Pulsar Trio

Pulsar Trio, a German ensemble, treat the Indian sitar as a fully integrated vehicle for improvisation, merging inventive jazz methods with psychedelic textures, rich melodic lines, rock-derived influences, the complex rhythms of drum'n'bass, and an impish comic streak. Pianist Beate Wein, sitar player Matyas Wolter, and drummer Aaron Christ have become regulars at progressive European jazz events including the Leverkusen Jazz Days, Hannover's Masala Festival, Salzburg's Jazz & The City, Glastonbury Festival, and the Bavarian Jazz Weekend, while also appearing farther afield at New Delhi's International Jazz Festival and the Jazz Festival in Izmir, Turkey.

Based in Potsdam, the group came together in spring 2007 after Wein and Wolter first encountered each other during a journey to India. Born in 1981, Wein was then studying music and sports at the University of Potsdam and had already performed on keyboards and vocals across projects spanning rock, metal, dance music, and hip-hop. Wolter, born in 1978, had explored an array of idioms from free jazz through punk, blues, and musique concrète in his home studio; he trained on sitar with Subroto Roy Chowdhury, residing more than five years at the master's house in Calcutta, and later continued with sarod master Irfan Khan. Upon returning to Germany they enlisted drummer Aaron Christ, whose background included street performance and work on guitar and drums in folk, pop, and children's music settings.

The trio's first recording, Erpelparka Suite, appeared in 2012. In 2014 they received the Creole Global Music Contest prize, which brought wider attention to their hybrid world-jazz sound. Their second album, the nature-inspired Cäthes Traum, followed in 2016 and drew positive notices for its stylistic range, accomplished playing, and theatrical architecture. Two years afterward they issued their third album, Zoo of Songs, partly shaped by a dance-theater work created by Laura Heinecke. In 2020 Pulsar Trio delivered their debut live document, Live in Berlin, and in 2023 released the fourth studio album We Smell in Stereo, its title alluding to the olfactory capabilities of sharks.