The singer from Leipzig will release a new album (Boomslang) this fall.

Pauline Réage are starting a new chapter: For the first time, they will present their new album at the Leipzig Jazz Festival; the album, set to be released in November on Boomslang Records, follows their debut album, *Gentle Destruction*, which came out two years ago.

It’s titled “DLYD,” short for “Don’t live your dreams.” While this may sound fatalistic, it points to a struggle with both external and internal expectations that repeatedly threaten to narrow one’s view of what’s possible. The stylistic and compositional elements are strikingly diverse, ranging from a cappella and noise to metal, pop, and avant-garde. Jazz, in its many forms of expression, is the common thread here, and singer and bandleader Anne Munka clearly knows the preferences and strengths of her virtuoso band members well.

This gives Olga Reznichenko and Robert Lucaciu—both of whom were recently awarded the German Jazz Prize this year—the space to shine instrumentally in this programmatic back-and-forth. Maximilian Breus’s unpretentious, expressive drumming lends the sound the necessary drive. In this way, the quartet spans a wide dramatic arc: at times intimate and moving, at times rough and brash, yet always unpredictable. 

To complement this, Pauline Réage has invited Demian Kappenstein as a guest musician exclusively for this special concert. Under his alias TAPE SHIFTER, he experiments with old music cassettes, drum machines, and synthesizers. On stage, Kappenstein—a musical chameleon—will expand the quartet’s live dynamics with an additional layer of improvisation.