PRESS

"The striking synth/goth songs on the latest from Vlimmer feel 50 stories tall, with gigantic walls of sound and bleak, ominous vocals." - Bandcamp, "New & Notable" (USA)

"The clenched fist of “Nebenkörper" breaks away with the more atmospheric shoegaze and pop-rimmed post punk of the [past] EPs to the more tribal, raw sound of “Nebenkörper [...] Vlimmer deserves to be heard above all because Alexander Leonard Donat knows how to add a portion of magic to his rather eclectic musical concoction, creating a separate and unique sound that sounds diverse and also coherent. A fairly original sound in 2021 that still fits perfectly with the scene that we all love so much or with which you might have a love/hate relationship. - 8.5/10" - Dark Entries (BEL)

"Can be used perfectly as a soundtrack for our present. [Vlimmer's] sonic escapades almost have the quality for an out-of-body experience. These songs may have arisen out of a trance. The mind detaches from the body and strives for enlightenment."Nebenkörper" cultivates dystopia and works as the soundtrack for the eve of the apocalypse. His songs are like walking through an industrial ruin, while bright flashes of lightning in the black sky illuminate the scenery for fractions of a second. On the album, structures that you have come to love dissolve and make room for sheer tonal despair. Vlimmer achieves a great feat: He enhances the Gothic genre a lot further and manages to take the listeners on this journey." - Unter.Ton (GER)

"I have no idea what Vlimmer sings about. Yet the use of German is certainly not an obstacle, because these songs with a tribal, frenetic and desperate sound still speak a straight language, perfectly aligned with the deepest anxieties of all. And then what a bomb of sound, deafening post punk, declined coldwave between The Soft Moon, Nine Inch Nails and heavy metal in free fall." - Shoegaze Blog (ITA)

"Proof that the “dark post-punk” tag doesn’t have to necessitate rehashing forty year old tropes, but can be used to create elaborate and strange new forms. Recommended. While nominally sitting somewhere on the darkwave/post-punk spectrum, like the best of Donat’s work Nebenkörper‘s defining features are its energies and emotions rather than genres. Fraught and despairing yet also defiant, Donat’s voice careens through the nightmarish “Fensteraus” and the elegiac “Minusgesicht” with verve and passion, and even if the German lyrics are passing you by, the sense of wounded anxiety won’t. Acting as a counterpoint to that vocal directness is the incredible detail and shading pressed into nearly every second of Nebenkörper‘s arrangements." - I Die: You Die (CAN)

"The journey doesn't seem to be over yet. [...] With flight sequences in strange-sounding spheres it goes off and then into space and into dreamy deeper zones in the subconscious which Alexander stimulates. [...] I admire Alexander's creative zeitgeist, which does not follow trends, but is consistent in implementation and comes along with unusual ideas, views, implementations or content." - Underdog Fanzine (GER)

"Right in the eye of the storm. Disaster rages all around. It's quiet in the middle, but every centimeter outwards promises a roar and a crash. Is that what it looks like when the apocalypse is closing in? In the quiet zone of this thundering hurricane, Alexander Donat throws away all of his previously used equipment, sheds his skin briefly and shakes himself. Then he sets out to activate the 'secondary body' with new equipment" - SaitenKult (GER)

"An album somewhere between Coldwave and Post-Punk, and calls his sound “Grimwave”: That's a fitting term, because songs like “Kartenwarten” are on the one hand melancholically flowing and dreamy, but also anarchistically threatening. Music, made for a foggy autumn day ..." - Tonspion (GER)

"Really enjoyed listening to this album, its disquieting melancholy was inspiring." - Blaue Rosen (UK)

"Intense darkwave music, which, however, differs significantly from the genre prototype of the eighties and nineties. The songs have elements of flashy noise rock, industrial rattling, shoegaze melancholy and black metal darkness in their DNA" - Sanctuary.cz (CZ)

"Berlin-based Alexander Leonard Donat must be one of the hardest-working and creative men in the business, a kind of goth Prince, [Vlimmer] has produced an outstanding new two track EP whose lead track, Fensteraus, begins with a haunting analogue synth riff which has the same unsettling effect as solo John Foxx or early Human League. With shouted distant vocals a la Nine Inch Nails, the song takes on a vaguely low-fi industrial feel, before imaginatively taking a different turn over a post-punk bass riff, before combining the elements in a dramatic closing section. The imaginative whole has the cumulative cinematographic effect of a more daring Kissing The Pink, a less intense The Soft Moon or even a more avant-garde Imagine Dragons, such is the epic feel of the song from one of Europe’s most prolific artists." - Goth/Post-Punk Revival Blog (SCO)

"The walls here mostly shake. This dark energy that takes my breath away is fascinating. As if the walls are getting closer and the oxygen is slowly getting less. That's not something music easily does. [...] Sure, I don't need that every day, but it has such a strong effect that I like to indulge in it, it absorbs me. Non-stop, distorted, dense, gloomy, almost stressful, but in an artfully enjoyable setting! How will that work in album length? Hard to picture, but I'm really looking forward to it!" - Luserlounge (GER)

"[D]eviates somewhat from the darkwave/postpunk sound we know from him. Like a nightmare, the track focuses on a dark tribal, with ritual drums in a threateningly aggressive atmosphere. The apocalyptic layered synths don't succumb to the background screams. Vibrant industrial, splashingly delicious! The track comes with the digital b-side "Kron" which sounds just as terrifyingly strong. Uptempo in a raging wildness, these two tracks may prepare us for an album that we are now looking forward to even more." - Luminous Dash (BEL)

"Much more aggressive than the German act tends to go with its combination of minimal synth, neo-classical, and coldwave, “Fensteraus” has a clattering caterwaul which sounds as though it’d fit in nicely on a bill featuring Danse Society and Bestial Mouths." - I Die:You Die (CAN)

Very, very different sonically from most of Vlimmer's catalogue. But there is this marvelous, juddering brutality, a feral, powerful, fucking masterful drive to these two tracks. They are alive with a razing skeletal freneticism that tastes like a leap of faith. I cannot wait for the new album." - Firefly Mouth (USA)

"[Vlimmer] takes his sound in an even darker and rougher direction. As well as on "Fensteraus" and "Kron", he pairs hard industrial beats with distant-sounding singing and screaming. On the first song shoegazey synthesizer layers dominate while on the B-side he has his post-punk sounds explode into noise sounds." - Visions (GER)

"Alexander is back again, with a new two track EP and again stretching the range of one of the great sonic sculptors of our time. This is shake your ass club thump. The open expansive feel of the synths, the thunderous driving bass, I couldn’t help throw my hands in the air. Beautiful syncopation and vocal cadence. Track one Meter has a Blondie Atomic energy while pulsing in hues of violet and crimson.
Favorite Track: Kartenwarten – The glorious sway and slide of this track. I’m on a cliff staring at the sea, feeling the slow shifting power of dark water. So many textures and concepts bleeding together in harmony. A true work of beauty." - Sounds & Shadows (USA)

"Hot, excruciating glaring synth swathes transfix the tumultuous inner chaos embodied by a menacing, cloudy tide of driving thundering beats, throbbing bass resonances, and glistening hallucinatory reverberations to create uneven bursts, cuts, and spirals of angry energy, smouldering back and forth around the agonizing sorrow of crushed, baritone male vocals, struggling against the disturbing realization that society and loved ones are divided on life-altering world views. Decisively more introspective and elegiac the flipside, “Kanterwarten”, amidst tiresome hypnotic heavy beats and sharp, blinding synth glares, drowning deep in a sorrowful meditation steeped in oppressive and disturbing anguish until the cathartic and heartbreaking final cry." - White Light / White Heat (ITA)

"What is striking is the clattering sound with a brutal, dystopian character, which implies a radicalism, but also a strange-looking beauty, hidden at its core. At the end of "Kron", sheer chaos, the apocalypse and the overkill with a synth-hard beat from the depths of the creative workshop are rampant. If this goes on like this, the new album "Nebenkörper" will be a wonderful sounding place for drum and bass industrial punk." - Underdog Fanzine (GER)

"Great one [Ad Astra]" - The Brvtalist (GER)




PRESS RELEASE: English
Dedicated to the end times: Founded in 2015 near Berlin, Vlimmer is a one-man project with a mission to create a bleaker version of shoegaze, kicking off with a double EP entitled "I/II" which belongs to an 18-EP series. To his own surprise, Alexander Donat quickly found himself between the chairs of the darkwave, post-punk and goth scenes instead of shoegaze – which, of course, reveals a lot about the origin of the genre. The plaintive, floating, often dreamy vocals merged with the reverb of the overlapping synthesizers and guitars to create an apocalyptic whole that was driven by constant (often Kraut-infused) rhythms.
Fast forward, January 2021: After the end of the EP series, Donat bans all instruments used on the previous recordings from his studio and starts with a clear vision and new equipment. The dystopian "Nebenkörper" LP pushes hyperactive (tribal) drums - especially toms in all sizes - into the foreground and creates a modern variant of atmospheric wave with now more aggressive vocals and the psychedelic use of the new "Polybrute" synth. In their DNA the songs have elements of blaring noise rock, clattering industrial, flooding shoegaze and nagging black metal. Years ago, talking about Vlimmer, the Swiss magazine ArtNoir put the fitting term "Grim Wave" into circulation - now it’s a perfect match. Yet, it’s not everything: The album starts sedately with African drums and hypnotic synth waves that feignedly lurk and peek out again and again over the course of the 40 minutes. It’s the permanent premonition of an oncoming storm.


PRESSEINFO: Deutsch
Der Endzeit verschrieben: Vlimmer ist ein Ein-Mann-Projekt aus dem Berliner Raum, das es sich 2015 zur Mission machte, Shoegaze in seiner düstersten Version zu kreieren, und mit einer Doppel-EP namens „I/II“ loslegte, die den Beginn einer auf 18 EPs angelegten Reise markierte. Zu seiner eigenen Überraschung fand sich Alexander Donat recht schnell zwischen den Stühlen der Darkwave-, Post-Punk- und Gothic-Szenen wieder, statt im Shoegaze - was natürlich einiges über die Herkunft des Genres aussagt. Der klagende, schwebende, oft dreampoppige Gesang verschmolz dabei im Hall der sich überlagernden Synthesizer- und Gitarrenspuren zu einem apokalyptischen Schauspiel, das von steten (oft krautigen) Rhythmen angetrieben wurde.
Fast forward, Januar 2021: Nach Abschluss der EP-Serie verbannt Donat alle darauf genutzten Instrumente aus dem Studio und startet mit einer klaren Vision und neuem Equip-ment. Die dystopische „Nebenkörper“-LP schiebt hyperaktive (Tribal-)Drums - Toms in allen Größen! – in den Vordergrund und schafft mit aggressiverem Gesang und dem liquiden Ein-satz des neuen „Polybrute“-Synths eine moderne Variante flächigen Waves, der in der DNA Merkmale zisch- enden Noiserocks, tackernden Industrials, übeschwemmenden Shoegaze als auch keifenden Black Metals trägt. Das Schweizer Magazin ArtNoir brachte für Vlimmer einst den Begriff des „Grim Wave“ in Umlauf – nun passt er wie die Faust aufs Auge. Und dennoch drückt er nicht alles aus: Das Album startet sedierend mit afrikanischen Drums und hyp-notischen Synth-Wellen, die auch im Verlaufe der 40 Minuten immer wieder hervorlugen und Beruhigung antäuschen. Es bleibt die dauerhafte Vorahnung des hereinbrechenden Sturms.