Private Sphere

From the heavenly rush of having the floodgates for your dopamine reserves opened wider than the horizon, down to the lethargic, sweet surrender of having your synapses put into a silky bed of cotton wool: This edition of our bi-monthly Private Sphere slot on LYL Radio focuses on the classic Shoegazer sound as made famous by certain British artists and bands in the late 80s and early 90s. However, instead of choosing from the obvious and overplayed names in the genre, Tobias Lichter went through his personal music archive to create a selection that rather focusses on certain under-the-radar and non-British acts from the original era, mostly. Moreover, the aim was to also combine these 90s outsiders with the beautiful stream of underground acts from the first big but almost forgotten Shoegaze revival of the 00s/noughies. An era which we still remember and sometimes dearly miss for its innocent, pre-algorithmic screentime, lost in continuously (and actively) discovering new and amazing artists from all over the world via wonky platforms like Myspace, CD Baby or truly dedicated, independent fan-blogs.

Full tracklist over at LYL Radio

Saturday, 13.6,2026
from 8pm

Artworks by Florentin Ewest

Velvet Collective
Stresemannstraße 8
40210 Düsseldorf

Surreal fragments of a bodiless twilight dream, coming together to form a sonic still life of hypnotic images and cinematic cuts. 

“Aber auf den Bildern zeige sich nichts, nur ein läppischer, zufälliger Ausschnitt der Welt, und es sei diese Belanglosigkeit, die Banalität der Bilder gewesen, die der Theatermacher wohl gemeint habe, wenn er vom Mysterium des Sichtbaren, von der hypnotischen Qualität der Nachtaufnahmen gesprochen habe. Sie blickt über ihre Schulter und schaut dem Wechsel der Bilder einen Moment lang schweigend zu.” 

– Die Holländerinnen, Dorothee Elmiger, p. 105
 

Sogenannte »schwarze« Einstellung. 
Mißlungene Einstellung, hier verwendet. [...] Es ist ein undurchschaubarer, undefinierbarer Raum ohne Formen. Es muß dennoch das Meer, der Himmel, die Nacht sein, diese Dichte von kaum unterschiedenem Korn. Die Stimmen sind da, in diesen nebligen Höhen, dieser wattigen, trüben Durchsichtigkeit. 144

Photography by Stephanie Passul
 

As part of the Between Books Art Book Fair at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, the Between Books Bar in the Salon des Amateurs will present a diverse programme of sound over three days – live on site and streamed on Callshop Radio.

Artists, musicians and DJs come together through their time-based practices, creating a space that bridges focused listening, collective perception and situational intensity.

with 
We’ll never know what hit us., @rosi96.de & @juliangeschwind
The Social Lover, @rubenverkuylen
Private Sphere, @privatesphere_official
Hannah Pezzack, @hanapezzack
Time is Away, @timeisaway
Alex Tackenberg & Grischerr, @alex.tackenberg & @grischerr
Antonia Alessia Virginia Beeskow, @antoniaalessiavirginia
Orson, @version111a
Nikolai Szymanski, @nikolai_szymanski
Bufiman @bufiman

Curation of the music programme and artwork design: George Popov

19–21 September 2025
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
Grabbeplatz 4
40213 Düsseldorf

 

Fragments of daily walks. Sounds of the surroundings. Cuts, structures, stories and musical pieces that serve as a personal reappraisal of my perception. Summer days between nature and urban environments are understood as one.
 

Untitled, 2024
Table Collage, 2 units, each 80 × 120 cm
Paper, MDF, Glass
100 × 35 × 35 cm

The installation was shown during Transfer Station Festival in Cologne,
artrmx e.V. 11–12 April 2025

A one-hour fever dream. Passion and lust, danger and dust. Lost in action. Way beyond the Mekong Delta. A sonic still life in the bush of ghosts.
 

Photography by Oda

Sieh nur, wie ich dich vergesse. Sieh nur, wie ich dich vergessen habe. Sieh mich an. 73

 

Volatile of its own volition. Echoed, reverberating and sort of troubled. This is the first episode of Private Sphere’s show on LYL radio, hosted by Oda & Helen Lichter.
 

Von einem leichten Schatten vertrieben, sanken die Feuer des Himmels jäh zusammen.
 

Book Launch of On Synchronicity by Klasse John Morgan, 6–9pm at Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westphalen Düsseldorf.

With On Synchronicity, Klasse John Morgan has created a collection of narratives, visual storytelling, essays and poetry. The contributions are based on the authors‘ personal experiences with synchronicity and a place or object associated with those encounters. ‘Synchronicity‘ refers to the simultaneity of a certain internal state with an external event, in which both appear in full accordance with each other. The significance of such phenomena can range from getting a phone call from someone, at the precise moment you thought of them, to dreaming of a life-changing event that becomes real, through to deeply impactful symbolic or spiritual experiences.

The event is organized by Stella Jermann and Clara Maria Blasius
Special drinks by Eradj Yakubov
 

–––––––

Afterwards:
Celebration of Klasse John Morgan
From 10:30pm Salon des Amateurs 
with DJ Sets and Music by:

Private Sphere
Random Dudes
Mick Schmitt
Kris Kyri
 

November 6th, 2023

Inside Euphoria w/ Private Sphere & Geier Aus Stahl

We did a mix for Alex Tackenberg's show Inside Euphoria on Mutant Radio Tbilisi. A soundtrack for evenings full of whispering spirits and gloomy, ultraviolet neon lights. A slow succession of sonic scenes arranged by Oda and Helen Lichter of Private Sphere.

The seconf hour is provided by the artist Leonard Prochazka , better known under the name 'Geier aus Stahl', creates in his guest contribution a musical freedom between
psychedelic industrial, deep bass structures and an attitude between punk and avant-garde.

 

Photography by Stephanie Passul

 

Monthly selection of recent and all time favorites from the world by Viktor R. Gruen. Guest Session with Oda. 
 

Thursday, 18.4.2023 // Private Sphere DJs
from 8pm / DJs from 10pm

Reading from Critique of the Present with Jennifer Stevens: 
‘The Romanticism of the End of the World — Between the Enlightenment and the Idealisation of Natural History’

Acephale 
Luxemburger Str. 46
50674 Cologne

Artwork by Eradj Yakubov

Art, electronic music and a wine bar from 10–12 March at artrmx e.V.

From Friday to Sunday, the extended Noorden family will be gathering at the Atelierzentrum Ehrenfeld to present an exciting programme of music, ranging from listening sessions and back-to-back DJ sets to live performances.

 

Thursday, 29.12 // Private Sphere DJs
from 8pm / DJs from 9pm

Luxemburger Str. 46, 50674 Cologne

Artwork by Eradj Yakubov

 

Jan Hammer – Crockett’s Theme 

D.K. – Leaving 

AirCHINA – Clouds 

Easter – Split & Fly 

Insides – Darling Effect 

Biosphere – Ikata-1 

AirCHINA – Concorde 

Oskar Offermann – Do Pilots Still Dream Of Flying? 

Pantha du Prince – Welt am Draht (Die Vögel Version) 

Roedelius – Draußen Vorbei 
Boards of Canada – Seven Forty Seven 
AF13, Suzanne Ciani, Greg Leisz – Night Bunny (feat. Suzanne Ciani)
Dungen – Peri Banu vid sjön (Version) 
Dustin O'Halloran – An Ending, a Beginning 
Aphex Twin – Avril 14th
Movietone – The Crystallisation Of Salt At Night 
Holy Motors – Valley 
Michelle Gurevich  – Where Goes the Night 
Kreidler – Eurydike 
HTRK – Antitwilight II 
Dustin O’Halloran, A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Adam Wiltzie – So That The City Can Begin To Exist 
Squarepusher – Iambic 5 Poetry 
Aphex Twin – #3 

 

 

Published in Die Stadtführer*in – Was hat Stadt mit Patriarchat zu tun?
Magazine, Cologne, 2022
Edition of 200

“A scorching sun in the cold of winter. Gazing into Hackney skies. Glances, soft impressions, a tune on repeat. Touching, ever so gently. It's still so wonderful to feel.“

Neozaïre's second EP – or call it a mini album – for Private Sphere is all about an euphoria-fuelled and emotionally charged introspective. Leaving the exotic and sun-soaked realms of its predecessor, the seven short chapters of this new EP draw the artist’s signature soundscapes and mood sculptures in front of an urban scenery – finely draped between stories of interpersonal intimacies, romantic passion and unquenched desire. “You Know That It’s Real …“ aims to provide the listener with contemplative balance and a quiet moment of escape from the fast-paced anxieties of the urban everyday, its seductive back streets and lurking emotional rollercoasters.

November 2022 marks the 10th anniversary of Neozaïre's debut release One. The album was initially released in 2012 in a limited cassette edition and won a number of admirers with its pastoral sound layers that oscillate between ominous horizons and devotional, introverted phases of subtle euphoria.

The sound sculptures on One manifest the artist’s subjective impressions of the isolated landscapes of Iceland at the time, drawing on source material that is in part completely foreign to the species and recontextualised with the help of unsubtle tape manipulations.
To mark the anniversary, we are officially adopting the work into the Private Sphere cosmos in digital form and with a new cover art motif. The album was deliberately not remastered for this occasion in order to remain 100% true to the sound quality of the original.

All musical compositions and production by Neozaïre. Artwork for the 2022 re-release by Stephanie Passul.

The first part of our new series “Private Listening” is by our dear friend Daniel Garcia With “Alas”, the Spanish word for “wings”, Daniel lets us dive deep into his musical world for 60 minutes with a well-tempered mix of hazy downtempo and longing ambient electronica.

With L’insolencede ses mélanges, Private Sphere presents Le Ciel as a site-specific sound and video installation and the printed debut publications Edition L’insolence des es mélanges. The starting point for the works presented is the city of Marrakesh, which is transformed into a vague, subjectively perceived atmosphere through audiovisual sampling and photography. The video sequences are presented on an unpainted screen hanging from the ceiling in the centre of the room. The slightly translucent and seemingly free-floating screen picks up on the lightness of the motif and the paper texture of the publications.

11–16 December 2021  
La Felce, Senefelderstraße 3, 50825 Cologne
 

With the project Le Ciel, Stephanie Passul and Tobias Sawitzki, explore the construction of site-specific experience, memory and collective associations with places. Photographic image sequences and field recordings collected during a stay in Marrakesh served as the starting point for sound compositions that were published in the form of an ambient album and a photographic publication. For the exhibition L’insolence de ses mélanges, Le Ciel was conceived and presented as a site-specific sound and video installation.

1-channel video installation, sound loop, publication, ambient album
(cassette and digital release, running time 60 minutes)

Music by Tobias Sawitzki, Photography and Art Direction by Stephanie Passul

The edition L’insolence de ses mélanges is a collection of three photo magazines that bring together images photographed and collected during a stay in Marrakesh in 2019. Within the publications, the images form new subjective stories about the experience of the place. The image essay Cinq Filles Et Quelques Nuages combines personal photographs with media images of women that appeared in the cityscape of Marrakesh. Beauté Femmes Hygiène Hombres deals with the perception of female bodies and intimacy. The montage combines found images on the topics of hygiene and cosmetics from the encyclopaedia Famille 2000 with illustrations from Paul Verlaine’s poetry collection Femmes suivi de Hombres, both collected on site in Marrakesh. The selected images were cropped and re-staged, images of women and men presented in the same proportions as they appear in the original publication. Optimiste éternel distils all the red and pink tones from the images of the city of Marrakech from the publication Cinq Filles Et Quelques Nuages.

Photography, Art Direction and Production by Stephanie Passul

Lawrence English – Watching It Unfold 

Gigi Masin – Khalifa Golf Club 

Teho Teardo – Danger Danger Danger

Nick Cave & Warren Ellis – The Proposition #1 

Nine Inch Nails – 34 Ghosts IV 

DAF – Bild 19

Kreidler – Flood V 

Bohren & der Club of Gore – Sag mir, wie lang

Aphex Twin – #3