Living proof of this are Beck (Ulrike Beck) and Pony (Katja Ponesky), two DJs who entered the club scene from opposite sides of the Iron Curtain. While Beck rose with American GIs stationed at military bases around Stuttgart, dancing to Biggie and 2Pac, Pony gathered with her friends at the E-Werk and other techno temples that sprang up all over post-wall Berlin. After becoming part of the same circle of DJs and club organizers, Beck and Pony spun beats for over 20 years until they decided to fulfill their dream of life and produce their own songs together. Along with producer Henrik „Henne“ Müller from Riverside Studios, they developed their own sound, a mix of Röyksopp and Goldfrapp with neon-lit nu- disco and soulful synth-pop, which is associated with the 2000s. Their debut album under the name Beck to Pony was released on May 24, 2024, via Mobilee Records. Beck was born and raised in Stuttgart. She was fortunate to have access to a rich mix of different music scenes from a young age. „At 15, I was into grunge and went to punk and new wave concerts. Alongside the Seattle sound and punk rock, Beck immersed herself in a unique local scene that was thriving at the time. „They had a huge GI community because American soldiers were stationed in several barracks in the area since the 1970s,“ she explains. „In many clubs, only Black music was played, so I grew up with hip- hop, funk, soul, and R&B.“ Pony‘s access to the music scene on the other side of the Iron Curtain was more restricted, but by no means less diverse. „My father, Gerald Ponesky, was a co-organizer of concerts for some of the biggest acts from around the world, like Bruce Springsteen at the Radrennbahn with 200,000 attendees, and then there was Depeche Mode in the Werner-Seelenbinder-Halle in 1988,“ she recalls brightly. „That was a big deal.“ Legendary to this day. A band from the West plays in the East. After the fall of the wall, Berlin became what Pony calls „a playground for electronic music.“ „My older sister was totally into it, so I followed her to all the new clubs. I was 16 when I first went to the E-Werk,“ a legendary techno club in a former power plant in Mitte. „I saw a woman behind two vinyl records and didn’t understand what she was doing.“ Thanks to her sister, Pony‘s love for electronic music and clubbing soon became her regular ritual. „After the weekend, I went back to school and no one knew what I was up to on the weekends,“ she reveals with a loud laugh. „That was my temple, you know, my church.“ After becoming part of the same circle of DJs and club organizers, Beck and Pony spun beats for over 20 years and decided to fulfill their dream of life by producing their own songs together. After being introduced to Henrik Müller from Riverside Studios, they created their own sound on two tracks: „Frei,“ a neon-lit nu-disco anthem for a unique feeling of freedom that can only be experienced on the dance floor, and „Berlin,“ a piece of soulful synth-pop about the one-sided love affair with the city. This does not mean that these two women have found their niche – quite the opposite. „Our sound changes a little every time,“ Beck reveals before heading downstairs to work with Henne on their third piece. On June 14, 2024, they launched their first own party „ENCORE - Freunde freut Euch“ at Heideglühn in Berlin. More parties will follow. When Beck and Pony heat up the dance floor and let loose behind the decks, we can once again experience how well East and West get along. The debut of Beck to Pony was released on June 7, 2024, via Mobilee Records, followed by a release party including the official premiere of the AI-generated music video „Frei“ at AchtBerlin in Prenzlauer Berg. More songs will be released this spring 2025.