Anja Huwe has never followed a straight line in her artistic journey; instead, she is guided by a synesthetic sense of connection between color, form, sound, and even time. With PolarForest, she bridges nearly four decades of creative evolution, weaving together her 1987 Xmal Deutschland single “Polarlicht” and her 2024 solo track “Living in the Forest.” The result is a spectral fusion of past and present—a glacial thread binding her post-punk legacy to her reemergence in the world of music.
The idea struck on New York’s 1st Avenue: a stranger’s boombox hurled two unrelated tracks together, and the accidental graft lit a fuse in Huwe’s head. Back in Berlin she joined Mona Mur at Studio Katana, re-cutting Polarlicht and letting Living in the Forest bleed into its veins. Manuela Rickers looped that unmistakable polar guitar, while Jon Caffery iced the hybrid in the mix.
Polarlicht drifts on the glimmer of the aurora, Anja’s voice circling the mantra as if willing the lights to burn brighter. The result is a collision of glacial synth peals and thick woodland drone, Anja’s younger self chanting “scheine, scheine” against her current, steel-edged vocal lines. Northern lights meet undergrowth, sparkle meets soil. When segments of Living in the Forest cut in, her tone hardens, trading hushed wonder for a serrated edge. The splice sets icy awe against simmering unrest, northern radiance colliding with earthbound fury – beauty refracted through a lens of quiet, gathering rage.
The accompanying video fuses Huwe’s collaged visuals with footage from COAX, ARCHETYPE, the art-and-dance venture of Rica Blunck and Nicolas Anatol Baginsky, turning the song’s genetic splice into a restless, flickering tableau. PolarForest is temporal trespass, a restless dialogue between two eras, proving Huwe’s creative compass still swings between aurora and undergrowth, always pointing somewhere strange and bright.
Watch the video for “PolarForest” below:
PolarForest is out now via Sacred Bones Records. Listen to the track below and order the single here.
You can read our interview with Anja Huwe here.
Catch her live in Europe on the following dates:
- May 17 – DOUBLE-DARE Festival, Ghent, Belgium
- May 30 – Hard Club, Porto, Portugal
- May 31 – Republic de Music, Lisbon, Portugal
- July 10 – 13 – Castle Party Festival, Bolkow, Poland
- Sept 20 – 21 – Death Disco Athens Open Air Festival, Athens, Greece
Follow Xmal Deutschland:
Or via: