Alone in Berlin

Jules and Katie, the two constant members of The Ting Tings, went to Berlin and locked themselves in a room. No outside producers, no label oversight, no one else in the room. Just the work. That’s how they made Kraft.

I don’t know how deliberate this was—whether they’d planned to reset after being everywhere at once, or if it just happened that way. But there’s something good about going quiet like that. Two people who’d been in the world, in the machinery, in the noise, and then stepping out to make something alone. An album made in private.

Kraft is a German word. It means strength, but also the raw force of a thing—the power in it, the substance. As a title, it points to something about what they were doing. Not a statement, not a response, not a calculation. Just the weight of the work.

They came back to Berlin to play it, which made sense. The city was part of it now. There was also this fragrance collaboration with Tommy Hilfiger, a song they wrote for it called Loud. The kind of thing that normally feels like a detour. But The Ting Tings have never been bothered by that—pop music that doesn’t perform seriousness, that doesn’t hide from commerce, that just keeps moving. They wrote the song, did the promo, and the album stayed the important thing.

I’ve always liked that about them. No bullshit about what’s real work versus the rest. Just make the thing, put it out, move on.