In a weekend defined by intensity and power, ZALVOX offered stillness and grace. Their performance reminded us that not all energy explodes outward - some radiates inward, quietly reshaping the listener from within.
Setlist
01. Intro
02. Vortex
03. Eris
04. Pasithea
05. Tartaros
06. Algea
07. Ice Machine (Depeche Mode Cover)
08. Now I Need You (with TC75)
09. Zalmoxis
From Syntech to Greyhound
FROM SYNTECH TO GREYHOUND is the solo project of Steffen Lehmann, blending elements of Industrial & Rhythmic Noise with Techno-driven precision. The work emphasises pulse, architecture, and trance-like repetition, creating a powerful interface between bodily movement and sonic design.
Music & Performance
The performance by SYNTECH TO GREYHOUND, the brainchild of Steffen Lehmann, was pure kinetic precision - a brutalist symphony of rhythm and restraint. His music doesn’t simply hit; it strikes with the accuracy of a pulse that knows exactly where the heart is. It’s like a kick to the solar plexus - shocking, powerful, but perfectly measured within the geometry of sound. Every beat was an architecture. Each layer of electronics, carved with obsessive care, until chaos turned mathematical.
The result? A sonic experience that was both feral and intellectual - a dance of opposites where wildness meets control, and aggression becomes art. What defines Lehmann’s work is his mastery of balance. The intensity never collapses into monotony; the repetition never dulls the senses. Instead, it builds - carefully, deliberately - creating a hypnotic trance where every new bar feels like another turn of the screw. This is music that never bores, because it keeps you suspended in that perfect tension between surrender and command.
Live, the impact was overwhelming. The bass didn’t just vibrate - it inhabited the space. The beats rolled in waves, sharp and mechanical, yet deeply human in the way they resonated through the body. You couldn’t stand still - the sound took possession. Harshness met industrial elegance, and within that collision, something strangely beautiful emerged.
What Steffen creates as SYNTECH TO GREYHOUND is not just a sound project - it’s a sculptural act. A living organism of electricity, discipline, and fury. It’s noise rendered meaningful; chaos turned into control. This was one of those rare sets that doesn’t ask for your attention - it demands it, and rewards it with transcendence.
Setlist
01. Syntech - what are you waiting for
02. Syntech - inside my brain
03. Syntech - Phi Ton Mai
04. Syntech - Orcus Greyhound - serial perceptual disorder
05. Greyhound - cognitive Overload
06. Greyhound - Delinquent Subcultur Theory
07. Greyhound - peak-end rul
Oszy Layter
OSZY LAYTER is a German duo Danny Hildebrandt and Andreas Schubert, known for their powerful blend of Industrial, EBM, and Electronic Anarchy. As hosts of the Fourscher Festival, they’ve established themselves as both curators and performers who channel the essence of underground electronic intensity.
Music & Performance
When OSZY LAYTER take the stage, something primal stirs - a voltage runs through the room before a single note is played. As the curators and heart of Fourscher Festival, they don’t merely perform; they ignite. Their set feels less like a concert and more like a detonation, a collision of rhythm and rebellion, of noise meticulously shaped into something almost transcendent.
The opening seconds already dismantled any boundary between artist and audience. This was not a show to observe - it was a force to absorb, a ritual of sound and resistance. From that moment on, the night belonged entirely to them. What they create is difficult to confine within genre - it’s part Industrial, part Electronic Anarchy, part sonic performance art. Their music doesn’t flow; it erupts, evolving from controlled bursts of aggression into full-blown catharsis. Beneath the chaos, though, lies structure: a blueprint of rhythm and precision that makes even the most brutal textures feel deliberate, almost surgical. It’s the sound of destruction refined into design.
Each track unfolded like an act of confrontation - with the audience, with convention, with silence itself. The beats were merciless, yet perfectly balanced; the screams and synths collided, but never collapsed. Everything served the greater architecture of tension and release. Their presence on stage radiated raw intensity - not performative, but instinctive. Every gesture carried purpose, every sound pulse communicated defiance. And yet, amidst all that ferocity, there was control - a kind of cold, knowing precision that made the chaos meaningful.
OSZY LAYTER are the band that doesn’t simply play industrial music - they embody it. What they build live is a kinetic sculpture of sound, metal, and motion; what they leave behind is silence charged with after-shocks. By the end of their set, the room was stripped to its essentials: breath, light, heartbeat. Fourscher’s hosts had once again proven why this festival bears their imprint - because no one channels the beauty of noise quite like they do.
Setlist
01. Fire
02. attitude is your god
03. private nightmare
04. automation
05. Boom
06. dig it in the dirt
07. panic attack
08. fucking bouncer
09. looser
07. brain-controlled
08. Revolution
09. FinalRadiate Power
Synapscape
SYNAPSCAPE is a veteran German duo formed in 1994 by Philipp Münch and Tim Kniep, renowned for their work in the Power Noise / Industrial-Techno genre. Their approach blends distortion, rhythm, and processed vocals into a sound that evolves beyond mere aggression into structured intensity.
Music & Performance
From the moment SYNAPSCAPE took over the stage, it was clear the night would not settle for moments of calm. Instead, what unfolded was a superb display of industrial power where voice and machine collided with a kinetic elegance that few acts can conjure. Their music felt like a kick to the solar plexus and a whisper inside the skull, simultaneously wild and architecturally precise.
Having been a reference point within the Industrial / Power Noise world for more than twenty-five years, the German duo (Philipp Münch & Tim Kniep) have refined a sound DNA that never compromises intensity for accessibility. At Fourscher, their performance proved why: heavy beat structures, razor-sharp rhythms, processed vocals, all wrapped in an unstoppable surge of momentum.
Listening to them live felt like being caught in a current-once you entered, there was no stepping aside. Bodies moved, not because the beat invited it, but because the vibration required it. The air was charged; the bass didn’t just fill the room-it owned it. The duo’s energy flow was utterly irresistible, a relentless pace that swept the audience along in one thrilling trajectory. Philosopher-sound-artist Philipp Münch told me before the festival said: “SYNAPSCAPE does not explain itself, it must be experienced.”
And indeed, this night validated that claim. There was no need for preamble, no delicate build-up. What you got was sound inflicted, sensation hammered into awareness. It didn’t ask for comprehension-it demanded immersion. Visually and sonically, the show balanced harshness with sophistication. The beats were brutal, but never chaotic. The distortion roared, but remained contained within electronic architecture. The vocals surged like alarms, yet folded back into the grooves, becoming part of the rhythm rather than riding above it. It was industrial at its purest: minimal in excess, maximal in effect.
What set this performance apart was not only its intensity, but its craft. Many acts in the genre lean on noise as brute force. SYNAPSCAPE uses noise as meaning. They think rhythm, they sculpt percussion, they treat distortion as voice. They don’t just want to shake you-they want you to register the shake, to feel the fracture, then reflect on the crack. When the last vibrations faded and the stage quieted, one thing remained: a sense of departure from the known. You didn’t simply leave a show-you emerged from one. SYNAPSCAPE reminded us that the best industrial music is not background, it’s disturbance. And in that disturbance, you find life, you find movement, you find yourself again.
Sunday
If Saturday at Fourscher felt like a beautifully calibrated escalation of energy, Sunday arrived with a different kind of intensity - more introspective, but no less powerful. It was a day of contrasts: sharp-eyed social critique, euphoric electropop ignition, and a closing set that turned into a full-scale psychological theatre. If anyone still had doubts why the first weekend of November belongs to Erfurt, Sunday erased them.
Ner\Ogris
NER\OGRIS is a German Industrial / EBM project formed by vocal-artist Tino Claus (known from AMNISTIA, TC75, MRDTC) and producer Kai Neugebauer (LES BERRTAS). Their music blends contrasts-loud and quiet, analogue and digital-into dark soundscapes, focusing on tension, reflection, and exploring silence as much as sound.
Music & Performance
There are artists whose presence reshapes the very air around them - and Tino Claus is one of them. Whether he stands on stage as part of AMNISTIA, TC75, or collaborates with other acts (like ZALVOX, seen earlier at the festival), he brings not only skill, but something rarer - integrity. His art has always been a meeting point of intellect and instinct, anger and empathy, rebellion and reflection. What defines Tino isn’t genre, but truth: a need to translate his thoughts and emotions into a sonic form that hits as hard as it thinks.
With NER\OGRIS, the balance tilts toward anger - not blind rage, but the kind that carries purpose. Together with Kai Neugebauer, he constructs soundscapes that are both cerebral and visceral, steeped in emotion and control, alternating between confrontation and contemplation. Their music breathes tension - a dialogue between chaos and order, between what’s felt and what’s unspeakable.
Performing songs from their latest album ‘Silenci’, NER\OGRIS transformed the stage into a laboratory of emotion and intellect. The meaning of silence was at the heart of it all - and silence, as their work reminds us, is never simple. There’s silence that comforts, and silence that kills; silence that follows conflict, or one that precedes it. NER\OGRIS explore them all. The concert opened with ‘Decay’, that haunting meditation on disillusionment - beautifully structured, painfully human. From there, ‘Mainframe’ and ‘Konsens’ made their live debut, and the impact was enormous.
Onstage, these pieces gained new force: metallic precision colliding with Tino’s searing vocal delivery. When he roared ‘Shut it down, shut it out,’ it felt less like a lyric and more like a collective scream - a protest against numbness. ‘Konsens’, with its sharp German phrasing and hypnotic pulse, hit the nerve of social fatigue, that silent agreement to avoid what truly matters.
The set unfolded like a carefully crafted descent - each song its own philosophical fragment. ‘Reality & Fiction’, ‘Down’, and ‘Fiebre Oscura [Palabras]’ drew the audience deeper into that space where pain and poetry meet. The Spanish refrains, the grinding textures, and Tino’s relentless intensity turned the air electric. ‘Breathe’ offered a rare glimpse of stillness - brief, fragile, necessary. And then came the surprise: a live debut cover of NITZER EBB’s ‘Come Alive’. It wasn’t imitation - it was reinterpretation, pure and sharp. They stripped it to its essence and rebuilt it in their own language of controlled fury and elegance.
The final moments, ‘Deepest Fear’ and ‘Legacy’, closed the set like the last pages of a manifesto. When Tino sang “Everything ends, nothing is forever”, it didn’t sound resigned - it sounded resolved. A truth accepted, carried, transformed into art. NER\OGRIS don’t offer comfort. They challenge, provoke, and expose what we try to silence. Yet within their confrontation lies something profoundly human - the desire to connect, to be heard, to survive the noise and the void alike. In Erfurt, they didn’t just play ‘Silenci’; they made us feel its weight, its beauty, and its meaning.
Setlist
01. Decay
02. Mainframe (Live debut)
03. Konsens (Live debut)
04. Reality & Fiction
05. Down
06. Fiebre Oscura [Palabras]
07. Breathe
08. Come Alive (Nitzer Ebb cover - Live debut)
09. Deepest Fear
10. Legacy (Live debut)
Emmon
The project of Swedish Electropop artists Emma Nylén and Jimmi Monell create powerful intersections of EBM, Synth Pop and electronic songwriting. Since the early work in the 2000s, they have built a distinctive voice in the Scandinavian electronic scene
Music & Performance
Every time I see Emma Nylén and Mr. Monell on stage, my heart jumps for joy, and the floor seems to catch fire beneath my feet. There’s something about EMMON’s live energy - that electric pulse between performer and audience - that turns every venue into a living, breathing organism. Their shows aren’t just concerts; they’re kinetic explosions of rhythm, defiance, and sheer creative voltage.
From the very first beats, it was clear that this was going to be one of those nights - the kind that leave you grinning, glowing, and a little breathless. Emma radiated pure charisma, her voice cutting through layers of electronic brilliance with ease and conviction. Her stage presence is magnetic - equal parts strength and spontaneity - and the connection she builds with her audience feels instantaneous. You don’t just watch her perform; you’re drawn into her gravitational field.
With her new album ‘ICON’ out, the setlist reflected both evolution and continuity. The newer material shimmered with sleek, neon-sharp production and lyrical fire - unapologetic, confident, irresistibly danceable - while the older hits reminded everyone why EMMON became such a cult phenomenon in the first place. Each track felt like an anthem of self-expression, a spark of rebellion wrapped in glitter and basslines.
Mr. Monell’s precise electronic command added structure to the storm - his beats sharp as a scalpel, yet brimming with warmth and groove. Together, they form one of those rare partnerships where control and chaos coexist perfectly: sound and vision, pulse and presence, art and adrenaline. By mid-set, the crowd was in full motion - a sea of bodies moving as if possessed by the same current that runs through EMMON’S veins. Every chorus hit harder than the last; every silence felt charged. When Emma smiled, it was that knowing, radiant smile of an artist who’s exactly where she’s meant to be - in her element, commanding the night.
There are live acts that entertain, and then there are those that ignite. EMMON belongs firmly to the latter. It’s that unmistakable spark - the mix of precision, passion, and playfulness - that keeps audiences coming back, knowing they’ll leave changed, lighter, louder, and alive.
Setlist
01. Neon Brown
02. Hard Drive
03. Dark
04. Decisions
05. Shades of Blue
06. Purebloods
07. Relics
08. Like a Drum
09. Speak to Me
10. Machines
Fix8:Sed8
A German project spearheaded by Martin Sane, rooted in Dark Electro / EBM and industrial traditions. Known for combining harsh electronic textures with song-aware structure, the project has been active since the early 2000s and reached a prominent status in the underground electronic scene.
Music & Performance
The final act of this year’s Fourscher Festival belonged to FIX8:SED8, closing the event with precision, weight, and the unsettling beauty of control. Touring in support of the latest album ‘Octagram’, Martin Sane brought to the stage not a concert, but a psychological experiment - an essay performed through light, motion, and sound.
From the first moment, one sensed a deliberate shift from entertainment to reflection. The stage, bathed in dark reds and trembling shadows, contained a central image that defined the experience: a large hourglass. It silently measured the show’s duration but also served as a quiet metaphor for mortality, repetition, and the futility of control - themes that permeate ‘Octagram’.
Around it sprawled a curious assembly of props seemingly gathered from different universes: tribal relics, nightmarish totems, fragments from a madman’s laboratory, a slaughterhouse, Frankenstein’s studio, a nuclear testing chamber, a serial killer’s den, and a dystopian kindergarten. Each object carried its own disquieting story, as if borrowed from a dream both mythological and post-apocalyptic. What looked like chaos revealed, over time, a deliberate architecture - the material counterpart to the layered complexity of the sound.
Visually, the concert rejected spectacle for symbolic precision. It was a theatre of minimal gestures - a choreography of obsession. Every movement, every shift of light, felt ritualistic, almost involuntary, as though the artist himself were following an internal command rather than directing it. The result was hypnotic, demanding not admiration but attention - an immersion into something closer to philosophy than performance.
Musically, ‘Octagram’ remains a challenge even for its creator. It is not an album of songs but of meditations - long compositions that resist the linear logic of verse and chorus. Each piece mutates, expands, and deconstructs itself, becoming less a track than an inner monologue translated into sound. To perform it live is to surrender to it: to trust silence as much as rhythm, to let texture speak where melody would normally dominate.
That balance - between control and collapse, structure and surrender - defines FIX8:SED8’s strength. Martin Sane does not seek to dominate the audience but to draw them into his architecture, to make them feel the tension of restraint as something almost physical. His presence is magnetic precisely because it’s economical; intensity becomes the byproduct of containment.
What sets FIX8:SED8 apart is not only its sonic sophistication but its intellectual and emotional coherence. The songs from ‘Octagram’ function like psychological essays - experiments in empathy and alienation, thought made audible. Tracks like ‘Lesson in Humility’, ‘Blisters’, and ‘Tyrants’ are case studies in human contradiction: ego and guilt, detachment and despair, the desperate need to create colliding with the equally strong urge to destroy.
Throughout the performance, the deliberate structure of the album unfolded visually - the hourglass slowly emptying, the red light flickering like a failing pulse. The fragmentation on stage mirrored the lyrical dissection of belief, identity, and decay. And at the center of it all, Martin Sane’s voice - distorted, distant, but unmistakably articulate - served as the fragile thread binding logic and chaos together.
What emerged was an unmistakable sense of artistic evolution. ‘Octagram’ marks a turning point - a movement away from outward confrontation toward inward excavation. The rage remains, but it has become analytical. The aggression is no longer aimed at others; it is directed at the self. This is the sound of someone examining his own architecture of control - not to demolish it, but to understand it.
The music feels polished, but not in the sterile sense - rather in the way one polishes an idea: reworking it, refining it, eroding it until only truth remains. Every frequency seems measured, every word tested for endurance. It’s music not for escape but for confrontation - not to fill the silence, but to understand its shape. By the end, as the final notes of ‘Lynch’ dissolved into the dark and the hourglass stood empty, the message was clear. This was not a show about time passing, but about what time does to us while it passes.
FIX8:SED8’s ‘Lessons in Humility’ is a rare thing - a concert that thinks, that breathes, that dismantles itself as it unfolds. A mirror held to our own fragility, reflecting not noise, but thought.
Setlist
01. New Eden
02. 11th Commandment
03. pROGNOSIs
04. Quarantine
05. Warning Signs
06. Eyesaw
07. Darkness Visible
08. T.L.O.D.O.Y.T.
09. The Sceptic
10. The Inevitable Relapse
11. Syringe Relation
12. Baptism of Fire
13. High Velocity Spatter
14. Monolith
15. cHLORINe cLEAn tEARs
16. Tyrants
17. The Needle
18. Lynch
FOURSCHER FESTIVAL 2025 delivered on its promise: four distinct acts, each unique in mood and power, but all united by the same spirit of sound, intensity, and community. Great music + committed crowds + a welcoming setting create more than just performances - they build memories. If you weren’t there this time, mark your calendar now for next November’s weekend in Erfurt. You’ll want to be part of it.
All Pictures by Karo Kratochwil
