While working in Berlin Wedding at andereBaustelle studio on their upcoming album – scheduled for release in May 2026 on Bureau B – Kreidler found also time to dig deep into the vaults of their Düsseldorf and Berlin archives. Thirty Years ago Kreidler's eponymous mini-album was released on Cologne-based label Finlayson; and for RIVA, their first outing, on cassette tape it is even 31 years. Both released in limited physical formats and long unavailable. This edition documents the band‘s beginnings, with threads that can be followed throughout their whole history to their current work. Still, they are straight out of a certain scene, at a certain place, at a certain time.
Kreidler — formed from the encounter of the band Deux Baleines Blanches (Thomas Klein, Andreas Reihse and Stefan Schneider) with DJ Sport (Detlef Weinrich) — already in its initial years, and in those that followed, managed to hold seemingly contradictory strands, becoming a fluid form that could equally accommodate the various strengths and interests of its members. This ability has remained intact up to the present lineup of Thomas Klein, Alex Paulick and Andreas Reihse.
In Düsseldorf, the Academy of Arts is situated just next to the Altstadt, a rather grubby area to get disorderly drunk and eat cheap fast food. But as intoxication and partying go quite well with doing or studying art, artists conquered certain spaces, made them their own. The art scene had anyway always mingled with the music scene. This led to such famous spots as Creamcheese or Ratinger Hof. Art from Düsseldorf was already exciting, but then also the music was making waves: Kraftwerk, NEU!, la Düsseldorf, followed by post-punk acts like DAF, Der Plan, Mittagspause et al. Kreidler, too, emerged from around the Academy, where Detlef and Stefan were students, while Andreas was studying audiovisual communication at the University of Applied Arts, and....... więcej