What it was like at the NCN Festival (1/3)
NCN Festival September 05 to September 07, 2025 in Deutzen
When the forest dances: the NCN 2025 in Deutzen
There are places where the darkness is not threatening, but sacred. Deutzen is such a place. Every year at the beginning of September, the small cultural park near Leipzig is transformed into a refuge for souls who are at home between melancholy and the pulse of the machine. The NCN – Nocturnal Culture Night – has long been more than just a festival. It is a ritual. Since 2005, it has attracted those who prefer to wear black rather than sunscreen, who find their balance between fog and neon and who find both solace and defiance in music. In 2025, the NCN celebrated its 20th edition – an anniversary that was not celebrated with fireworks, but with attitude. No loud self-congratulation, but a quiet, proud nod in the direction of all those who have made this festival great: the scene itself. The dancers in the dust. The dreamers in the shadows.
Place, light, sound – a landscape of shadows
The Kulturpark Deutzen remains an unparalleled backdrop. Between trees, old walls and a touch of end-time aesthetics, an atmosphere unfolds that hovers somewhere between club night and fairytale forest. The light is not a decoration – it tells stories that run through the night like wrists.
The audience? A family of strangers. Peaceful, respectful, idiosyncratic. Black silhouettes dancing, laughing, hugging each other, while somewhere between two stages someone silently sheds a tear. Nothing is artificial here. No attitude. Just genuine love for music – for our music. The mixture of industrial, dark wave, synthpop, EBM, post-punk and neoclassical music creates a dramaturgy that is never uniform. Every day sounds and feels different. And yet they are all united by this one indescribable energy: the feeling of being among one’s own kind.
In addition to the numerous bands, which we will now go into in detail, there will be readings by authors such as Christian von Aster, Jessica Iser, Markus Heitz, Sascha Lange and Torsten Low. Words between the bass, dark poetry between the beats.
Atmosphere in black and light: it’s that moment when the sun kisses the treetops and the first bass rolls through the park – that’s when you know you’ve arrived: You have arrived. And while the night slowly swallows up everything that was bright during the day, what we are here for begins: Music as a mirror. Music as pain. Music as consolation.
Day 1 – Friday, September 5, 2025
First breath in the fog
Friday begins as the NCN always does – not with noise, but with expectation. The day is young and the NCN 2025 is getting underway.
Machines with attitude
It starts with a punch to the system. Pseudokrupp Project open the stage with that typical, edgy electro charm that oscillates between anger and clarity. No frills, no effects – just pressure, presence and that honesty reminiscent of the early days of the scene. The bass rips through your stomach, the voice scratches, the rhythm cuts through the forest. And the audience? Dancing – like a unit that knows exactly what it’s here for.
Between cynicism and tenderness
Light sailors take over – and bring light into the darkness, but not a friendly one. It is the light of city lights in puddles, the light after sleepless nights. Their songs are bitter, clever, vulnerable. Lyrics about stumbling and getting up again, about the human condition that cannot be abolished. The stage glows in cold blue, singer Andreas Stitz sings with this mixture of melancholy and defiance, and somewhere in the audience someone stands still, listens – and understands.
Electrical salvation
Rotersand: a name that sounds like a promise in the line-up – and keeps it. As soon as they enter the stage, the atmosphere turns into pure euphoria. The sound – anthemic, warm, crystal clear. Krischan Wesenberg stands at the desk like an alchemist, Rascal Nikov’s voice breaks through the fog and suddenly there are a thousand arms in the air. “Warrior of the Wasteland”, “Merging Oceans” – every line, every drop hits.
Shrill, weird, wonderfully different
Next up: Tilly Electronics. They seem like the lost cousins of the scene – playful, dirty, danceable and with that delicious irony that only works if you’re serious. Their beats are edgy, their lyrics absurdly charming. The two of them stand on stage as if they had just stolen a synthesizer and decided to save the world – with bass, wit and attitude. A contrasting program that works because it doesn’t copy anyone.
Legends of smoke
Later, A Split-Second take to the stage – and the forest becomes a retro fever dream. Belgian EBM, raw, driving, uncompromising. The sound sounds like it came straight out of an old industrial building – and that’s exactly why it works. Every beat is history, every hook a memory. The crowd dances, but there is this quiet knowledge in their faces: This is the origin.
Between ritual and intoxication
Placebo Effect are not just back – they are here. Their sound is cult, their presence almost sacred. Fog settles over the stage, silhouettes flicker, the audience breathes more slowly. The songs – dark, dense, trance-like – leave room for emotion without explaining it. It is this mixture of mysticism and minimalism that no one else has mastered like this. There are no phones, no distractions – just tense faces, black silhouettes in the light.
Goth made of asphalt and devotion
To conclude: Prayers. Two men, tattoos, leather, faith. Their music – a fusion of dark wave, Chicano culture and spiritual overpressure. The beat is urban, the attitude genuine. Rafael Reyes preaches, sings, pleads – with an intensity that is almost unbearable. Symbols, saints, shadows flicker behind him. It is as if the scene is being presented with a mirror – raw, direct, uncensored. And that’s exactly why it works.
Echo
Friday ends as it began: honestly. The last lights glow between the tents and trees, voices blur with fog. Someone laughs, someone is silent. The night lies heavy over Deutzen – but it is alive. And you can feel that this was just the beginning.
The next part is emotional, opulent, almost cinematic – ROME, Suicide Commando, Kite, Men Without Hats.
Text & Photos: Thomas Friedel Fuhrmann – Let’s write until the words breathe.
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