The Cool Kids: MIT

Meeting MIT is like hanging out with the coolest kids back in school. There is the enigmatic, quiet one, who I’m sure gets all the girls (drummer Felix), there is the witty and wordy one, who we're sure gets all the girls, too (Moog master Tamer) and then there is the geeky and obscurely intriguing one, who probably isn’t even interested in girls (singer Edi). Together they form the genre-defying yet future-of-music-defining German band MIT, who describe their music as “being relatively limited, absolutely focused and taking place between extremely narrow boundaries” that the band impose on themselves with their refusal to touch neither guitar nor bass instruments.

However, with all these self-imposed restrictions, the three boys from Cologne still manage to sound extraordinarily “dense, dark, many-layered and full” as Tamer likes to call it. Gigwise would call it genuinely, distortedly and ingeniously bonkers. When asked about their current tour in the UK, they reply, nonchalant with beer in hand and fag in mouth, that “this time everything is more relaxed and better organised” than their early gigs, which they ended up paying themselves most of the time. Keyboardist and stand-up part-time drummer Tamer reminisces about their first ever gig supporting Peaches to a packed crowd in Cologne and follows that up by explaining that their second gig was already over here in London for White Heat.
 
Back then nerves and excitement were running high for the boys, who count diverse artistic movements like Dadaism or Minimalism to their influences, whilst also mentioning that “emulating Bloc Party’s beats helped [them] to develop [their] unique sound.” Generally, they seem to be quite unfazed by what’s happening in the so-called scene, naming unknown bands like Dillon or Jolly Goods as some of their favourite artists and MIT are still amazed that they have been embraced by the very hard to infiltrate British scene, too. Touching on the notion that apart from singing in German, they don’t sound particularly German, the band vigorously oppose, stating that they think they “do sound very German in a particular 80s dark wave kind of German” dropping names like Malaria! or naturally, Kraftwerk and Fehlfarben.

Upon enquiring about their biggest musical dream the boys declare that they would love to play Japan but aren’t to keen on any big festivals- “too bright” being the general consensus. Following that up with the question of any of their musical heroes or any other band they would like to join, the threesome present themselves as the epitome of content, with Tamer happily stating “I don’t wanna be in any other band!”