Brutalismus 3000’s Harmony Review: Hardcore Grows in Every Direction
Review by Cara Col – Photo by: Tom Funk
Brutalismus 3000 broke into the Berlin hard techno scene like one would a Doc Marten, stretching it and shaping it to fit however they needed it to. They sounded like DAF filtered through Mokum Records: hard gabber kicks, witchy synths, and riot grrrl vocals. By the release of their debut album ULTRAKUNST (2023), Victoria Vassiliki Daldas and Theo Zeitner had stretched their nu-gabber sound to fit electroclash, house, hyperpop, and hip hop, creating raw and infectious dance hits that gyrate the club, the rave, or your headphones.
The anticipation for their sophomore album Harmony was high; however, there was some concern that their wide exploration would dampen the edgy authenticity of their music, especially when they began to sound (gasp) pop. But, B3K’s authenticity lies in a staunch rejection of any boundary that tries to restrict.
Like Daldas shouts in the opening track of the album: “there is no friends at the border.” Brutalismus has turned genre into a suggestion through which to explore the broader feeling of electronic music. They have created fertile soil on top of which their sound grows like a tree branching out in every direction. Harmony is the ripe fruit ready for picking.
B3K sandwiches their sweetest pop moments in between pure hardcore experimentation, sometimes all within minutes of one track. The wonderful flexibility of visceral hardcore rhythm and the duo’s rough punk attitude with twinges of politically-charged irony (like sophisticated and meaningful trolling) are the running threads that harmonize the brostep bloghouse nu-metal trap early hardcore chaos.
The first tracks show just how anti-techno the duo can be. “No Friends in the Company” is noisy and industrial until the drops bring a grimy hip hop bass, and wraps up with a full-on metal guitar riff. ‘”Garland” continues this bouncy hip hop energy with a heavy 808 and trilling hi-hats that get engulfed by gabber electro house kick.
This sound is reminiscent of their collaboration with ISO xo on the song “SPIRAL,” a heavy trap hit with a bass house twist over which Daldas slides. Seriously, her yell-along chants give way into a flow in Slovak that is confidently pulled off. She captures that energy in Harmony once again through her rage chants, growls, and even mock whispers, but her English rapping is generic, leaving a certain personal touch to be desired.
With the melodic sleaziness of “Mother Bug,” Brutalismus 3000 invites you to The Function, and then warns you that “I Bring My Gun to the Function.” The single baits you into comfort with soft piano keys, just for a sudden wobbly bass line to pull you straight into solid house-y kicks, and a fried saw synth with distorted vocals that sometimes go nightcore high-laced through, singing about paranoid protection. In collaboration with renowned DJ and producer Boys Noize, Zeitner and Daldas present a dark bloghouse anthem with dubstep accents that contain only vague references to their gabber origins but that still maintain a Brutalismus 3000 weirdness through daring production and dynamic vocal performances.
This ability to stretch hardcore beyond recognition but recoil it back to a familiar shape makes some of the most interesting moments on the album, like the insane collaboration with Underworld, “Friends at the Pigshed.” The hypnotic hard kicks of this track guide you through a dark, humid tunnel where Karl Hyde’s looping chant of “let it rain, let it, let it rain, let it” echo around a euphoric skipping synth that washes over you, morphing into Dalda’s bittersweet singing.
This is my favorite song on the album, and maybe even my favorite Brutalismus 3000 song. It is beautiful, heartfelt, and slightly painful; It feels like a joy that can only come after disillusionment, or a breath caught between sobs. It is a testament to the cathartic release at the heart of electronic music.
Something similar happens in songs like “Kairo,” where Daldas sounds like vocaloid from hell, introducing you to a happy hardcore banger with dubstep use of negative space; and “Testo Skin Pt 1,” with synths so distorted that they almost sound like electric guitars and a 2010 plucky melody.
All the while, a song like “Gore Louvre” will be placed between, satiating any desire for hardstyle by quickly fading into a fat, distorted gabber kick and a saturated bassline. Daldas delivers raspy confrontational chants that are somewhere between Atari Teenage Riot and Miss Kittin as she shouts “Cabmaaaaann, yeah we got to gore Louvre.”
The limitless imagination of Harmony has always been at the center of techno and its hardcore subgenres. From Afrofuturists in Detroit, to squatters in Berlin and to gabbers worldwide, hardcore has offered raw energy and release to fuel self-creation and community. It is this cathartic force that has pulled many Gen Z listeners to the music, and to Brutalismus 3000. The fact that they were catapulted to global visibility in 2020 by TikTok virality made many in the Berlin scene dismiss any chance at substance. This resurgence of hardcore was treated like the next trend Gen Z will chew up and spit out.
Now half a decade later, it’s clear that hardcore is not a nostalgic trend: it is a cross-continental exchange of feeling and expression. In addition to B3K, European artists like Yabujin (aka DJ GYROTTA ZAO) and Danny L Harle also shaped hardcore to their own vision. A couple of years ago in Indonesia, Ican and DJ Kasimyn formed Gabber Modus Operandis, innovating gabber on gamelan scales. Across the Americas, hardcore is merging with homegrown trap, reggaeton, baile funk, guaracha and cumbia with artists like Rocket Reese, Safety Trance, CRRDR, Aleroj, and White Prata.
If you walk around with a keen eye on the streets of Chicago, you may catch a flyer for a hardcore rave organized by furries in an undisclosed location. You may catch a fokken brutal hard techno set from Flores Negras, a juke gabber set by Vales Madres, or pure hardstyle from DJ Aviator. Hardcore is at its most flexible and malleable state right now. Harmony succeeds because it embraces this moment of boundless experimentation, proving that hardcore’s future lies in transformation.
Brutalismus 3000 – Harmony
June 26th, 2026
1. No Friends In The Company
2. Garland
3. A Milli
4. Mother Bug
5. I Bring My Gun To The Function (with Boys Noize)
6. Kairo
7. Morning Is For The Happy (with Anya Taylor-Joy)
8. You Were Never Really Here But I Miss Ya
9. Friends At The Pigshed (with Underworld)
10. Gore Louvre
11. Leonard Cohen
12. Testo Skin Part 1
13. Testo Skin Part 2
Brutalismus 3000 Tour Dates:
7/2 – Roskilde, DK @ Foreningen Roskilde Festival
7/3 – Valencia, ES @ Basto Festival
7/11 – Neuve-Eglise, FR @ Festival Décibulle
7/25 – Aragon, ES @ Monegros Desert Festival
7/31 – Montreal, CA @ Osheaga Festival
8/1 – Los Angeles, CA @ Hard Summer
8/2 – Los Angeles, CA @ Hard Summer (b2b with Boys Noize)
8/14 – Slovakia, SK @ Grape Festival
8/15 – Winchester, UK @ Boomtown Festival
8/22 – Charleville-Mézières, FR @ Festival La Cabaret Vert
9/5 – Miami, FL @ Factory Town
9/6 – Chicago, IL @ Arc Festival
9/25 – Brooklyn, NY @ CBGB Festival (with The Prodigy)
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Brutalismus 3000 Links:
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brutalismus3000.official
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brutalismus3000/
