After an evening’s thorough research into the Berlin performance-art-pop-synth-clash duo HYENAZ (always written in capitals), the author of this biography has a buzzing head, and not only from three-quarters of a bottle of writing-Rosé. Contributing to this state of affairs is on the one hand the enthusiastically over-driven sound of Mad Kate and TUSK (also always in capitals), the two collaborators in question, and on the other hand the noise of references surrounding the bald-headed double whammy. Peaches, the supermother of electro-clash, called them a “performative monster duo.” There’s talk of “cult status,” and in 2014 Kaltblut Magazine even dared to propose the label “best live act in Berlin.” HYENAZ’ latest release is baptized with the dialectical term Critical Magic, and it’s concerned with “chaos magic,” a post-modern, to-us-hitherto-unknown magical practice that seeks to challenge authoritarian power structures. This sounds like a good thing, so we hereby proclaim: Chaos Magic Forever! Deleuze & Guattari, Walter Benjamin, Cherrie Moraga, and Alexander Jodorowsky (all of these names pop up on the world wide HYENAZ web) would all hop on board in a heartbeat. Ah yes—and the music! We’ll describe it here, a bit too briefly, as: “broken-beat-synthpop-tech-house-horror-wave,” and also as “extremely highly recommended.”

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