(Treibender Teppich Records, Stuttgart)

After getting their kickstart as an ambitious art project at Stuttgart's State Academy of Fine Arts, Horizontaler Gentransfer (HGT) quickly became a sensation: six female artists with a migrant background who combine german Punk and K-Pop in their songs, building cultural bridges through their pointed lyrics: "Empowerment Karaoke", as the group calls it. There are songs about being foreigners in the most bureaucratic city in Germany: Stuttgart. Songs with diverse subjects as racism, the Swabian staple butter pretzels - are combining quotes from fine art or literature - such as the Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard.

In concerts they try to establish the whole package of Punk as a total artwork - moderations, video animations, self made costumes: „The aim of the HGT is to make people dizzy and nobody knows what's going on." 

The few gigs the combo played last year at festivals such as About Pop, Most Wanted: Music or blechsonne left a lasting impression.

HGT's upcoming second album, "Everything Possibbong", will be out on Treibender Teppich Records in 2025. This experiment merges BBong (Korean Schlager) with a whole host of other genres. The background of BBong is German, Spanish, and Korean. Due to colonial history, popular ditties from these countries have a comparable melodic structure and, hence, sound very similar. HGT follows the stories of the songs and explores the collective memory through music. 

The roots of BBong lay in the colonial times, and were shaped by western influences, such as the German composer Franz Eckert. Eckert introduced Japan and Korea to western melodies and instruments at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century by establishing military orchestras in both countries. Among his most prominent compositions are the national anthem of Japan, "Kimi Ga Yo", and the hymn of  the Greater Korean Empire "Daehan jeguk Aegukga".

Both tunes integrate local folk songs and western music, establishing aesthetic strategies that later came to full fruition in the pop genre of BBong. 

"Everything Possibbong" is inspired by this wild mish-mash of cultures, languages, folk and pop music.