STAUB

STAUB is a multidisciplinary project by the eclectic artist ensemble Music Ashram, founded by Ralf Schmerberg in 2018. To produce its first concept album, the group came together in MaHalla, a former power plant, with the idea to perform a six-hour cleansing ritual in the factory’s large turbine hall where years of vacancy had accumulated layers of industrial grime.

Suffused with light, the grains of dust appear to dance through the air while brooms work their way through decades of dirt, inch by inch. With their almost painful scrubbing noises, they generate a meditative rhythm that forms the basis of STAUB’s unique sound. Together with the scraping of the brooms, synthesizers and electronics create a near-cathartic vibration throughout the vast industrial space. The listener is inevitably confronted with their own inner conflicts and repressed emotions.