Ziúr speaks from two decades of witnessing Berlin’s cultural tectonics shift, where DIY havens once flourished and are now eroded by gentrification, investment pressures, and tightening political controls. The closure of iconic spaces and the rare opening of new venues mark not a trend but isolated events, reflecting a broader fragility in the city’s artistic lifeblood. Her concern extends beyond nightlife toward the encroachment of ideological pledges into cultural funding, a climate that risks silencing dissent and constricting artistic freedom.

Against this backdrop, Home, her fifth studio album, navigates identity, memory, and belonging without claiming definitive answers. The work links personal history to a larger narrative of marginalised realities excluded from dominant national self-images. Vulnerability is embraced not as weakness but as the highest form of strength, with each track contributing distinct perspectives rather than a single resolution.

Collaborations with artists such as James Ó Ceallaigh, Elvin Brandhi, Sara Persico, and Iceboy Violet deepen the album’s multiplicity, allowing it to operate as a collective voice while retaining a singular vision. The live A/V presentation with Sandi will extend these ideas into a sensory dialogue, designed to resonate physically as much as intellectually. For Ziúr, whether in Berlin or beyond, the underground persists, though harder to detect—alive in acts that reject compromise for the sake of popularity.

Ziúr, when you look at the transformations the Berlin nightclubbing and performance industry has been through, particularly with the closure of Watergate, and then the introduction of dance venue, Open Ground, which has found a home for itself in Wuppertal. How do you see these changes as influencing the city’s cultural pulse?

I’ve never been to watergate but I’ve seen venues open and close since I got to the city 20 years ago and of course this changes the cultural pulse. Back then there were way more opportunities for diy spaces to thrive that by now have been swallowed up by gentrification. But the world will never stand still and this is a circumstance we’ll have to deal with. If we’d think this wasn’t necessary, I don’t know if I’d rather wanna be in a place being practically asleep.

Don’t get me wrong I of course wish it wasn’t hard to maintain cultural hubs but especially since the wall fell, this city underwent a rapid transformation in its cultural landscape and now is facing investors and the local right wing government.

What I find most concerning in relation to cultural landscape changing, is germany mingling with fascism, so when you look at the local government changing and the cultural senator establishing some sort of pledge to ‘israel’s right to exist’ tight being able to receive cultural funding, this is a red flag for free artistic expression. Furthermore we’ve been facing rapid funding cuts in the cultural sector and many institutions are struggling. All in all things are looking very bleak.

If you look at wuppertal right now, the recent developments are also that you club is coming to a close, a stronghold of nightlife since decades. Just seeing one club open that’s been highly praised isn’t enough to talk about a trend for me, especially since I haven’t been to wuppertal in 25 years.

Speaking of home, your fifth studio album has seen you begin to envelope yourself into your identity and artistry. Having been listened to for so long, and by so many, has it been cathartic to step into the position where you are capable of listening back on yourself? In which way has it influenced your artistic perception?

If you look at all 5 albums, there’s somewhat of a cohesive storyline between them so my fundamental narrative didn’t change much. What changed with the home album was my will to talk about growing up in a country that’s been following a narrative they pledged to participate in ‘never again’, but practically is ignoring the patterns.

Furthermore I believe marginalized people are gonna face more and more difficulties, and my only point that sorta shifted is, that I’m part of a reality that isn’t considered to belong to germany’s ‘core values’ but factually I have always been here and belong to its overlooked diverse landscape. It’s not only about me and my identity to begin with, it’s merely and example that can be translated to many other realities being excluded from the storyline. We can only thrive in intersectionality, never forget that.

It’s been explained that on the title track belonging to ‘Home’ you cry, “harsh truths over damaged orchestral scrapes, echoing hypnotically over analog distortions and gnarled strings.” In which way does this composition set the rhythm for the remainder of the album? To me, it seems visceral, almost like a rebirth by fire.

The song is about change and about togetherness, about history and trauma, how to tackle the beast, to readjust and about a sense of belonging and ultimately a sense of safety. The overall narrative is talking about my own understanding of the notion of home but also never claims to have a concrete answer, especially since I can not talk about other people’s perception in regards to their individual hurdles. All I know is that we all deserve to belong.

Can you speak further about the intricacies of this process, “cries”suggests a deeply personal element, whilst “echoing” infers a projection of this. Is this paradoxical introduction to the fifth studio album unintentional, or purposeful? In which way does it leave room for an individual interpretation?

The press release describes my vulnerability as ‘cries’ in one moment. This isn’t my tone throughout the album but I see vulnerability as being the highest form of strength. Art always leaves room for personal interpretation. I also don’t strive to find other people’s truth, I merely wanna talk about my point of view to in the best case be a relatable case for others to gain strength from and support them in their struggles.

In your opinion, do these elements of the album speak to the recalibration of the status-quo between underground experimentation and mainstream practice. Between what’s preserved as a countercultural dialogue and universalised into a common tongue?

Mainstream practice for me is the ultimate compromise chasing some form of likability for the sake of popularity but for me this narrative loses a lot of nuance and isn’t very interesting. I don’t think the underground disappears but is getting harder to detect. People will always do interesting things, wether you talk about them publicly or not.

The remainder of the album’s titles; ‘All Odds No Chants’, ‘Spellbound To Ancestral Curse’, and ‘Through The Trees’, seem quite fragmented when separated, and poetic when assembled, their compositions even more so. Is this an album about order, or disorder? How does this influence the sonic and sentimental overtures it incorporates?

These songs belong to the album and talk about home in different voices from different perspectives. so they’re not appearing to be fragmented at all for me..

You shared in ‘Home’s’ process with artists such as James Ó Ceallaigh aka WIFE, Elvin Brandhi, Sara Persico, and Manchester's Iceboy Violet for facets of expression which spanned the album. Which influence did each of these individuals particularly have when it came to its development? And where does this become apparent in the album’s evolution?

We didn’t have meetings before starting to work on the album and talk about a grand narrative but all these individuals have different perspectives on the topic and overall this album never was set to find the answer to the question of what home represents in its general definition. Each individual participation of these artists just had the album gain different perspectives and I don’t think it’s entirely necessary to dissect em from each other, but rather to see the album as a whole. Certainly these contributions made the piece richer in it’s message and existence.

‘Home’ is going to be presented live a/v with Sandi on August 28th, with this being an audio-visual performance space, which considerations have you given to the relationship between the auditory and the sensory, their ability to complement one another, but also contradict each other?

I believe it’s always good to use multiple senses at once and I don’t see a contradiction here. If you consider music as being air waves being pushed through space, addressing you as a resonating body, I find is a genius form of communication. All the messages we send during the show go hand in hand.

Ultimately, whilst considering this element in particular, which crescendos have you become determined to hit on August 28th, and beyond it?

I’m not gonna spoil the surprise on our peak moments of the show but we’re planning a very special premier. Martina bertoni and sara persico are joining sandi and me on stage, which will be a new and very special live show, I’m looking forward to a lot. Overall the home a/v live will hit a few softer notes in general, especially to set it apart form the rather cathartic eyeroll tour before… I played atonal three times before and in neither of these shows the energy level dipped below 100% throughout the set. I truly believe there’s something magical about the festival and I’m not planning to break with the tradition and keep it 100 yet once again.