The tale is perhaps a well-precedented one: a Welshman, an American, and a Swede move to Berlin and start a post-punk band called Plattenbau in a studio housed in the massive former DDR Funkhaus. Hans Tobias, Lewis Lloyd und Brandon Walsh describe their very own sonic can of worms as post-ideological surrealism, the ten songs on their self-titled debut album oscillate between noise, pop, and surf. Plattenbau wouldn’t be Plattenbau, though, without the structural, even skeletal, contribution of humor; when the austere facade and walls are stripped off, the Bau still stands strong and smirks. Take, for instance, the pseudo-everything track “Ray Charles”; this and others are catnip for hype seismographs like noisey and Crack Magazine and have prompted an extensive USA tour, including performances at Austin’s SXSW. We eagerly await their bright-eyed and bushy-tailed return to post-socialist territory. – Comrades! Stand ready for Plattenbau, live on Wilhelm-Pieck-Straße!

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