Berlin has long functioned as a pressure chamber for music that refuses easy categorisation — a city where disciplined experimentation and raw intensity have historically found productive cohabitation. Tonnen Von Hall operate squarely within that tradition. The trio’s collective résumé reads like a cross-section of the progressive underground’s most uncompromising territories: Markus Reuter, Touch Guitar master and central figure in Stick Men and The Crimson ProjeKct, brings a textural intelligence forged across decades navigating the outer limits of Fripp‘s lineage. Alexander Paul Dowerk, Touch Guitar player and producer, channels the kinetic energy of Modern Metal into the architecture of contemporary composition. Asaf Sirkis, whose credentials as a percussionist run deep through the international Jazz circuit, holds the rhythmic centre with surgical authority. Three instrumentalists, three distinct but convergent practices — a combination that resists easy pigeonholing precisely because each element pulls with equal force. “Donnermesser EP,” released May 29, 2026 via Unsung Records, is emphatically not a remix record, nor a deluxe repackaging of the band’s 2025 debut “Ein Abdruck vom Messer im Herzen.” It is something more deliberate: an alternate vision — a full reconstruction of the original compositions, designed from the ground up for greater impact, directness, and confrontation. Dowerk recorded new guitar parts on Kiesel Kyber and Hapas Ashen instruments, and the result carries a different centre of gravity from its predecessor: heavier at the core, more abrasive at the edges, yet no less precise in its internal architecture. The title-track, “Donnermesser,” establishes the EP’s character without ceremony. Dowerk‘s Touch Guitar traces intricate, constantly shifting rhythmic structures, while Sirkis constructs the kind of polyrhythmic scaffolding that gives the band’s Tech-Math vocabulary room to develop without losing compositional direction. The track is further distinguished by the guest contributions of Jan Zehrfeld — founder of Panzerballett and one of the most technically rigorous guitarists working in the Progressive Metal field — whose two solos pierce the dense fabric of the arrangement with formidable precision, adding sharpness to an already sharply focused piece. “Endgegner” follows as a concentrated payload. Barely over three and a half minutes of focused technique and controlled power, the track’s brevity reads as a design decision rather than a constraint: every element compressed, nothing wasted, the impact delivered with economy. “Kanister” pivots the EP toward more sophisticated ground, probing the outer limits of Jazz-Metal and Fusion with measured authority. The harmonic language is more pliable here, the tension less abrasive, the structural approach more open to suggestion. The track fuses the sophistication and expressive freedom of Jazz with the heavier traits of modern Progressive Metal, and it does so with a balance that many in this territory only approximate. Sally Gates — New Zealand-born guitarist based in New York, known for her work with Titan to Tachyons and as a collaborator of John Zorn — delivers the guest solo with a character that fits the piece precisely: probing, technically assured, and unconstrained by any single genre convention. “Zwischenstück” functions as a deliberate caesura — a brief, markedly experimental interlude that opens a dilated sonic space between the EP’s heavier movements, neither filling the gap nor rushing to close it. Its minute of attenuated atmosphere earns its place exactly because it asks nothing of the listener beyond momentary suspension. “Thronfolge” reinstates the density without transition. Polyrhythmic frameworks and heavy, darkly interlocking textures return in full; the drumming accumulates continuous tempo shifts, steering the track firmly into Dark Prog/Math-Metal territory. Deep tones and distorted solo interventions cut through the technical wall of sound with a controlled aggression, sustaining tension through to the final bar with a consistency that makes the track’s relative brevity feel more like compression than truncation. “Rauschmitte” closes the EP in a state that approaches hypnosis. Repeated melodic figures form the structural spine over which extended improvised passages unfold across the border between Jazz and Free Fusion — long, searching, unhurried. The decisive presence is Norwegian saxophonist Jørgen Munkeby — founder of Shining, architect of the Blackjazz aesthetic, and long-standing collaborator of Ihsahn — whose saxophone, recorded at Shining Studios, drives the piece into genuinely Extreme territory. Electronic textures surface at certain junctures; the drumming pursues its characteristic restlessness, refusing to settle into pattern; and the composition unfolds through a series of refined and purposefully sought sonic ideas, the saxophone ultimately functioning as a final, destabilising accent in what is already an exercise in avant-prog controlled excess. “Donnermesser” locates the precise convergence between Jazz/Fusion’s technical rigour and the force of modern Progressive/Math-Metal — and holds that position with uncommon steadiness. The drumming constructs the architecture; the sharp riffs and technically demanding solo interjections develop within it, turning each track into an exploratory sequence that moves freely between genre territories without ever losing the through-line of the band’s own logic. The precision is real, but it is never cold: these are compositions that think as well as execute. The production is the work of Alexander Paul Dowerk, with drums recorded at Horus Sound Studio in Hannover, and guitars and soundscapes tracked in respective home studios in Berlin and Schneckenhausen. Mixed by Fabio Trentini and mastered by Erik Emil Eskildsen, the record renders every nuance of the performances without sacrificing the compactness and tension central to the band’s sound — the mix knowing precisely when to let that sound expand, and when to hold it tightly in place. What distinguishes Tonnen Von Hall from the broader field of technically oriented guitar-led projects is not raw capability alone, but the discipline with which that capability is deployed, and a rigorous self-direction that extends from the compositions through to the project’s visual identity. Those listening from within the orbit of Animals as Leaders, Polyphia, or the more Extreme currents of Jazz-Metal will find immediate points of entry — but Tonnen Von Hall have developed an approach that is, at every level, distinctly and unmistakably their own.
Tracklist
01. Donnermesser [2026 Alternate Version] (06:29)
02. Endgegner [2026 Alternate Version] (03:37)
03. Kanister [2026 Alternate Version] (06:02)
04. Zwischenstück (01:01)
05. Thronfolge [2026 Alternate Version] (03:07)
06. Rauschmitte [2026 Alternate Version] (05:25)
Lineup
Alexander Paul Dowerk / Touch Guitars U8 Deluxe and S8, Kiesel Kyber, Hapas Ashen
Markus Reuter / Touch Guitars S8 and AU8, Loops and Soundscapes
Asaf Sirkis / Drums and Percussion
With:
Jan Zehrfeld / Guitar solos (1)
Sally Gates / Guitar solo (3)
Jørgen Munkeby / Sax (6), Recorded at Shining Studios