“It’s all in the internet,” says Daniela Seitz, one half of Berlin-based party organizers, now festival curators, Creamcake. “It’s like an underground new music scene inspired by pop culture, capitalism, all this crazy excess and image-making.”
Meticulously constructing their own image across parties for the last four years, the duo, which includes co-founder Anja Weigl, have been putting on an impressive and progressive program of Creamcake nights with names like Lil B, DJ Paypal, Kelela, Yen Tech and Hannah Diamond.
Their visual identity is unmistakable, their taste in underground sounds impeccable, and they’re taking it to the next level with their first 3hd Festival, running online and off from October and culminating in an IRL events program in Berlin, December 2 to 5. This year’s theme is “The Labor of Sound in a World of Debt.” Internationalization, hybridization, precarity and constant change — these are the things that come with the internet. “Capitalism opens a bunch of doors,” adds Seitz. “Globalization and technology made this happen, but now we also have to deal with the consequences.”
These concepts you’re working with for 3hd Festival — are they things that you applied as you programmed the Creamcake parties? Or did they reveal themselves in the process?
Daniela Seitz: Because we are so fascinated by these cross-shore styles in underground music culture, which are not so represented in any type of Berlin festival, we really wanted to just do one like the Creamcake parties: with a lot of love and adventurous sounds. We wanted to talk about and reflect on what we think is most important for people in our community. Everyone is a hybrid character — working as artists and composers, and with so many types of different media. That’s something we really would like to debate in a more significant format.
Having seen the program, it’s not exactly what I expected. Because it’s open to more academic ideas and also going beyond what’s fashionable right now in terms of post-internet.
DS: That’s the funny thing — it’s always a mix of everything. It’s between people who have an academic degree, or don’t need or want one, or have just started. We accidentally remixed a piece of a movie soundtrack for Hannah Lippard’s performance at “Fragments of a Scene” back in April. The song was written by one of the composers in the program. It’s very exciting to work with him now. He loves to play around with technology — as much as he loves classical instruments. We are really excited about the different people who are coming together for 3hd.
Anja Weigl: We wanted to organize an ambitious platform: a festival environment with a varied daytime program including discussions and an exhibition to compliment the familiar Creamcake party concept. Our aim with 3hd is to bring people into a different context, introducing them to different surroundings, like HAU Hebbel am Ufer and Vierte Welt.
It’s interesting to think about Creamcake taking mainstream culture as its core inspiration.
DS: Yes. I wouldn’t even say just “inspired.” We reflect it because we are also part of it, you know? You cannot not be influenced by pop culture. But the vibe is aggressive, deconstructive, and really more disturbed in that sense. You will see.
