KARLA KVLT – Thunderhunter [LP+CD]

Thunderhunter by Karla Kvlt released February 21st, 2025 by Exile On Mainstream Records. 180g black pure virgin vinyl. 3mm spined sleeve printed on reverse. Polylined inner sleeve. 2 paged insert. CD included. Tracklisting: Side A 01 Karma 02 Temple 03 Swallowed Side B 01 Magna Mater 02 Mun Kvlta 03 Hekate 04 Thunderhunter The Alternative music scene in the Nineties vibrantly questioned traditional listening approaches and came up with some of the most interesting concepts in that sense. While it was bands like MELVINS, UNSANE, SWANS or COP SHOOT COP on the other side of the pond, on this side one of the bands was EISENVATER and the guitar-based orchestra ROSSBURGER REPORT that evolved from it. EISENVATERs live shows remain legendary transcending gatherings which among lovers of the extremes have a cult status and are of the kind that everybody claims to have been there. Exile On Mainstream is thrilled to welcome back Markus E. Lipka, the driving force behind EISENVATER with a new band that is KARLA KVLT. Together with his son Johann on drums and his daughter-in-law, Teresa (both also in MELTING PALMS), the trio delivers a raw and monolithic album that is unique in style and approach. Music is always also the search for transcendence. It transports emotions, captures them, and mediates between the comprehensible and what lies beyond. This can especially happen in collective musical experiences like concerts or rituals. Music can help the artist themselves in shaping their identity and resolving or addressing inner conflict. Here, it is about the transcendence and transformation of the ego – ultimately, the prerequisite for art, especially when it is collectively created. This may be a very philosophical introduction to a band bio, but it is the beginning of an exploration of KARLA KVLT – both musically and thematically. For the band, founded in 2023, this is the foundation: the radical dissolution of the ego. Art does not emerge according to a precise plan. It arises when one lets go – of thoughts, expectations, ideas, and even personal desires. As long as the mind is involved, the ego blocks the possibility of a collective experience. This letting go, this intuitive approach, is what defines the music of KARLA KVLT. Thunderhunter is the invitation to become part of it. The beats and riffs are tons heavy, the vocals bell-like, fragile, and intense. KARLA KVLT’s music is dense, immersive, but also beautiful – like a plant fighting its way through a concrete slab, like the tides, following a precise and unstoppable rhythm that can be as destructive as it is capable of revealing beauty in the next moment, offering a view of something new. Based on drone, doom, sludge, noise, and post-rock, the band creates monolithic and hypnotic tracks, recorded in 2023 in strictly D.I.Y. manners in Hamburg. They manage to bring together seemingly incompatible styles like sludge doom and dream pop. Both concepts come together in KARLA KVLT in an amalgamation of brutal beauty, and Exile On Mainstream is overjoyed to release Thunderhunter, the debut album of this new band.