33 presents Tripolar

What began as a loose constellation around Billy Bultheel and Alexander Iezzi now appears as a band: with Cem Dukkha and Ivan Cheng as permanent members, but still in a state of productive instability.

The album's material emerged from long periods of improvisation without a fixed goal. Hours of sound were cut and reassembled.

Acoustic and electronic instruments shifted their functions as well as their meanings: percussion, strings, hurdy-gurdy, synthesizers, CDJs – less as means of virtuosity than as tools for opening up states of being. Compared to previous releases, the newly formed pieces move closer to the idea of the song without completely subjugating it. Baroque and post-industrial evocations, acoustic and electronic textures intertwine and defy clear genre or temporal categorization.

Tripolar is not a concept album, but it does follow a loose thematic thread exploring mental states and their social implications. There is no linear narrative, no closed storyline, but rather a scattering of references: psychological dispositions as cultural markers of a fragmented present – from expressionistic approaches to ADHD to a queer reinterpretation of an Irish murder ballad.

The vocal contributions on the album – including those from Astrid Sonne, Olan Monk, Lord Spikeheart, and Golin – expand the material with diverse registers and affects. They are an integral part of the album's structure and lend Tripolar its open form.

At its core lies an aesthetic that doesn't resolve contradictions but allows them to coexist. Accordingly, the release concert at the Volksbühne is not intended as a reproduction of the album with a linear sequence of tracks, but rather as a situational reordering of its material. Tripolar appears live as an open system: layered, contradictory, and controlled in its unfolding. Sound, voice, stage design, dramaturgy and presence combine to form a performative field in which musical forms and mental topographies are reflected.