Grey Scale Festival returns this summer, bringing the post-punk, industrial, EBM, and darkwave scenes of northern and southern Germany into conversation across a two-city weekend. Split between Munich and Berlin, the festival widens its scope without losing its pulse, gathering together artists from across the darker edges of electronic and guitar music for two nights that feel less like parallel events than parts of the same larger exchange. In that sense, Grey Scale is not simply expanding geographically; it is tracing the live wire running between different regional scenes, showing how much shared ground still exists between club heat, cold romanticism, and the enduring appetite for beautifully severe sound.
On Friday, June 12, the festival takes over Munich’s Muffatwerk; on Saturday, June 13, it makes its first move into Berlin at Columbiahalle. Between them, the lineups pull together coldwave, post-punk, EBM, industrial, and electronic pop with style, force, and a welcome taste for mischief.
The twin dates play off one another beautifully. Munich goes broad, bringing together veterans, club agitators, and post-punk stalwarts for a marathon evening that reads like a guided tour through several decades of beautifully bruised underground music.
Munich opens the weekend with a formidable spread of artists drawn from several corners of the European underground. Lebanon Hanover lead the bill alongside a rare live set from CURSES, joined by Ancient Methods, Years of Denial, Bleib Modern, Rhys Fulber, The Empire Line, Unhuman & Petra Flurr, and Spit Mask. The event takes over the Muffatwerk All-Area, with doors at 16:00 and music beginning at 17:00.
Grey Scale Festival Berlin arrives at Columbiahalle with headliners IC3PEAK, CURSES, AIGEL, and QUAL… with more artists to be announced. Doors are set for 17:30, with a start time of 18:30.
Put together, the two nights make a strong case for Grey Scale as more than another stop on the summer calendar. This feels like a snapshot of dark alternative culture in the present tense: international in scope, gloriously cross-pollinated, and still hungry for volume, tension, and the sweet relief of surrendering to a beat.
And additional artists are still to be announced for both events.
GREY SCALE FESTIVAL MUNICH
Tickets available here!
Lebanon Hanover are the long-running coldwave duo of Larissa Iceglass and William Maybelline, formed in 2010. Splitting time between stark electronics, skeletal basslines, and deadpan romanticism, they became key figures in the modern post-punk revival. Their music turns alienation, longing, and European noir into elegantly severe songs for modern restless nights.
Asylum Lullabies by Lebanon Hanover
CURSES is the Berlin-based project of Luca Venezia, a New York-born musician and DJ merging post-punk, new wave romance, dark disco, and EBM propulsion. Built for both clubs and midnight headphones, his work balances ghostly vocals, live guitar, and sleek machine rhythm with cinematic, heart-stung intensity and afterhours elegance.
Bleib Modern are a German post-punk band whose records move between coldwave chill, shoegaze blur, and urgent guitar-driven gloom. Emerging in the mid-2010s, they built a loyal following through restless touring and a steady run of albums. Their sound couples emotional heaviness with taut rhythm, atmosphere, and momentum live alike.
Bleib Modern LP by Bleib Modern
Rhys Fulber is a Canadian electronic musician and producer best known for Front Line Assembly, Delerium, Conjure One, and a vast body of studio work. A key architect of industrial and EBM’s modern shape, he combines precision programming, melodic drama, and club instinct across decades of innovation in countless forms worldwide.
Memory Impulse Autonomy by Rhys Fulber
Ancient Methods is the long-running project of German producer Michael Wollenhaupt, first launched as a duo before evolving into a solo force. Fusing industrial techno, EBM, wave, and punishing machine rhythm, he built a reputation for severe, body-moving sets and records that treat the club like a steel-walled pressure chamber.
Society of the Spectacle by Ancient Methods
GREY SCALE FESTIVAL BERLIN
Tickets available here!
IC3PEAK are the Russian audiovisual duo of Anastasia Kreslina and Nikolay Kostylev, formed in Moscow in 2013. Blending witch-house, industrial pop, rap, and performance art, they became known for icy electronics, confrontational imagery, and politically charged work. Their music fuses menace, vulnerability, and rebellion into stark, unforgettable spectacle.
QUAL is William Maybelline’s solo outlet beyond Lebanon Hanover, pushing harder into EBM, synth-punk, and industrial electronics. Where his duo work often feels austere and distant, QUAL hits with menace, velocity, and body-moving force. It is dark club music sharpened by dread, wit, and cruel melodic precision after midnight always.
AIGEL are the Tatar-Russian duo of vocalist and poet Aigel Gaisina and producer Ilya Baramiya, pairing sharp lyric writing with electronic pop, hip-hop, and club music that hits like a warning siren in heels. Since 2016, they have turned personal upheaval, political pressure, and theatrical force into songs with real bite.
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