While working in Berlin Wedding at andere Baustelle Studio on their upcoming album —scheduled for release in May 2026 on Bureau B— Kreidler found also time to dig deep into the vaults of their Düsseldorf and Berlin archives.

Thirty Years ago Kreidler's eponymous mini-album was released on Cologne based label Finlayson; and for RIVA, their first outing, on cassette tape it is even 31 years. Both released in limited physical formats and long unavailable.

This edition documents the band‘s beginnings, with threads that can be followed throughout their whole history to their current work. Still, they are straight out of a certain scene, at a certain place, at a certain time.

Kreidler —formed from the encounter of the band Deux Baleines Blanches (Thomas Klein, Andreas Reihse, and Stefan Schneider) with DJ Sport (Detlef Weinrich)— already in its initial years, and in those that followed, managed to hold seemingly contradictory strands, becoming a fluid form that could equally accommodate the various strengths and interests of its members. This ability has remained intact up to the present lineup of Thomas Klein, Alex Paulick, and Andreas Reihse.

In Düsseldorf, the Academy of Arts is situated just next to the Altstadt, a rather grubby area to get disorderly drunk and eat cheap fast food. But as intoxication and partying go quite well with doing or studying art, artists conquered certain spaces, made them their own. The art scene had anyway always mingled with the music scene. This led to such famos spots as Creamcheese, or Ratinger Hof. Art from Düsseldorf was already exciting, but then also the music was making waves: Kraftwerk, NEU!, la Düsseldorf, followed by post-punk acts like DAF, Der Plan, Mittagspause et al. Kreidler, too, emerged from Around the Academy, where Detlef and Stefan were students. While Andreas was studying audiovisual communication at the University of Applied Arts, and Thomas design in nearby Krefeld.

In February 1994, Deux Baleines Blanches organised a spoken word event at Erinna König‘s Op de Eck Cafė in Düsseldorf Altstadt, and they visited Detlef who was playing music in a listening setting he had installed at the Academy. The idea came up to cooperate on a project. Later on, a spoken word artist asked them to accompany one of his readings. Kreidler‘s first show was March 29, at Melody bar, a small place in the Altstadt, and then a favorite hang-out for art students.

There’s a frayed intensity to both albums, a clarity, a skeletal radiance. 1994, RIVA, the beginning: circuitous somehow, a spatial presence in the restraint, strangely physical in its beauty. Mounting with Das Wilde Heinefeld, with voice and bass clarinet by Fritz Sitterle. Finally, Angst, voice by Julia Friedrich; a song written by Fehlfarben. Produced for an unreleased Monarchie und Alltag cover version album, conceived by Joerg “Zappo” Zboralski as a follow-up to his Brücke Kaufen album (covering the Rough Trade compilation Wanna Buy A Bridge?). The journey ends in a heated but once again taut textual space, familiar ground for Kreidler, after various gigs with spoken word artists. Is 1995 groovier? It is definitely not beige; it is decisive and shimmering. One wonders how all the obstacles and a drummer-in-pain could result in such a no-nonsense, clear, funky vision of radical openness. Recorded, mixed and co-produced with Souldier Niceprice at Knochenhaus Tonraum Hamburg. Nothing is flat or predictable here, and the album closes with a track that feels like a ride (in a car? Or on a bike, late at night, sitting on the rack, holding on to a potential?)—a journey, beginning anew.

While so many acts need to excuse past sins, Kreidler’s work has always sprung from a place of artistic independence; testing non-didactic possibilities of conversation within music, text, art, and interventions within political conditions, with a transdisciplinary and inclusive ethic, highly contextual and collective: ideas formed socially —after day jobs, in casual settings, art school parties, late-night talks, notes on beer coasters— then refined through hands-on studio work. These elements seem also crucial to understanding the scene in Düsseldorf where these recordings emerged.

Revisiting earlier work can serve different purposes. Such artefacts are either capsules, holding memories, people, names, stories, emotions and ruins; invaluable as traces of a period, of a mood, a genre, as archival material. Or they might be alive—timeless pieces, made available in new formats for wider audiences to enjoy. Luckily, with Kreidler, we don’t have to choose.

Seda Mimaroğlu, July 2025

P.S. The photography incorporated on the front cover depicts Kreidler in 1995 in the artists‘ club WP8. Andreas, Detlef, and Stefan were members and hosted evenings there, as was Hendrik Krawen, the artist behind this cover artwork. The ornamental roof of WP8 —polystyrene bits, packaging waste of picture frames— was his creation. The boxy elements all over the cover refer to a relief work by him, mounted on a wall at Ex WM-BAR, which was on the same street. In 1994, Kreidler played their seventh gig at the Ex WM-BAR. And yes, for Germaners, „WM“ stands for World Cup; Kreidler performed after the final between Brazil and Italy. The picture on the back cover was taken there, the day after.