Raein and Weatherday share a flyer at Kafe Kult on the second weekend of May. One is, by any standard reading of the genre, real emo: the Forlì band credited with bringing late 90s screamo influences to Europe in the early 2000s. The other is a Swedish noise-pop project, lo-fi and basically unclassifiable, the kind of band a “real emo” purist would refuse on principle. Both are headlining year two of Munich’s Rites of Spring Fest. That’s the point.
CoreChaos, the four-person Munich collective behind the festival, named it after the DC band the genre’s most-circulated copypasta cites as the original real emo. (You know the one: “Real Emo only consists of the DC emotional hardcore scene and the late 90s screamo scene.”) The whole festival started as a half-joke about that meme. Two years in, it’s still a joke. It’s also become a method.
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The first edition, in April 2025, was a one-day bill featuring Pageninetynine, Blind Girls, Øjne, La Petite Mort / Little Death, Jota, and Oakhands. It sold out. People travelled in from Lithuania, Portugal, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the US. By Munich underground standards, that level of pull is rare.
CoreChaos took the response as a mandate to expand. Year two runs Friday May 8 and Saturday May 9, with ten bands across two days.
CoreChaos started in 2020 as a music blog Jany Irro ran during the pandemic. After things reopened they began booking shows directly, mostly because the screamo and emo bills they wanted to see in Munich didn’t exist. Five years on they’re running around 30 shows a year, releasing tapes, shirts and magazines, hosting ambient sets at Blitz, throwing dance parties, and operating a fake emo counterpart festival in autumn called The Summer Ends.
They talked about the whole apparatus last year in a long interview with mucbook.de (worth a read if you want full context), where they laid out the philosophy: most of their shows happen on the floor, not on a stage.
No headliner hierarchy. Sets that complement each other rather than support a main act. Pay-what-you-can pricing across the board. Kafe Kult itself, they said, is one of those spaces that feels weirdly out of step with the rest of Munich. A portal away from the city’s usual logic.
Walter from CoreChaos, asked what the festival is actually trying to build, put it like this: they feel like they’re only just getting started with the real emo idea, and the copypasta gives them more to play with than just affirm or deny it. Affirm, confront, question, overexaggerate, deny, deconstruct.
Raein? Nobody’s going to argue.
Weatherday? Not real emo in the dogmatic sense, but energetic, powerful and somewhat hateful music, especially live. The festival’s wager is that those two things belong on the same bill, and Saturday exists to prove it.
Jany’s curatorial focus this year was different and explicit. A serious push to platform FLINTA-fronted bands across the lineup, in a corner of the underground where that’s still rare enough to feel like an argument.
“I’m so tired of seeing predominantly cis-male line-ups and even more tired of the excuses (male) bookers make for them. There are so many outstanding FLINTA* bands out there and if you ‘can’t find them’, you’re probably just not looking hard enough.”
She traced the importance back to Christina Michelle from Gouge Away. Without that, she says, she likely wouldn’t have started playing bass in her twenties surrounded by men with a 10-20 year head start.
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Friday’s lineup is anchored by Weatherday. CoreChaos’s announcement makes the case directly: lo-fi noise-pop and shoegaze textures, but committed DIY, emotionally incendiary, “gracefully weak and self-pitying” at points and abrasive at others. “Emo after the collapse of genre certainties,” they wrote. If Weatherday gets disqualified by the dogma, maybe the dogma is the thing that needs revising.
The rest of Friday belongs to younger acts. I practice saying sorry to you so I can do it in front of the mirror one day, the unwieldy-named screamo project from Leipzig that CoreChaos call “Germany’s probably hottest newcomer,” play infinite-sadness-and-infinite-joy songs that translate live into one of the most intense performances they caught in 2024. Their album “Thank You for so Little, Sorry for so Much” is on Bandcamp.
Pennwood Rd., also Leipzig, are the only band on the bill that fits the festival’s calendar twice.
They were originally booked for the first edition of The Summer Ends, had to drop, and now slot into Rites of Spring instead.
International quartet split between Chile, Sweden, Latvia, and Germany, formed in spring 2024. Debut EP “I Won’t a Friend” out June 2025, follow-up planned for 2026. Their newer stuff leans noticeably further into screamo. CoreChaos crack that Cap’n Jazz might be the only real emo band from the Midwest scene, but Pennwood Rd. might be the only real emo band with “midwest emo” in their Bandcamp bio.
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Moral Bombing close out the FLINTA-fronted Friday slot. Dortmund-based emoviolence, first time in Munich. Promo 2025 is on Bandcamp. CoreChaos’s own announcement is unusually direct: “10/10 energetic. 10/10 powerful. 10/10 somewhat hateful!”
Saturday opens with Italian heavyweights. Raein, the band whose discography most directly proves CoreChaos’s argument that the copypasta forgets Italy. Forlì, formed in the early 2000s, credited with carrying late 90s screamo into the European scene.
They’ve been on CoreChaos’s wishlist since the first attempted Rites of Spring back in 2024.
Older Friends, Berlin, are part of the local DIY infrastructure CoreChaos respect. Their bio reads “too old to play screamo, too young to not die.” Their songs swing between twinkly midwest passages and full screamo bursts, lyrics moving between German and English, often dealing with self-determination as a woman in a patriarchal society. “No Drum Policy” is on Bandcamp.
soastasphrenas (yes, lowercase, the 18th-century Greek phrase σώας τας φρένας for “of sound mind”) are the Berlin screamo/emoviolence quartet who needed a few tries before finally landing a CoreChaos show. A broken van in spring 2024 became a recovery show at Blitz that September. Members from Cyprus and the US, formed early 2022, with a new record in the pipeline.
Their EP “Eris” is on Bandcamp. Also, be sure to check out our recent in-depth feature here.
Leda (Roma) play their first show abroad at this fest, which their vocalist Vicky calls “kind of surreal considering we’re talking about Raein and Stormo of all bands.”
Their self-titled EP is out via Antonio’s own label No Hope Records. The line “tutto è in fiamme / tutto è oro” (everything is ablaze, everything is gold) sums up the bittersweet drift of their sound.
Hummm, Barcelona, are the festival’s Spain delegate. Sextet, screamo with math and midwest tendencies, part of their local My Heart Your Mouth scene. Self-description: “gritos, tiroriros y sonidos para corazoncitos grandes” (screams, twinkly guitars, and noise for big little hearts).
Stormo (Trento, Dolomites) close the weekend. CoreChaos thought the band name meant “storm.” It actually means “flock,” which is arguably more fitting for what their hardcore-screamo-noise fusillades do to a room.
They’ve played 400+ shows across Europe and the UK, including support slots for Converge, Full of Hell and La Dispute, plus appearances at Fluff Fest. Influences run from La Quiete and Raein back to Negazione, Wretched, and Indigesti. Their album “Sogni Che Invadono Il Cielo” is on Bandcamp.
Tickets follow the CoreChaos tiered system. Social price is 15€ both days, reserved for the door. Standard runs 20€ Friday and 25€ Saturday. Supporter sits at 25€ Friday and 32€ Saturday, available in presale and at the door. If enough Supporter tickets sell in presale, more Social tickets get released back into presale to lower the threshold further. Their argument for the model is short: cultural participation should not be a question of income.
What follows is the full Q&A we sent to the bands ahead of the festival, with answers from Pg.99, Blind Girls and Øjne (the year one returners CoreChaos most wanted to bring back into the conversation), Leda, soastasphrenas, Hummm, I practice saying sorry, Moral Bombing, and Older Friends, plus CoreChaos’s own intro from Walter and Jany.
Vicky from Leda on the copypasta as a “certified scene classic” that captures every emo purist they’ve ever met. Hummm on the Spanish saying “don’t put doors in the field” as a creed against genre purity. Pg.99’s vocalist on borrowing his cadence from 90s gangsta rap. Øjne tracing how their first singer’s Erasmus stay in Aberdeen turned into a network of European labels. soastasphrenas naming bis aufs messer record shop in Berlin as the unmovable centre of the city’s underground. Moral Bombing on what it took to keep going as the only FLINTA in the lineup for years. Older Friends pushing back on the FLINTA-fronted label itself.
Read it all below.
CoreChaos thoughts
Walter: Well, we feel we’re only getting started in what could fit within the „real emo” frame and there are so many more ways to play with the copypasta. Affirm it? Confront it? Question it? Overexaggerate it? Deny it? Deconstruct it? And so forth, we barely even feel we started!
Our two „headliners” this year are probably our prime example. Raein? No one’s gonna doubt it’s real emo. Weatherday? It’s not real emo in the classic sense. But it’s energetic, powerful and somewhat hateful music. Especially live!
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We’re curious how it’s all going to work in the same room, on the days of the events. But we certainly wanna test the idea of real emo and what it could be with the festival. Perhaps the future might be about very different approaches to real emo and more sonic contrasts & lineups. Let’s see?
But we wanna prove „real emo” can, or better must have, and quite simply deserves diverse lineups, for sure. We feel we (but especially our own Jany) did a great job highlighting this perspective this year.
And then we’re not even talking about the links we could possibly establish with Rites of Spring’s fake emo sibling festival, The Summer Ends. And what we wanna do beyond the lineup, that’s easy: bring people together, contribute to a community that’s not just about music, but about people sharing an interest in all the feelings and emotions around real emo.
We wanna encourage everyone to get talking & vibing and have a laugh between all the screaming, shouting and cathartic sentiments. And then of course, and as always, we wanna prove that Munich can do underground too, because we firmly believe this city has sooooooo much more to offer than what people often think of it.
Jany: Also it’s very important to us to provide a platform for the many incredibly talented FLINTA* bands in the scene. They’re still underrepresented on festival line-ups in general, and especially within heavier genres. I’m so tired of seeing predominantly cis-male line-ups and even more tired of the excuses (male) bookers make for them. There are so many outstanding FLINTA* bands out there and if you “can’t find them”, you’re probably just not looking hard enough.
Representation matters – if it hadn’t been for Christina Michelle from Gouge Away, I probably wouldn’t have started playing bass in my twenties, surrounded by people – mostly men – who had already been playing their instruments for 10-20 years.
We need to reach a point where line-ups with many FLINTA* artists are the norm, not something rare or exceptional → especially in a DIY scene where people constantly talk about being inclusive and the importance of community, exchange, and equality.
The “real emo” copypasta has been floating around long enough that most people in the scene have a complicated relationship with it – somewhere between affection and exhaustion. Where do you actually land on it? Does it still mean anything to you, or has it become more of a punchline than a reference point at this point?
Leda: (Vicky) Epic question! I still hold the real emo pasta close to my heart, it is a certified scene classic after all, not so much because of what it actually says, but because it captures such a specific archetype—the “emo purist” we’ve all encountered, or maybe even been at some point, whether at shows or online.
To me, being into emo kind of lives in that weird middle ground between being a pretentious gatekeeper and a deeply sentimental, nostalgic mess. That meme nails that tension perfectly, which is why it turned into a huge, shared inside joke that still says something real about the scene. And yeah, I’ve absolutely contributed to keeping it alive on my satire page, eg: making a real Italian version of it (@screamo_affirmations gang rise up!!).
Øjne: We just think of it as a meme and we think it’s actually pretty funny that it’s still around, though we don’t really take it seriously.
Blind Girls: To be honest I have never really thought of it as anything but a meme. I tend to file everything I listen to under the ‘emo’ category, whether it be the pioneers, smaller diy bands, or bands that became more mainstream- you can tell there is emotional influence within all of them and I am not particularly defensive of the genre.
Pg.99: I only learned about it a few years ago around the same time I heard the term “skramz”. I just laughed at it as a silly thing that someone who takes themselves way too would right to feel better than other people.
I Practice: This copypasta has been going around for almost 10 years, what at the beginning was an inside joke lost it’s plot.
soastasphrenas: yeah even as a joke i find it a bit weird. of course its funny anyone would take this seriously, but people do, and i think thats sad, and its hard to tell anymore who is joking and who isn’t. emo elitists are a real thing, and to me, a real problem. i’m not a fan of hardcore punk for this same feeling, this weird ‘i’m more ___ than you are’ vibe, never felt right to me. inclusion and accessibility should always be the first things to promote in a scene, instead of focusing on this kind of stuff. but i do understand the importance to be able to laugh at oneself and not take things too seriously, and i just hope anyone that brings this up is doing just that.
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Hummm: I think our relationship with that is somewhat ambivalent; we understand where it comes from and we might agree with some points, but in the end, grass is a very pleasant thing to touch.
There’s a version of “real emo” that’s purely about lineage – what came from DC, what came from the late 90s screamo wave – and then there’s a version that’s about something harder to define, more like a set of values or an attitude. Which version, if either, is the one that actually connects to what you’re doing?
Leda: (Vicky) Speaking of Italy, our band’s lineage is deeply rooted in our country’s long standing screamo and post-hardcore tradition, one we’ve had the chance to connect with directly, even sharing stages with some of our biggest inspirations at Rites of Spring!
Each member of the band comes from a different moment and corner of the scene. Antonio, for instance, is involved in more artsy, eclectic punk projects as well as grindcore, while Giorgio brings in the melodic sensibility of Italian screamo and emocore.
Despite our different backgrounds, what holds us together is a shared foundation and a collective love for bands like La Quiete, Raein, Havah, Shizune, and The Death of Anna Karina—bands we see as foundational to ITskramz.
Beyond the sound itself, we’re equally shaped by the culture around it: political spaces, emotional performance as something communal, physical, even danceable, and a shared heritage that we genuinely care about preserving and honoring.
Øjne: Not to sound like the copypasta, but we actually think emo is intrinsically tied to hardcore and therefore carries over that set of values, which mainly revolve around DIY and making music that is somewhat political.
When we started our band back in 2010-2011, we had the idea of making hardcore that would be emotional and eventually ended up fitting perfectly within the screamo scene, but it’s not something we aimed for. It just happened.
Blind Girls: I think they go hand in hand, so I’m gonna say both.
Pg.99: We honestly never really had much to do with that scene as young punks in terms of a scene. We took influence from the bands for sure but we didn’t play much in DC back then..
soastasphrenas: to us this scene really is just a vibe check. i go far and wide to say that bands are emo-adjacent. kendrick lamar is as emo adjacent as aphex twin, as is alex g. soastasphrenas is somewhere in that mix, too, and i am not sure how to explain any of this.
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Hummm: We definitely lean more towards values and attitude; a worthwhile scene must be anti-fascist above all else. On the other hand, our sound can’t be easily categorized, and it’s definitely not pure, we don’t believe in purity. We create whatever we want within the genres under the “emo” umbrella, in Spain there’s a saying: “don’t put doors in the field”.
When you think about the bands that genuinely shaped the way you approach music – not the obvious reference points you’d put in a bio, but the ones that actually changed something in how you think about playing or writing – what comes up?
Leda: (Vicky) I can only really speak for myself here, but I always like to give proper credit when this comes up. The first time I watched a Converge live video, something just clicked. I remember thinking, that’s it, that’s who I want to be when I grow up. I still lowkey want to be Jacob Bannon. More broadly, I feel deeply connected to the bands that showed me at a really young age, how limitless punk can be when you stop trying to chain it and lock it in a crate. Orchid, Jerome’s Dream, Neil Perry, The Blood Brothers, Pg. 99, I feel so touched to have been a weird kid with internet access—able to connect with music from different places and times that felt so far removed from my reality yet spoke a language I understood fluently. It shaped me to the point where I ended up booking shows in my hometown, writing zines, making friends AND punk music, even though I never really thought of myself as particularly gifted or naturally inclined toward it.
Øjne: Here are some bands that have actually influenced the way we have played and written over the years (each of us picked 4-5): early Touché Amoré and Pianos Become The Teeth, La Dispute, Daitro, Healing Powers, Brave Little Abacus, Verdena, Interpol, Siouxsie and The Banshees, Genesis, Linea 77, Fabrizio de Andrè.
Blind Girls: The pine, Honeywell, Breakwater, closure, Funeral Diner and Usurp Synapse are some bands that have shaped and stuck with me. I still listen to them now and feel the same things I did the first time I heard them.
Pg.99: I mean musically Mike took inspiration from every kind of music you’ve ever heard of. I’d say as a vocalist I took a lot of inspiration from 90’s gangsta rap in terms of staying on beat as opposed to Chris with his chaotic punk roots.
soastasphrenas: i think we are more influenced by music from outside of the boundaries of emo and screamo than bands well within those confines. a lot of references come from death grips and machine girl, but even more from rappers like nas, psychedelic music like animal collective, surf punk bands like fidlar, and even traditional cypriot folk music
Hummm: I Hate Sex, The Fall of Troy, Camarón de La Isla, Saetia.
Screamo and emo have always had this tension between being very specific subcultures and being weirdly open to anyone who stumbles in. How do you navigate that in practice – do you think about who the music is for, or does that feel like the wrong question entirely?
Blind Girls: I would say not so much in writing. We have played split bills where we have altered our set lists depending on the type of show we are playing. If we were playing a show with tougher/hardcore bands we would swap out the softer twinkly stuff, if we were playing with indie or rock bands we would swap out the more chaotic songs.
When we play an emo show we play whatever we like and it always feels better because everyone there gets it.
Pg.99: Screamo wasn’t a thing yet when we started playing but I am absolutely for any scene that puts an emphasis on community and inclusion over one that gatekeeps.
I Practice: It does feel like the wrong question entirely. We are just doing what we like, expressing and venting ourselves. The music is for whoever resonates with it.
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soastasphrenas: this music is for everyone, and it should always stay that way. we play with any bands that we vibe with, across whatever genres that may keep more other bands apart. again its all a vibe, as long as it fits, it makes sense, and i think thats the only thing thats ever matters. to have 3 bands on a bill that all are insane but sound the same doesn’t give any dynamic to the evening, and to me the dynamic is way more important.
Hummm: We believe that the place of enunciation, someone’s position in the world, can be a factor in who their art reaches. We’re a band of gay autistics and most of our audience is too, but anyone is welcome to enjoy what we do.
Being a FLINTA-fronted band in this scene in 2025 – what does that actually look like on a day-to-day level? Not in terms of what it means conceptually, but in terms of what you still have to push against, what’s shifted, and what’s stayed the same longer than it should have.
Moral Bombing: Back when I joined MB I was often the only FLINTA person in the line up so I really appreciate how that’s not the status quo anymore. Of course there will always be at least one sexist douche in the crowd giving me creepy looks (like wherever you go in this world). I wouldn’t have had the stamina to still put my body and my voice in the spotlight every gig if it weren’t for the amazing, caring men in my band that give me all the reassurance and respect that I need to keep going.
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Leda: Whenever we travel or play across Europe I can’t help but notice how much work there’s still left to do back home. Things are slowly shifting compared to when I first started playing five years ago (FLINTA collectives and bands are emerging more and more) but it’s still painful to see how certain dynamics remain deeply embedded in hardcore, punk, and third spaces of subculture.
Facing mob mentality within male-dominated cliques may bend us into a kind of learned helplessness or bystanding when it comes to actually getting things done as women and non- men. I find myself often reflecting upon this feeling, actually.
I guess sometimes we really need to put the phone away, show the fuck up and hold it down for our people, for our sisters and for the voiceless without needing an infographic to aesthetically suggest it’s okay to do so. It’s fundamental that we show teeth while staying compassionate and lift each other up.
It will never be the right or perfect time to start creating or organizing, because we as people can never exist as perfect molds to a whole category. As under represented musicians, it’s not our cross to carry. Despite all this, I have never felt more radically feminine than while screaming and crying and crawling around on stage, and we feel such love and kinness towards other flinta projects in Italy and beyond. To mention a few: Skulld, Seima, Sutura, Kadreka, Colliders, Lucta, Scemo & many more :)
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Older Friends: I wouldn’t consider our band as being FLINTA-fronted. We are three very close friends who started making music together and learned a lot from each other in the process. It was never about one person being the lead or the poster girl. One thing I’ve struggled with from the beginning is that all the musicians surrounding me, mostly cis men, had a lot more experience than me being in bands.
They picked up guitars when they were teenagers, imitating their role models, while that thought never crossed my mind at that age. Probably because I didn’t know Hole back then. I struggled with a lot of self doubt and anxiety which other (all male) bands didn’t seem to have (or at least didn’t show it). I do still struggle with the outside projection of being the only woman in the band. I don’t want our band to be booked solely because I am a woman so that promoters can clear their conscience. I want people to like our music first.
Don’t get me wrong, I think representation matters, but I know I will always be looked at from two different angles. She’s a musician and she’s a woman. This interview questions proves it once again. So, unwillingly, band projects will always be politically for me, even though I didn’t intend it to be.
I Practice: We haven’t played many shows so we’ve been lucky to not have dealt with the usual microaggressions yet I guess. I’ve (Fabi) had people come to me after shows to share how empowering it felt, that brings me lots of joy. FLINTA* have been present since the beginning, even if looked over, like one of the most iconic emo bands from Germany is 125 Rue Montmartre. I still believe it’s important to not reduce bands to that, for example comparing “female” fronted bands that musically have nothing to do with each other or bands on flyers being referred to as “female lead metal” rather than its actual subgenre.
Hummm: We’re gradually noticing a change, there are fewer and fewer men who think they know better than anyone, giving unsolicited lessons. Let’s hope this trend continues and there aren’t any left.
There’s something specific that happens in smaller European cities when a real underground scene starts forming – the same five or ten people doing everything, booking shows, running distros, printing zines, sometimes all at once. What does that infrastructure look like where you are, and who’s holding it together?
Leda: It’s silly, Roma is the biggest city in Italy, yet when it comes to punk it kind of feels that way: 10 people across 50 bands, mixed bills of local grind, screamo, death metal and nintendocore all within the same container playing for the same crowds, which are equally comprised of 13 and 130 year olds.
It’s crucial to the city’s scene that squats and Centri Sociali such as EX Snia, Spartaco, Forte Prenestino and Intifada are protected as the constant threat of police evictions keeps robbing us of cultural hubs. I must also give shout outs to DIY booking collectives (RMSKRMZ, TillDeath, CastelliCore, RottenINC), silk-screen printing made by Totino @ Scream Printing, mixing and masters made by Valerio @ Hombre Lobo and tapes made by Leda’s very own Antonio @ No Hope Records. It’s a little big town after all.
Øjne: In Milan we actually have a pretty big scene, though there are ups and downs over the years. There are people/collectives that book primarily screamo/emo shows, like the collective Alidicera, that two of us are part of, but it’s never a bubble: we share the same spaces with collectives booking hardcore shows and sometimes try to have more varied lineups in terms of genre. In the end, there are definitely people who are more active than others but it doesn’t feel like 4-5 people do everything and everyone else just attends shows. But that’s probably just because Milan isn’t a small city.
Blind Girls: It’s quite the same here (in Australia), I guess it tends to be like that everywhere when you’re part of a smaller scene. Our friend in Team Glasses has been consistent in holding it down for a very long time. He’s helped us and many other bands out with shows and putting records out from the early days and he is probably a big reason the small community continues around here.
Pg.99: That’s the way every good scene starts! A few people with passion get something going and it inspires others.
I Practice: In Leipzig Zilpzalp has been basically holding the emo scene on his back for years now. Shoutout to Rob! Together with friends we are also trying to start something. It would be good to have more active people within screamo/emo. DIY in general is a big part of Leipzig culture.
soastasphrenas: we are lucky to be in berlin where there is a lot of people doing a lot of really cool things. we are deeply engrained in the scene here, but that doesn’t tell the full story at all, there is so much that came before us, and even more that will live on after our time, and i love that about berlin. the energy is contagious, but it passes on and takes different shapes. theres some really great people doesn’t really great things, but nothing as important as bis aufs messer recordshop. everyone that runs neue zukunft are also incredible, and the list goes on
Hummm: I feel that in Barcelona things are a bit more spread out; we ourselves are part of a collective, but there are more in the city, some very old. We like to lean towards collaboration and mutual support, but we are still learning how to do it.
The European screamo/emo network operates almost entirely on personal relationships – bands knowing other bands, someone’s floor, someone’s van, a show confirmed over Instagram DMs. What does that web look like from where you’re standing, and which connections have mattered most to your own trajectory?
Øjne: Connections have always been everything to us. Just to make an example from the early days, our first singer went to Aberdeen, in Scotland, for his Erasmus and ended up becoming friend with the guys from Cavalcades. A year later, when they were touring with Continents from Germany, we booked a show for them in Milan.
We became friends with Continents and they loved our show (it was our seventh or eighth show total), so they told us to write to Axel from Pike Records, their label. We had just recorded our first EP, “Undici/Dodici”, and Axel convinced to release it on vinyl together with many more labels that we found with his help or by ourselves.
Every time we tour, book a show in Milan or simply go to festivals (for example, some of us would go to Fluff Fest in the Czech Republic every year) we end up building friendships that eventually allow us to tour the world without the need of booking agencies or intermediaries of any kind (which often just make everything harder and less fun)
Blind Girls: I noticed this in Europe and it felt so special to be apart of it. It felt wholsome to see everyone cooperate to make the shows happen- the promoters, people offering their home to sleep in, venues offering accommodation, people cooking for you, lending equipment and everyone being so friendly and helpful. It all made touring that much more comfortable and less stressful. We don’t really have that kind of touring in Australia, I’d love to see more of it here.
Pg.99: Well instead of IG we used zines to communicate to with strangers for setting up shows but it was the same for us.
I Practice: Our connection to the scene was there even before the band, and we have formed new ones afterwards. They helped us out from the beginning and keep on doing so. So many amazing people, not only from the Europe scene. Shoutout to Max, Bianca, David, Rob, the whole Berlin screamo gang, Elli, Joscha, Maisy, Juan Diego, we could keep on going… So much love.
soastasphrenas: i find that to be a bit to exclusive, so its a bit sad. i do benefit from it and add to it as much as i can, but i wish it would grow into something a bit more accessible to everyone, and hopefully even more sustainable that way. thats a big thing i am trying on a more local level in berlin, so i hope it catches on. booking connections are definitely most important
Hummm: Something very important about this dynamic is that I feel it happens when all parties put aside competitiveness and ego, we understand that we are all doing what we can with what we have and that without each other we are nothing, that makes us counterculture. Thanks to that we had opportunities to bring bands to our city and know them personally and also going out of our hometown and country and get to know the scene in other places. It is really refreshing and special for us to feel the bounds we could create (even worldwide) just by expressing ourselves with music.
Second Impact festival was absolutely our best experience in this matter. We still get goosebumps remembering how heartwarming the experience was for all of us.
A lot of bands in this scene talk about community as an abstract value. You’re coming to a festival that’s explicitly trying to build something – particular curatorial choices, pay-what-you-can pricing, a specific kind of room. Does that context change how you approach the show, or does a show feel like a show regardless of the framework around it?
Øjne: That context matters when we agree to play that show. We love and respect the way you (maybe he means us with CoreChaos) do things, so it just makes it easier to say yes. When we’re on the stage, though, most shows are the same for us: we just try to give it all and find the best possible connection with who came to see us.
Blind Girls: It doesn’t change our approach at all. Diy is what makes the scene what it is. I would rather play at something like rites of spring in a small room full of people who care and form friendships, rather than a big stage with hundreds of people who are there just to see the headlining band.
soastasphrenas: i think the values here are very similar to us as a band in that way, so we dont need to approach things any differently. what we do and what they do already match well enough without making any extra effort, so no need to think twice about it
Playing a fest like Rites of Spring, where the lineup is deliberately placed in conversation with a specific history and a specific argument about what emo is – does that put any kind of pressure on you? Does it make you think differently about the set?
Leda: This is Leda’s first time playing abroad, so it already feels extra special: getting to experience that in a context like Rites of Spring, while also sharing the bill with familiar faces, makes it even more meaningful.
If anything, that sense of familiarity actually takes some of the pressure off (which is kind of surreal considering we’re talking about Raein and Stormo of all bands).
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We’re grateful to be invited to contribute our own perspective and take on emo, to show what it means to us and to meet so many others who carry the torch worldwide.
So it doesn’t necessarily change how we approach the set in a calculated way, it just makes us want to be even more honest, more present, and more ourselves on stage. We’re gonna play some unreleased and never played before ones too!
soastasphrenas: absolutely not, i don’t take this as a challenge or anything, i think if we are asked to be a part of it, then they want something that we are already doing, regardless if it is there or somewhere else, so again no need to think to hard about it
What’s something happening right now in your local scene that deserves more attention than it’s getting – a band, a venue, a series of shows, anything that feels important but hasn’t really traveled beyond the people already paying attention?
Moral Bombing: You should definitely check out Hydrotherapy – it’s extremely good emo music that gives you that early 2010s vibe (I jokingly call them the german Tiger’s Jaw). Big shout-out to the Rhineline Hardcore gang keeping the DIY scene alive!
Blind Girls: For a majority of the time we have been a band, there was never really an emo scene in Australia. Over the past few years though, there have been a bunch of great new bands coming out around the country and it’s warming to see a scene and community building. Check out- es muss sein, body shirt, mycriesfallondeafears, all that’s left of you, lace angel, fear of horses.
Pg.99: Well I live in Philly and it’s a great scene! Tons of great bands, inclusive venues and a lot of people really going for it!
Older Friends: Of course I have to mention the great booking collective that I am happy to be a part of: see you soon shows. Things were pretty slow in Berlin after corona and no one booked our favorite screamo and emo bands anymore. So my friend Nate started this collective with the intention in mind that not one single person can carry the weight of a whole scene on their shoulders. Now we are a bunch of people who organize shows regularly and help each other out as much as we can and it feels like the scene is finally growing again. This summer the first see you soon festival is happening called „a world of our own“ with headliner ostraca and local heroes soastasphrenas playing as well.
soastasphrenas: there’s a new collective called ‘data//death’ here that is focusing more on the digital side of this music, and i am in love with what they are doing, down to the artwork of everything. i can’t wait for this to grow into something greater. the main people are also in the groups ‘kitty kill’ and ‘bitch material’ and i think anything they do is incredible.
Hummm: We are very eager for the whole world to know who the bands Anas Zizaoui and Comisario Cosme are.
Any bands you’ve come across in 2024 or 2025 that genuinely surprised you – stuff you weren’t expecting, something that made you readjust what you thought was possible within these genres?
Øjne: Lintworm, Absent From the Morning Headcount, Dagerman, and (spoiler) we know the next record by Put Purana will be mind-blowing.
Blind Girls: I can’t get over Sinema (now I Promised The World). When I first heard them in 2023 I remember saying to someone ‘if this came out while I was in high school they would be my favorite band’, while still being my favorite band of the moment as a 30 year old. They really hit us in the face with nostalgia, and pulled it off so well. I wasn’t surprised when they blew up the way they did.
soastasphrenas: i am still recovering from when i heard comfort._ for the first time, and feeling so small because of it. also again my buddies in kitty kill do amazing stuff, fallingwithscissors is another one. this added digital sound really through me out of balance for a while, its so insane.
What does the next period look like for you – is there anything in the works that you’re actually excited about, or is it more of a heads-down moment right now?
Øjne: We’re currently finishing working on a 3-way split with two incredible bands, and we also look forward to write our second full length in a serious manner; for now we have ideas and half-complete songs we really like.
Blind Girls: We’re currently in the writing process of LP4 and have a couple of exciting tours planned for late this year :)
soastasphrenas: looking to play more tours and release some live stuff and keep writing. everything that goes into a band is interesting to me, so diving deeper into all of it is exciting to me, but i guess just making sure that we can keep doing that is my number one priority right now
What are you bringing to Rites of Spring – and what do you take from a room like that when it works?
Moral Bombing: We bring a raw blend of heavy hardcore violence with lots of emo/skramz moments. Our sound is not easily put into one genre – we’re here for the moshers, the lovers, the people who feel a lot and cry a lot. We make hard music for soft people. We all hope to connect with more like-minded people who relate to our desire to turn difficult feelings into art, with those who want to heal and to grow with music.
Older Friends: I hope we can bring our own interpretation of emo, or as we call it – scream-pop – to the fest. I’d like to think we have kind of a unique sound because we put a lot of thought in our writing. It will take the listener a minute but their patience will be rewarded with some dancy songs at the end. I hope we can feel our feelings at the Rites of Spring and maybe even cry a little.
Rites of Spring Fest 2026 runs Friday May 8 and Saturday May 9 at Kafe Kult, Munich.
Friday opens at 19:00: Moral Bombing 19:30, Pennwood Rd. 20:30, I practice saying sorry 21:30, Weatherday 22:30. Saturday opens earlier, at 16:00: Stormo 17:00, Older Friends 18:00, soastasphrenas 19:00, Leda 20:00, Hummm 21:00, Raein 22:25. Tickets follow CoreChaos’s tiered system: Social 15€ both days at the door only, Standard 20€ Friday and 25€ Saturday, Supporter 25€ Friday and 32€ Saturday, both available in presale and at the door. More info and presale via CoreChaos.
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