Lali Puna

Valerie Trebeljahr, a vocalist born in Korea, launched the experimental electropop project Lali Puna in Munich after the 1998 dissolution of her earlier band L.B. Page. Conceived initially as a solo outlet, the group gradually drew in regular contributors including Markus Acher of the Notwist and Tied + Tickled Trio, Florian Zimmer, Christian Heiss, and Christoph Brandner, who also played in Tied + Tickled Trio. Its opening release, the single “The Safe Side,” came out on Belgium’s (K-RAA-K)³ in 1998 and was followed later that year by a show at the Jimmy Gimme More festival in Munchen, Germany. The short release “Snooze” and the full-length Tridecoder both appeared in 1999, the latter on Berlin’s Morr Music imprint. Scary World Theory arrived in 2001, and the guitar-forward Faking the Books followed in 2004, establishing Lali Puna as Morr Music’s central act. A double-disc set of unreleased material and remixes titled I Thought I Was Over That surfaced in 2005, yet the next studio album, Our Inventions, did not appear until 2010 and featured a collaboration with Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Yukihiro Takahashi. The Silver Light EP arrived in 2012 before the members went their separate ways while Trebeljahr concentrated on journalism. A subsequent tour of South Korea revived her interest in recording, and work began on a fifth album. Although Acher had exited, Heiss and Brandner remained and were joined by outside contributors—Keith Tenniswood of Two Lone Swordsmen, Dntel, harpist Mary Lattimore, and Mimicof—as the band shifted toward a more electronic pop approach. Morr Music released the resulting Two Windows in September 2017.