In this fresh conversation, I meet Concrete Husband, flutist, producer, DJ, and rising figure in the New York club underground, whose new EP Your Bitter Tears is a visceral descent into cinematic madness. Inspired by Fassbinder’s cult classic The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant and fresh off composing flute music for A24’s Beau Is Afraid, Concrete Husband talks about turning psychological collapse into industrial soundscapes, confronting darkness on Berghain’s dancefloor, and why dark techno is, above all, sexy.
Your Bitter Tears feels like a sonic descent into Petra’s fractured psyche. How did you translate her psychological unraveling into sound design and structure?
Concrete Husband: In every track there’s an intensification of the sound design. Her unraveling in the film becomes more outwardly distressed, and in my mind, that was directly lining up with how these tracks were developing. The first track, “It All Depends” felt like this murky, smoky fantasy. I thought a lot about the motif of that high, sparkly sound in that track and connecting it to Petra’s delusional behavior, especially at the beginning of the films. Over the course of the EP the music gets more dissonant, distorted and manic–to the point where we arrive at heavy, polyrhythmic, industrial tracks. “Beg on Your Knees,” the penultimate track, is where it just explodes.
You’ve said this is your “darkest techno” yet. Was there a specific moment, personal or political, that pulled you into that darker register?
I had just spent an entire month in Berlin in late Fall. I was having a magical time, but Berlin was dark and intense. I don’t think the sun came out all month, and it got cold very fast. I was spending too much time at Berghain, and I remember at the end of one night, when Developer and Dax J had been playing and their sets made everyone particularly unhinged, I remember telling my friends, “I’m really scared right now,” and my friend—this cute, sweet blonde girl—said, in a thick German accent, “You think this is really scary? Oh you’re funny.” She just laughed at me, while I was looking out into this madhouse.
That experience of seeing the difference in how we relate to the darkness of sound, how some people find pleasure in the pain of intimacy and some don’t, how some find pleasure in darkness and some can’t find that: it kind of woke back up the darkness for me. And then when I got back to New York and started making this record, it was right after Trump got reelected, and it felt like everybody around me was losing a sense of not just reality but optimism. There was a cultural unraveling. Everything was shifting so quickly.
Fassbinder’s Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant is iconic for its visual extremes. How did its saturated aesthetic bleed into your sound palette?
The colors in that film are crazy. For me, what ties those saturated colors to sound is grit. I think grit, noise and distortion—those add colors to sound and are what give this music its personality.
You’ve started to work on film scores, including the flute music for A24’s Beau is Afraid. Would you say that “Your Bitter Tears” is meant to blur the lines between techno and film scoring?
Ultimately, the intro track is the one that’s meant to sound most like a film score, as if the credits are playing before the movie begins, and I made that track years ago, in 2021 maybe, long before I had ever started doing any film scoring work.
The album is mainly drawing inspiration from the abstract ideas and emotions experienced in the film. Sonically it does not aim to be score-like in a traditional sense. When I am scoring, I want to create sonic environments in which clear emotional and psychological states are felt. Similarly, with this ep, each track had a specific image or moment in mind from the film, which I wanted the melodic and textural materials to evoke.
Your identity as a flutist, DJ, and producer sets you apart in the New York club scene, how do those roles collide or contradict in a Concrete Husband set?
They all inform each other, and they’re all present in each other, no matter if I’m DJing, playing live, or composing. There is always information from the avant garde, classical, and techno worlds I’ve grown up in. These sounds are ingrained in my body, quite literally, from DJing, playing an instrument, and dancing at the club. There is no separation between them at all.
With my upcoming unreleased album Aliento, I’ve had both techno producers and experimental producers notice things and say “It really sounds like techno!” even though it isn’t that at all. But my ear is trained to hear techno sound design, because that’s what I play. And the same way, when I’m mixing techno, I think very much about the fundamentals of music making, the functions of phrasing structure, and how to create emotion with that. That’s how you create a surge of energy on the dance floor. I wouldn’t be able to mix the way I do without my classical and composer brain, and I wouldn’t be able to do my live sets and have an opinion, without my DJ brain.
“I think the club allows you to both have a catharsis but it can also be a moment to confront yourself, you know? Confront your demons.”
Techno is often about escape, but your work confronts grief, queerness, and political despair head-on. Do you see the club as a space for catharsis or confrontation?
For me, it’s both, honestly. I think people experience very harsh truths and very beautiful moments in the club. I’m thinking about the girls on ecstasy having a great time and the bitch who g’d out: they both exist in the same space for me. I think the club allows you to both have a catharsis but it can also be a moment to confront yourself, you know? Confront your demons. At a techno club, it’s okay to be by yourself, to tune into yourself your body, and the music, and tune out everybody else.
What emotional state do you want to leave people in after they experience Your Bitter Tears live? Should they be dancing, dissociating, or calling their ex?
No matter what the concept is, I want people to feel sexy. Dark music is sexy. Industrial music is sexy. Hypnotic techno is sexy. They definitely should be wanting to dance, but also, there’s a trance-like quality to all of these tracks. It almost feels like you’re being held by the throat, and you like it. It’s part of the feeling. Like, I’m hurting you a bit, but you want some more.
