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Forget ostalgie, Berlin’s music line-up this month serves up a full dose of synth and neon-stalgie with 80’s icons Journey, Depeche Mode and Morrissey all making stops in the city. American indie darlings Yo La Tengo, Fleet Foxes and Coco Rosie also pop by for a visit, along with Canadian heavyweights Neil Young and Leonard Cohen. Finally, Berlin willkommens back Cabaret star and camp goddess Liza Minelli.

Check out our two top picks for this month:

CocoRosie
Wednesday June 10 (9 pm) @ Lido
(Experimental, pop)
http://www.myspace.com/cocorosie

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the backstory-rich sister act CocoRosie is hard to ignore. The duo was born in 2003 when, after being estranged from each other for almost 10 years, Bianca Casady fled Brooklyn and took refuge in her sister Sierra’s Parisian apartment. Largely in the confines of Sierra’s bathroom, the sisters went on to record their first album La maison de mon rêve – a record that, along with the likes of Devendra Banhard, went on to define America’s nascent freak-folk movement.

The sisters’ sound is a genre-busting mix of blues, hip-hop, lo-fi synths, twee-ish warbling and surrealist wordplay. Though they’ve been criticized for their “over-the-top, art school” antics (which includes everything from flaunting their tear-tattooed eyes to claiming kinship with fairies), at its best, their music is remarkably expansive precisely because of their deliberate interest in coloring outside the lines.

Take, for example, “Beautiful Boys,” their haunting ode to the prison system, whose chorus is lovingly intoned by Antony Hegarty: “All those beautiful boys / Pimps and queens and criminal queers.” Or their later song, “By Your Side,” a monologue of a housewife who wants nothing more than to bake her husband apple pies and wear “his” black eyes, which can equally be read as a highly ironic send-up of conventional domesticity or as a love letter to the perverse pleasures of submission. In these and other tunes, CocoRosie create sonic space for identities and issues that often stand by the wayside of mainstream culture.

Currently at work on an album whose inspiration is derived from “Cher, Beethoven and finding true love's kiss,” CocoRosie hopefully have many more tricks up their sleeves.  

Other dates in Germany:

Wednesday June 3 @ Kampnagel, Hamburg
Saturday June 16 @ Schlachthof, Bremen
Thursday June 25 @ Wagenhallen, Stuttgart
Friday June 26 @ Katharineruine, Nurnberg
Saturday June 27 @ alter Schlachtof, Dresden
Sunday June 28 @ Freiheiz, Munich
Friday July 31 @ Zeltival, Karlsruhe
Saturday July 1 @ Juicy Beats Festival, Dortmund

Fleet Foxes
Sunday June 21 (8 pm) @ Huxleys
(Indie rock, folk)
http://www.myspace.com/fleetfoxes

Wedged between The Flaming Lips and Fleetwood Mac in my music library, critical darlings Fleet Foxes warrant comparisons to both. Like Fleetwood Mac, Fleet Foxes’ music is centered around virtuosic vocal harmonies, led by lead singer Robin Pecknold. The brilliant “White Winter Hymnal,” for instance, opens with an enchanting round before wandering off into an Edward Gorey-esque tale of snowy adventure. Like The Flaming Lips, the band makes masterfully orchestral music, fusing various different genres into a remarkable and delicate wall of sound; the band describes their idiosyncratic style as "baroque pop, music from fantasy movies, Motown, block harmonies ... not much of a rock band."

The band rose to indie stardom last summer after releasing their second EP, Sun Giant, and their first, eponymous full-length album all within a few months. And though pastoral ideals and landscape imagery are fairly commonplace in the music world these days, these boys do it with a sincerity that is hard to rebuff.

Other dates in Germany:
Friday June 19 @ Southside Festival, Neuhausen ob Eck
Saturday June 20 @ Hurricane Festival, Scheesel

Listings:


Scott Matthew
Tuesday June 2 (8 pm) @ Passionkirche
(Acoustic)
www.myspace.com/scottmatthewmusic

The Bats
Wednesday June 3 (9 pm) @ Bang Bang Club
(Indie, pop)
http://www.myspace.com/thebatsnz







The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Friday June 5 (8 pm) @ NBI
(Pop)
www.myspace.com/thepainsofbeingpureatheart






Ghostface Killah, Dilated Peoples
Friday June 5 (9 pm) @ LiveAtDot
(Hip hop, rap)
www.myspace.com/ghostface

Fink    
Friday June 5 (8 pm) @ Lido
(Folk, blues)
www.myspace.com/finkmusic

Madness
Friday June 5 (7 pm) @ Zitadelle Spandau
(Ska)
www.myspace.com/madnessofficial

Vivian Girls
Saturday June 6 (8 pm) @ West Germany
(Punk, shoe gaze)
www.myspace.com/viviangirlsnyc








Powersolo
Sunday June 7 (9 pm) @ White Trash
(Punk, rock)
www.myspace.com/powersolo







Lenka
Monday June 8 (9 pm) @ Lido
(Indie pop)
www.myspace.com/lenkamusic







Yo La Tengo
Monday June 8 (8 pm) @ Babylon Mitte
(Rock, alt)
www.myspace.com/yolatengo






CocoRosie
Wednesday June 10 (9 pm) @ Lido
(Experimental, pop)
http://www.myspace.com/cocorosie

Depeche Mode
Wednesday June 10 (7:30 pm) @ Olympiastadion
(Alt)
www.myspace.com/depechemode


 




golden diskó ship
Wednesday June 10 (8 pm) @ Ä Neukölln
(Electro, alt)
www.myspace.com/goldendiskoship







Poolstar
Thursday June 11 (8 pm) @ SO 36
(Rock, punk)
www.myspace.com/poolstarrocks







Morrissey
Friday June 12 (8 pm) @ Columbiahalle
(Alt, indie, rock)
www.myspace.com/morrissey







Peter Fox
Friday June 12 (8 pm) @ Kindl Bühne
(Hip hop)
www.myspace.com/peterfoxxx

Peter Fox
Saturday June 13 (8 pm) @ Kindl Bühne
(Hip hop)
www.myspace.com/peterfoxxx






Nadja, Thisquietarmy
Saturday June 13 (9 pm) @ Schokoladen
(Ambient, experimental)
http://www.myspace.com/nadjaluv
 





Monkey Island Festival
With: Cosma, Puppetmastaz, Laid, Samavayo, MissMatch, Daniel Wirtz, Fine, Laing
Saturday June 13 @ Insel Berlin
www.monkeyislandfestival.de