Longtime Minneapolis artist and producer Lazerbeak will debut a new live set of music celebrating the February release of his solo A Bridge Under The Alley EP. Joined by renowned percussionist Zack Baltich (Ginger Bones, ESTUARY), Beak will bring his meditative instrumental work to Berlin's stage. Keyboardist Paul Hecht and singer/multi-instrumentalist The Nunnery will create a lush opening set, building and dissolving textures, grooves, and ambience around a core of lyricism and attraction to the urgent, earnest, and meaningful.

Aaron Mader, known professionally as Lazerbeak, is a Minneapolis-based artist and producer. Over the past decade, he has collaborated with everyone from reigning pop queen Lizzo (having produced her entire debut album), Doja Cat, Dessa, bluegrass heavyweights Trampled By Turtles, and the Grammy-winning Minnesota Orchestra, all while continuing to build and create with lifelong comrades from his own Doomtree artist collective. While his collaborative production work leans into the modern sounds of hip-hop, pop, and R&B, his instrumental solo releases have flexed a wider range of influences and are inspired by the meditative longform compositions found in ambient, experimental, and electronic music.

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The Nunnery begins with one voice layered upon itself and becoming a lush soundscape. Sarah Elstran is an independent musician who unites bright-eyed pop composition and the hands-on atmospheric live layering of voice. Her vocal loops give us the kind of detail and multi-octave range that we might come to expect from a marquee pop star, while her production decisions continually keep us guessing what rabbit holes her tracks might fall into next.

Paul Hecht performs regularly throughout the Midwest, with groups based in Chicago and Eau Claire, WI, and has lately been appearing more frequently in the Twin Cities. Hecht’s background is unusual; he had a career as an English professor before moving into music full time in 2020. Hecht’s book about English poetry at the end of the sixteenth century, What Rosalind Likes, was published in 2022 by Oxford University Press. He continues to write on various subjects, mostly musical, on his Substack, ZLR. A first recording of his original compositions, Pyrography, will be released later this year, featuring his Chicago trio, with Gustavo Cortiñas on drums and Ben Dillinger on bass, and with James Davis appearing as a special guest on trumpet.