Hope and Fear / WGT 2025

Music | Spotlight
Leipzig once again became a sanctuary for the beautifully strange and the defiantly different, hosting the Wave-Gotik Treffen 2025. Here our annual report with some images of the beautiful people and our favorite bands who made this edition one to remember.

Echoes Under the Skin / Madwoman

Music | Interview
MADWOMAN is a presence, part instinct, part ritual. She sketches tracks in moments of emotional chaos, paints to ground herself, and finds energy in unexpected places like American football.

Silhouettes of Sound / Kate Miao

Music | Interview
Raised on metal riffs and post-punk distortion, sharpened by the architecture of code, and softened by surrealist brushstrokes, Kate Miao—the Copenhagen-based DJ, label head, and creative technologist—moves through sound like static on silk: sharp, sensual, and unpredictable. Under the banners of Miao Music and Unlinked Recordings, she sculpts multidimensional spaces where techno, trance, and ambient dreamwork glitch, collide, and are reborn. Between control and collapse, between the logic of systems and the chaos of art, her sets become emotional architectures—her parties, living organisms.

Sing in me, Muse / Lyra Pramuk

Music | Interview
Shaped by ancient, primordial tones, Lyra Pramuk’s music is a pluralistic blend of philosophical and theological structures, each deeply embedded in her sonic practice.

Breaking the Mask / DeathbyRomy

Music | Interview
Raised amid the sun-drenched illusions and hard realities of Los Angeles, Romy channels the city’s beauty and brutality through an uncompromising lens, revealing the many versions of herself that have survived and evolved.

Road to Whole Festival / 2025

Music | Spotlight
Returning for its seventh edition, WHOLE Festival lands once again in the surreal open-air museum of Ferropolis, a post-industrial landmark turned queer utopia. From July 18 to 21, the iron giants of Gräfenhainichen will host one of Europe’s most celebrated queer electronic festivals — a temporary zone of music, resistance, and embodied freedom.

Age of Venera / EMILIJA

Music | Interview
EMILIJA takes center stage in this NASTY digital cover story. No stranger to the shadows of the dancefloor, she’s a bold presence in the techno scene, weaving sound, style, and a raw feminine force that refuses to be boxed in. On the launch of her new party series Age of Venera, we tapped into her mindset to uncover the deeper vision behind the project: ritual, rebellion, divine rage, and the sensual chaos of becoming. This isn’t just nightlife. It’s initiation. Paired with an exclusive shoot by the NASTY creative team: Marco Giuliano behind the lens and Anca Macavei on styling, EMILIJA emerges in her raw, neo-Venus element.

Movement Is the Message / A chat with Sam Quealy

Music | Interview
Her world is built on distortion—of genre, gender, glamour. Raised in Australia, based in Paris, shaped by club nights, theatre stages, and a deep obsession with movement, Quealy merges hyperpop, techno, and raw performance into something that’s part spectacle, part exorcism.

Road to Stone Festival / 2025

Music | Highlights
Bridging industrial heritage with forward-thinking electronic music, Stone Techno Festival will take place from July 11 to 13 with a renewed vision. Set once again within the monumental backdrop of Zollverein in Essen—a UNESCO World Heritage Site—this unique event continues to intertwine the cultural memory of the Ruhr area with the evolving language of contemporary club music.

Road to Dekmantel / 2025

Music | Spotlight
Dekmantel returns to Amsterdam from July 30 to August 3 for its 11th edition. After last year’s extended celebration, the festival shifts back to its original format—shorter, more concise, but still packed with heavy hitters and fresh talent.

Upclose 2025 and the New Rave Intimacy

Music | Spotlight
In the green heart of Spaarnwoude, the 2025 edition of Upclose proved that, in the swirling sea of summer festivals, it’s still possible to do something essential: cut the excess. Eliminate the distance. Put the human back at the center.

Road to Wave-Gotik-Treffen 2025

Music | Spotlight
Every year goths from all over the World re-unite in Leipzig, Germany, for the most important music festival dedicated to dark, industrial and post-punk sub-cultures. We will be there to give you our live impressions from the festival; can’t wait to see you all among the dusky crowd.