What it was like at the NCN Festival (Part 3/3)
In the first two parts, we took a deep dive into the NCN Festival, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year. We took a look back at Friday: A kick-off full of energy and edgy electronics, with Pseudokrupp Project, Placebo Effect and Prayers as the heartbeats of the evening. Now we turn to the second day of the festival. And Saturday was also perfect: emotional, opulent, almost cinematic – ROME, Suicide Commando, Kite, Men Without Hats. And now? – The final!
Day 3 – Sunday, September 07, 2025
When the darkness dances and time stands still
Sunday in Deutzen has its own pulse. Everything seems softer, more familiar – but also heavier. You can feel that three days of music, encounters and emotions have left their mark. And yet there is this crackling in the air – the knowledge that anything can happen again. Here, Sunday is the swansong, the breath after the ecstasy, but not quieter, just more conscious.
Synthwave at sunrise
Promenade Cinema open the last day with a sound that sounds like neon light at dawn. Elegant, melancholic, stylish. Emma Barson and Dorian Foy have this rare talent for making nostalgia sound new. Their songs hover between eighties romanticism and modern coolness – perfect for slowly getting back into the rhythm.
Between melancholy and modernity
Shortly afterwards, Ruebi steps in front of the crowd. His songs are miniatures of closeness and distance, carried by a quiet urgency. Nothing about him wants to shine – and that is exactly what shines. A performance that stays with you because it has nothing to prove.
Sacred sin
Pecadores – red, raw, rebellious from Brazil – grown between aggrotech, religion and myth, they tell of guilt, faith and ecstasy. Their songs breathe Macumba and pulsate like a prayer under electricity – aggressive, trance-like, sacred: a dance between devotion and rebellion. A performance that does not conform – but evokes and surprises.
New songs from dark wood
Now it’s getting earthy. Stein puts the noise in the background, leaving space, leaving breath. Norbert Strahl leads with a firm, warm voice through songs that taste of smoke, weather and the past – not a spectacle, but a collection. The forest listens.
Elegant decay
Hell Boulevard take over with a mixture of glamor and sepulchral silence. Their dark rock is theatrical, but with soul. From “As Above So Below” to “You Had Me at ‘Fuck Off'” – every song a statement, every gesture a quote.
Ice and emotion
A different tone follows: Melancholy blows out of Greece with Kalte Nacht, clear and quiet, but beautifully enraptured. Their sound is like looking through frozen glass: clear, vulnerable, honest. Greek coolness meets human warmth, and the park dances in silence for a moment.
Aggression as salvation
FabrikC then tears everything open again. Brutal industrial with apocalyptic pressure. Flashes of light, sirens, beats – and still groove. It’s loud, dirty, cathartic – and the crowd wants more.
Cold mechanics, cool charisma
A moment that you almost never experience live: Thomas Lüdke takes to the stage with his project The Mao Tse Tung Experience. What follows is not a spectacle, but pure substance. Cold mechanics meet synthetic austerity, minimalist beats meet clear attitude. The sound is rough, angular, reduced – like a manifesto made of steel – with a quiet, ironic undertone that doesn’t break the political core, but sharpens it.
Sharpness, shadows, satire
Not a pure electro act, but a hybrid of punk, post-punk and wave: Twin Noir – guitars and electronics face each other at eye level. Samplers, drum computers, a theremin and even an analog tape recorder give the songs a rough texture that smells of the underground. Soundscapes alternate between synth and guitar like cold and warm light. A performance like a cutting edge: direct, edgy, clever.
Storm of steel
Then it gets loud. Heldmaschine catapult the audience out of their melancholy like a thunderclap. Rammstein school, but with their own blood. Precise, visual, uncompromising. Flames, pressure, rhythm. Their NDH is discipline and pressure at the same time. A performance that doesn’t ask, but commands – an order to dance.
Darkness in neon
SYZYGYX then bring back the underground vibe. Minimal wave with noise, electroclash and flickering lights. They sound like a nocturnal club in a cyberpunk fever dream. Singer Luna is pure energy – raw, tender, unpredictable, but also flickering, demanding, vulnerable.
Anger meets control
Grendel continue the line, but tighter. The stage pulsates, the bass booms, the crowd roars. Aggression with a system, anger with structure. It’s a thunderstorm of beats, but never chaos.
Dancing on the ruins
Reaper keeps the energy high – a hybrid of EBM, techno and aggression. Vasi Vasili’s tracks are like fist-pumps at the speed of light. Despite the hardness: it remains danceable, no room for standing still, no room for thinking – only movement.
Darkness in perfection
Then – the moment many have been waiting for. She Past Away stand in the haze, two shadows, one heartbeat. Turkish dark wave in its purest form – minimal, magnetic, sublime. The audience sways, the fog glows and everyone knows: this is scene essence.
Celebration of the eclipse
Tanzwut take over, loud, theatrical, uncompromising – and leave no stone unturned. The “devil’s” fire ignites, bagpipes circle, the stage blazes and you could be forgiven for thinking that even a power cut was part of the show. It smells of sulphur, the ground shakes – this is medieval meets modern – and the audience goes wild. A powerful finale before the finale.
Returning home to the light
And finally – as the last act of a three-day ritual – Camouflage. “The Great Commandment”, “Love Is a Shield” – anthems of a generation. Their calm is power, their presence natural, confident, timeless. Camouflage plays music that doesn’t have to be loud to be great. The park glows in the warm light, people hold each other in their arms, some cry, others dance. A finale without fireworks, but with soul.
Echo
Three days, four stages, countless emotions. The NCN 2025 was not an escape from reality – it was one that made it more beautiful. A place where black does not mean sadness, but belonging. A festival that has heart and attitude – and shares both.
CONCLUSION – When music becomes memory
Three days of darkness. Three days of light. The NCN 2025 was not a festival in the classic sense – it was a journey through the topography of the scene, through longing, attitude, noise and beauty. Between treetops, fog and beats, this magical in-between space was once again created in which we are all the same: Dancers, dreamers, ruins with rhythm. People say that the NCN is small, familiar, “down to earth”. Maybe so. But anyone who has been there knows that it is one of the last places where authenticity is not an empty phrase. There are no big sponsor facades here, no influencer backdrop – just real people, real music, real emotion. And when
Text & Photos: Thomas Friedel Fuhrmann – Let’s write until the words breathe.
