Style: Experimental indie, avant garde pop, anti-folk

Influences:
Scout Niblett, Herman Düne, X-Ray Spex, Regina Spektor, Kimya Dawson, Die Tödliche Doris, Malaria!, Mike Kelley (Destroy All Monsters)

Releases:

2013 BRUSH YOUR TEETH (debut album, released by Chicks On Speed Records)
upcoming:
Fall 2016 BEASTS & LONERS (released by Chicks On Speed Records)

About:
beißpony is based in the midst of a buzzing collective of artists and activists. Together with performers, musicians, visual artists and researchers they develop interactive live performances, sound installations and film projects.
Stephanie Müller is a visual artist and sociological researcher with a fierce love for experiments and improvisation. She has a master’s degree in communication science, sociology and psychology (LMU Munich). Still studying she launched her textile and media art project rag*treasure. Stephanie performs as a “sewing agent“. She has been playing the Singer, an amplified sewing machine which can be used as a musical instrument, since 2002.
Together with Laura Melis Theis, an Oxford based songwriter with a background in theater and literature, she initiated the experimental music project beißpony. Besides the Singer, Stephanie plays the drums and modified typewriters, umbrellas or vacuum cleaners. In October 2013 their debut album was released on Chicks On Speed Records. Since then it has been lavished with praise by the music press. “They place socio-political critique in the minds of their listeners with pinpoint power”, comments the SZ (the largest German national subscription daily newspaper). “It has been ages that any newcomer from Germany has caught our attention in such a dramatic, emotional and unobtrusively infectious way” writes Piranha magazine, likening the sound to Nick Cave and Coco Rosie. The Bavarian Broadcasting Company is infatuated with their “wonderful performance art” and includes them in their Top 5 list of 2013.
In May 2014 the International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen shortlists beißpony’s video artwork for the prestigious muVi award.
In September 2014 beißpony were invited for an artist in residence programme at the art centre deFENIKS in Antwerp. The sholarship was supported by the British Arts Council.
In December 2014 their video artwork was selected for the international art festival ART STREET SAPPORO (Japan). The music videos have been directed and created by Klaus Erich Dietl, a visual artist with a background in literature and cinematography.
In May 2015 the beißpony artwork team (Klaus Erich Dietl and Stephanie Müller) was invited for an exhibition and a public recording project to Sapporo (Japan). This art and music exchange programme was supported by the Tenjinyama Art Studio and the cultural department of Munich. In September 2015 Aoi Swimming, a young musician and performer from Sapporo, will come to Munich for a collaboration project with beißpony. This exchange programme is also supported by the cultural department of Munich.
Last year beißpony was awarded the „Förderpreis Musik“ by the city of Munich.
In July and August 2015 Stephanie Müller and Klaus Erich Dietl just received a sholarship for an artist in residence in Lviv (Ukraine).
Recent highlights include a multimedia theater at the Museumsqaurtier in Vienna, an invitation by the Kunsthalle Schirn (Frankfurt a. Main) to take part in the project “Playing the City”, a sound composition for the Städel Museum (Frankfurt a. Main) and a sound art performance at the ZKM Karlsruhe. Other highlights include the composition of an audioguide on behalf of the cultural department of the state city of Munich. The beißpony collective was invited to develop and produce a portable radio drama based on the history of the women’s movement.
At the moment the beißpony collective is working on its first full length feature film “A False Word” (script > Klaus Erich Dietl, film music > 48nord and beißpony, costume design > Stephanie Müller). This film art project is investigating new strategies and perspectives for cinematographic narration.