Snow Blind Twilight Ferries

A singer, a guitarist and a drummer walk into a rehearsal room…stop me if you’ve heard this one.

In the first wave of Post-Wall Berlin, the members of this Kreuzberg trio attempted to create a sound that would juxtapose and blend their individual backgrounds in jazz, rap, funk, pop, musical theater, performance art, post-punk and electronica—something more commonplace today, but nearly unheard of in the early ‘90s. Although they were never able to commit to a bassist for longer than a gig or a recording session, Snow Blind Twilight Ferries (the name comes from a line in a Dylan Thomas poem) managed to compose several dozen songs, record some respectable demos and burn up stages at major clubs across the city in its brief existence.

Before personality clashes and toxic masculinity caused the band to implode, the Berlin press described Snow Blind Twilight Ferries’ sound as

• “Harsh funk, mutated blues...” (Spandauer Volksblatt)

• “Whiny, hypnotic...” (Der Tagesspiegel)

• “Metal-funky, jazzy, blues-rocking, avantgarde rap-pop...” (Prinz)

• “Strong, soulful, conservative, strange...a triumph of expressiveness...” (Die Tageszeitung)

A quarter of a century later, the band’s music is having a second life (see left). As recently as March 2018, a young German producer wanted permission to sample “Keep All the Sunshine” for a “lo-fi house track.”

Stay tuned (no pun intended).