Interview:	COLD IN BERLIN
Title:	(De)Tension

The new album „Wounds“ shows the London Doom Goth Rockers at their usual daring best, presenting the quartet's individual mix around singer Maya with more than just Post-Punk nuances and driving Krautrock.

Even with synthesizers and free jazz horns, Cold In Berlin plunge headlong into their own sound universe, which this time also features unusual rhythms.

The questions are answered by singer Maya Berlin, guitarist Adam Richardson, bassist Lawrence Wakefield and drummer Alex Howson.

The previous album, „Rituals Of Surrender“, was released in the Covid year of 2019, and its title thus became a kind of 'fulfilling prophecy' for the band in the midst of the pandemic.

Adam: Hopefully the end of the world won’t happen again! We were lucky to do some album launch shows for „Rituals Of Surrender“ in late 2019, but our later tours were cancelled. We started rehearsing again in 2023 with the intention of doing things differently this time.

Maya: „Wounds“ is the next chapter for Cold In Berlin, „Rituals“ was a very different album. Both are very much Cold In Berlin albums but „Wounds“ gave us a chance to try something a little different. It was exciting to write and record and I think the songs reflect an evolution for us.

How do you see and evaluate „Wounds“ within your interesting, longer standing musical journey with Cold In Berlin?

Maya: With this album, I really wanted the listener to find a strong female presence in each song. I wanted to make people think about what they carry within themselves and what that means to them and others.

Lawrence: Musically, it’s much more diverse. There’s a lot more experimenting with instrumentation and form. There’s no track on this record that would have fit on anything we’ve done before.

Adam: I see „Wounds“ as our most collaborative album. All four members brought so many ideas to rehearsals.

Your current mix of Doom, Post-Punk, and Krautrock couldn't be more original or varied - how did that come about this time?

Maya: We all have pretty eclectic music tastes and I think that is reflected in this album. We have a very clear Post-Punk and Doom foundations and we built on that. I think when you are lucky enough to make music with people who get how you work, understand each other and trust the process, something very special can happen in the rehearsal room, things you don’t even plan for- you have to be willing to see what grows in the space.

Alex: We picked up Krautrock during the pandemic, most of our post-lockdown rehearsals were Krautrock jam sessions. Kraut's motorik rhythm creates tension, and doom gives release. It's been a satisfying formula to play around with, as they're less disparate styles than you might think. Took some work though.

What was your mood and vision when you started writing songs for the new album - inspired by today's world, which seems to lack love and passion more than ever before, and all the various crises and individual difficulties?

Maya: „Wounds“ is about the loss, grief, trauma we all experience at some point in our lives. I write from a female perspective and while the world can seem pretty bleak at the moment, there is such strength and growth from formative ‘wounds’. These experiences can also make us light up in the darkness, find a scene and like minded people we connect with. We can be wounded by losing things we were lucky to have and by surviving terrible emotional or physical pain - we can survive and stand together to face the sunrise. Sometimes that gives me hope.

What influences and inspirations led you to incorporate free jazz brass instruments into your songs alongside synthesizers?

Alex: It took years to realise, but Lawrence and I have a quiet, shared love of jazz. He's also been bothering his neighbours with a new found saxophone addiction. We had to find a place for it on the album, so we did.

Lawrence: I listen to a lot of jazz, so I naturally started hearing horn parts in my head when listening to the new songs. In the end we paired down the presence of them to just one track - „12 Crosses“ - but free jazz is really about expression without barriers. This is the idea that carries throughout the album.

How can the readers imagine you and Cold In Berlin writing, developing and finalizing one of their new songs?

Maya: Most of the songs start as an idea one of us has. Sometimes another member can bring something they already have buzzing around which connects with that. Then the songs grow in the room, over time. I often write poetry, and that can sometimes be woven in too. It takes real trust to be able to create songs in this way. I realised recently that this is not the way most bands work, but it works for us.

How was the selection of songs for the album done - was it difficult or rather easy for the band?

Lawrence: We recorded over an hour of music, and cut it down to around 45 minutes. Losing songs you’ve poured countless hours into creating is always a very torturous thing to do - it can feel like Sophie’s choice. But the cut songs will be released in some form in the future.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the varying moods conveyed, the new material sounds wonderfully organic throughout - it sounds like there's excellent chemistry (in)between the band and producer Mike Bew this time around, doesn't it?

Adam: Mike is a great producer, his studio - Foel Studio - was a great place to record. It’s in Wales, in a deep, dark valley, surrounded by forests. It was a really creative atmosphere that enabled us to put as much into the songs as possible.

Alex: We wanted to break away from the denser doom rock sound of our last record, and Mike understood the assignment. There's a live, wide feel to „Wounds“ that is true to the band's DNA.

Maya: Foel is a great place to record and Mike really supported us to create something special. It is intense, wonderful hard work to record an album so you have to respect and really like the people you have chosen to do that with - I feel lucky to have that in Cold In Berlin.

„'Wounds' - songs about the different ways people live with and process 'the wounds' of their lives“, explains vocalist Maya - has this seemingly increasingly inhumane world also inflicted various symbolic „wounds“ on you as musicians and human beings?

Maya: Just like everyone, I have ‘wounds’. I think most of mine came well before I was a musician. Music was a light for me - it made me and let me become myself. Cold In Berlin is an expression of this for me, I love writing and recording with the band and I love performing live. I feel lucky that this is such a big part of my life. Without my symbolic wounds, perhaps I wouldn’t have found Cold In Berlin at all. 


Congratulations on your upcoming release, "Wounds" – how do you feel about this upcoming album, given that your previous album, "Rituals Of Surrender", was released in (Covid)'19 and its title became something of a "prophecy" in the midst of the pandemic? Back then, the world was very different from today …

Adam: Hopefully the end of the world won’t happen again! We were lucky to do some album launch shows for „Rituals Of Surrender“ in late 2019, but our later tours were cancelled. We started rehearsing again in 2023 with the intention of doing things differently this time.

Maya: „Wounds“ is the next chapter for Cold In Berlin, „Rituals“ was a very different album. Both are very much Cold In Berlin albums but „Wounds“ gave us a chance to try something a little different. It was exciting to write and record and I think the songs reflect an evolution for us.

How do you see and evaluate „Wounds“ within your interesting, longer standing musical journey with Cold In Berlin?

Maya: With this album, I really wanted the listener to find a strong female presence in each song. I wanted to make people think about what they carry within themselves and what that means to them and others.

Lawrence: Musically, it’s much more diverse. There’s a lot more experimenting with instrumentation and form. There’s no track on this record that would have fit on anything we’ve done before.

Adam: I see Wounds as our most collaborative album. All four members brought so many ideas to rehearsals.

Your current mix of Doom, Post-Punk, and Krautrock couldn't be more original or varied - how did that come about this time?

Maya: We all have pretty eclectic music tastes and I think that is reflected in this album. We have a very clear Post-Punk and Doom foundations and we built on that. I think when you are lucky enough to make music with people who get how you work, understand each other and trust the process, something very special can happen in the rehearsal room, things you don’t even plan for- you have to be willing to see what grows in the space.

Alex: We picked up Krautrock during the pandemic, most of our post-lockdown rehearsals were Krautrock jam sessions. Kraut's motorik rhythm creates tension, and doom gives release. It's been a satisfying formula to play around with, as they're less disparate styles than you might think. Took some work though.

What was your mood and vision when you started writing songs for the new album - inspired by today's world, which seems to lack love and passion more than ever before, and all the various crises and individual difficulties?

Maya: „Wounds“ is about the loss, grief, trauma we all experience at some point in our lives. I write from a female perspective and while the world can seem pretty bleak at the moment, there is such strength and growth from formative ‘wounds’. These experiences can also make us light up in the darkness, find a scene and like minded people we connect with. We can be wounded by losing things we were lucky to have and by surviving terrible emotional or physical pain - we can survive and stand together to face the sunrise. Sometimes that gives me hope.

What influences and inspirations led you to incorporate free jazz brass instruments into your songs alongside synthesizers?

Alex: It took years to realise, but Lawrence and I have a quiet, shared love of jazz. He's also been bothering his neighbours with a new found saxophone addiction. We had to find a place for it on the album, so we did.

Lawrence: I listen to a lot of jazz, so I naturally started hearing horn parts in my head when listening to the new songs. In the end we paired down the presence of them to just one track - „12 Crosses“ - but free jazz is really about expression without barriers. This is the idea that carries throughout the album.

How can the readers imagine you and Cold In Berlin writing, developing and finalizing one of their new songs?

Maya: Most of the songs start as an idea one of us has. Sometimes another member can bring something they already have buzzing around which connects with that. Then the songs grow in the room, over time. I often write poetry, and that can sometimes be woven in too. It takes real trust to be able to create songs in this way. I realised recently that this is not the way most bands work, but it works for us.

How was the selection of songs for the album done - was it difficult or rather easy for the band?

Lawrence: We recorded over an hour of music, and cut it down to around 45 minutes. Losing songs you’ve poured countless hours into creating is always a very torturous thing to do - it can feel like Sophie’s choice. But the cut songs will be released in some form in the future.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the varying moods conveyed, the new material sounds wonderfully organic throughout - it sounds like there's excellent chemistry (in)between the band and producer Mike Bew this time around, doesn't it?

Adam: Mike is a great producer, his studio - Foel Studio - was a great place to record. It’s in Wales, in a deep, dark valley, surrounded by forests. It was a really creative atmosphere that enabled us to put as much into the songs as possible.

Alex: We wanted to break away from the denser doom rock sound of our last record, and Mike understood the assignment. There's a live, wide feel to „Wounds“ that is true to the band's DNA.

Maya: Foel is a great place to record and Mike really supported us to create something special. It is intense, wonderful hard work to record an album so you have to respect and really like the people you have chosen to do that with - I feel lucky to have that in Cold In Berlin.

„'Wounds' - songs about the different ways people live with and process 'the wounds' of their lives“, explains vocalist Maya - has this seemingly increasingly inhumane world also inflicted various symbolic „wounds“ on you as musicians and human beings?

Maya: Just like everyone, I have ‘wounds’. I think most of mine came well before I was a musician. Music was a light for me - it made me and let me become myself. Cold In Berlin is an expression of this for me, I love writing and recording with the band and I love performing live. I feel lucky that this is such a big part of my life. Without my symbolic wounds, perhaps I wouldn’t have found Cold In Berlin at all.

© Markus Eck, 29.10.2025

Photo Credit: Rupert Hitchcox

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