(L) Boys Noize - pls cr - Ian Buosi, (R) Brutalismus 3000 - pls cr - Tom Funk
If the anticipatory tension around Boys Noize’s forthcoming 7LLVSION LP is already wound tight, cables will start snapping when “Nächstenliebe” (featuring Brutalismus 3000) drops today, October 29th. Both Boys Noize and Brutalismus 3000 are possessed by the raucous, punk spirit of Berlin’s underworld - hot and brash, not cold and sterile. “Nächstenliebe” is their industrial séance, a poltergeist that throws bodies around rooms. “Nächstenliebe” launches with an ominous, step-sequenced bassline in the tradition of EBM pioneers DAF, cited by Boys Noize and his guests as an essential influence. Ancestor worship makes powerful magick, and Brutalismus 3000’s Victoria Vassiliki Daldas pays tribute to the late DAF singer with her Dadaist, Deutsch shouts, filling the pockets of a sparse, half-time beat. Pulse quickens with layered oscillators, confirmation of a looming climax. Stomach flutters are sidechained to gut-punch kicks; with each percussive accent, a call to the pit.
The doom-stomp returns after the first breakdown, stalked by threatening whispers until it collapses again with haunting pads and warbling Sprechgesang. There’s dissociation, then frenzy, as the snare roll accelerates the drop into total madness. The 4x4 pounds, the synths squelch, the mind evacuates, and the electronic body snaps to grid. In the last measures, dembow drums redline the engine with the whistle of an exploding teakettle. And then, unlike the dark, exhilarating Geist that Boys Noize and Brutalismus 3000 have summoned back into our world, “Nächstenliebe” ends.
Many have said Boys Noize is on a “generational run,” but this is inaccurate. Yes, there was a world tour with Nine Inch Nails last year, Boys Noize’s co-production of the TRON: Ares soundtrack, and the top-billed, critically exalted Coachella debut of the artists’ collaborative project Nine Inch Noize before the drop of their self-titled LP. That was in April. Then came a summer of non-stop Boys Noize performances in clubs and festival main stages on multiple continents. What’s next, however, complicates things.
Boys Noize will release 7LLVSION - his first solo album in five years - this fall, with the ZEP-fronted single “1+1+1” announcing its arrival and “Nächstenliebe” feat. Brutalismus 3000 offering a taste of what the 7LLVSION LP will bring, it’s clear that Boys Noize is on a multi-generational run. Then again, hasn’t he always?
ABOUT BOYS NOIZE: Boys Noize (Alex Ridha) is a singular figure in 21st-century electronic music culture. The German-Iraqi artist, DJ, producer, and composer embraces and transcends contradictions—a cross-genre bridge-builder respected by techno purists, and a global headliner who never left the underground. Ridha is masterful on the decks and inimitable in the studio, crafting songs for strikingly diverse talents including A$AP Rocky, Bon Iver, Frank Ocean, Arca, Virgil Abloh, Lady Gaga, and Brutalismus 3000. He has been featured alongside Keinemusik, Shygirl, Kelsey Lu, Rico Nasty, and VTSS; remixed Daft Punk, Depeche Mode, Miley Cyrus, Tame Impala, The Chemical Brothers, and A.G. Cook; and scored the hit German hacker film Who Am I (2014), Oliver Stone’s Snowden (2016), and the forthcoming Replacer, starring Halsey. He co-founded the duo Octave Minds with Chilly Gonzales, and actively produces and performs with Skrillex as Dog Blood.
For Ridha, this long, accomplished career was merely the foundation for something bigger. In 2025 and 2026, Boys Noize performed alongside Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross throughout Nine Inch Nails’ Peel It Back tour, and co-produced the near-entirety of the TRON:Ares soundtrack, including the GRAMMY® Award-winning single “As Alive As You Need Me To Be.” The trio’s collaboration was formalized with the announcement of Nine Inch Noize, debuting with a top-billed, viral Coachella set that SF Gate called “one of the festival’s greatest performances of all time.” The Nine Inch Noize LP was released the same week to critical acclaim. Perhaps Pitchfork’s review said it best: “Every song on the album slaps.”
As a solo artist, Boys Noize continues to be an active presence in the culture, with his eighth solo album 7LLVSION arriving in the fall of 2026. Throughout his rise from clubs to festivals to stadiums, Ridha has ceaselessly supported the underground through his labels Boysnoize Records and the recently launched ONES and ZEROS, focusing on a new generation of global talent from the Global North and South alike. His punk ethos has kept him fully independent, raw talent keeps him in-demand, and obsession keeps him future-proof. No other artist traverses musical worlds like Boys Noize, and while his sound cannot be replicated, his formula is simple: embrace everything, compromise nothing. |
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