With a song called „Forever,” it’s no wonder the Berlin duo Bad Hammer automatically qualified for this year’s Torstraßen Festival. The video sketches a map of Bad Hammer’s world: a summer carnival, neon lights, soft focus, teenage dreams, romances in bumper cars. Lisa Klinkhammer and Johannes Badzura are active members of Neukölln’s bustling DIY scene; accordingly, “Forever” can be found on the latest mixtape from the Berlin-based label Mansions & Millions alongside tracks by a multitude of TSF alumni—Pictorial Candi, Helen Fry, Itaca and Magic Island among them. Together, increasingly and ever more incisively, these artists are refining a genre we’d like to smuggle into the music history books with the term “Neukölln Chill.” Via bedroom recordings and tape releases, digital synthesizers, iPhone playbacks, and a relaxed attitude unfazed by the threat of rising rents, this scene is drawing ever-wider circles. Meanwhile, Bad Hammer’s tour dates include locations outside of the Haupstadt comfort zone (Paris, Amsterdam), and features on Red Light Radio and Subbacultcha Magazine are extending the reach of the band’s nostalgic songs even further.

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