“Lieber Tot” as a Sign of Life: Berlin Goes Wave Again – New Festival at ÆDEN
Mark your calendars: September 12–13, 2025, is when Lieber Tot takes over Club ÆDEN in Berlin. And no, it’s not a death wish—it’s a brand-new festival for fans of electronic and alternative sounds. Alongside a fresh and unusual line-up, the festival is teaming up with Antina Christ's Spook House to fuse synth-wave club culture with an underground drag show—plus it’s bringing together the who’s who of synth-wave DJs from all over Europe. I got curious and sat down with Paura Diamante from the organizing team to dig a little deeper.
Lieber Tot – Quick Facts & Line-up
If you’re already convinced after just this intro, here’s what you need to know:
Tickets are still available—both days for €69, single-day tickets for €39, or if you’re just in it for the late-night fun, “party only” tickets after midnight are €15. All sales are online (card/phone payment only on-site). You’ll find the full line-up on the festival’s website, complete with links.
Fun fact: She Can’t Afford Mascara already caught our eye back in 2021 in the Danish documentary Dark Blossom. Everything else I found exciting, unusual, or worth sharing I collected in an interview with Paura Diamante.
Lieber Tot Festival – Interview with Paura Diamante
The name “Lieber Tot” (“Rather Dead”) can be interpreted in a lot of ways. What’s your take?
The name was honestly a spur-of-the-moment thing—no intellectual concept behind it. We were tossing around ideas, and at one point I said about another event, “I’d rather be dead than go there.” Else Edelstahl looked at me, we both laughed, and said together: Lieber Tot! And that was it.
How did the idea for the festival come about, and who’s behind it?
The festival is organized by Else Edelstahl, Testbild, Sharleen Voyage, and myself. We’ve all been involved in Berlin nightlife for years—whether as promoters or DJs—and we all have deep roots in the wave scene. Germany and Europe are full of amazing synth- and minimal-wave festivals, so it honestly felt embarrassing that Berlin, of all places, didn’t have one. Especially since this city is built on such a rich and diverse underground tradition. We just wanted to fill that gap.
The flyer already caught my eye at WGT, and the website plus visual artwork are stunning—a wild mashup of gothic aesthetics spanning 40 years. At times it feels like Gothic on steroids. Is this the new direction?
The visual ideas didn’t actually come from gothic culture first, but from Bauhaus and Russian avant-garde. We didn’t want the usual 80s synth-wave look or the typical goth clichés—we wanted something harsher, stranger, with more edge. For the logo and typefaces, we worked with Russian illustrator Ivan Kuleshov, who nailed exactly what we had in mind. Else and I then expanded on that vibe for the web and Instagram design.
As for Gothic: we actually think it deserves to become an extroverted art form again. The scene—of which we’ve been a part for over 30 years—has settled into familiar patterns over time. That’s not meant as a criticism, more as an observation. Fashion, music, flyers, promo—it all feels a bit stuck in place. Since we also draw inspiration from outside the bubble, we wanted to look at it with fresh eyes and without fear. The fact that people still perceive the result as “gothic” just shows how much potential for reinvention the scene continues to have.
Your musical curation is on point. “Die Tödin” seemed like a must-have—especially since she’s featured on the flyer. How did you put together the line-up?
Unfortunately, Die Tödin had to cancel just a few days ago due to health reasons. Which is a real shame—she was actually the first person we asked. To us, she represents a radical renewal of the scene: borrowing from clichés but creating something totally unexpected out of them. We’re working hard to find a worthy replacement. (Organizer update: A replacement for Die Tödin has been found. We’re excited to announce a live show by the EBM/synth duo Staatseinde from Utrecht, NL.)
In general, we wanted a mix of electronic expressions—from proto-NDW to synth- and minimal-wave, to EBM and avant-garde approaches like Paris’s Madmoizel. And, of course, we booked acts we personally love.
The sound ranges from experimental to catchy, from provocative to sweet synthpop to hammering EBM—a sharp contrast to mainstream festivals. Do you see this as evolution or a throwback?
Both. We all love 80s electronic bands, but a pure retro approach eventually runs dry. Right now, there’s a cool fusion of synth- and minimal-wave with contemporary club sounds—artists like Eddie Dark or She Can’t Afford Mascara are pushing that. You can feel it as a DJ too: people used to just want their favorite tracks, but now they’re open to being surprised. That openness influenced Lieber Tot a lot.
There are also plenty of drag acts on the program—not typical for a synth festival. How does that fit in?
On Saturday, Antina Christ is curating a drag show. She’s one of the few queens in Berlin blending goth and drag at her regular Spook House nights. For us, it was important to put drag on equal footing with the bands. Drag often gets dismissed as simple lipsync entertainment with no artistic value—we see it differently. What Antina and others do is a full-on art form in itself, even if it uses other people’s music.
Drag is an art form that, for me, stands for a colorful and extroverted kind of rebellion, symbolizing the fight for freedom and radiating a lot of joy. How does that fit with a festival called “Lieber Tot”?
I’d disagree with that. Yes, drag—just like music—is an extroverted art form. It’s clearly about being seen and heard. But drag isn’t always necessarily about joy. Many drag performers use the stage to express their pain or to scream out their political resistance in a radical way. In that sense, artists like Christina Corpse fit perfectly into an anti-concept like Lieber tot.
After the live acts, the DJ line-up reads like the who’s who of the European wave scene. How’s the schedule set up?
Both nights kick off at 7 PM at ÆDEN, which has two stages and a magical garden. Until midnight, the live acts alternate between the two floors. After that, it shifts into a classic club night. That’s why we offer cheaper “party only” tickets too—we want people to join even if they’re not into live shows. We felt it was better flow to keep concerts before the club night instead of stretching them until morning.
One last question: you even link to the German Association for Suicide Prevention on your homepage. Do you think there’s a danger in running a festival that calls itself “dystopian electronics for morose people”?
No, not really. Still, it was important to us to make clear that playing with artistic ideas of death and dying can be walking a fine line. In the gothic scene especially, these terms and images are used very casually. But here, they’re more of a symbol for a radically consistent stance of refusal. At the same time, it matters to us to frame this as an artistic form of expression. In a world shaped by wars, where death and dying are very real, and in a social media society that still struggles to deal with depression or suicidal thoughts, we felt it was important to at least acknowledge the seriousness of the topic.
Text and interview by Robert Forst for spontis.de