Still Coming
I spent time with May in Düsseldorf, and they’re the kind of band where you understand immediately why they work together and can’t quite explain why to someone else. Maewa’s voice moves between urgent and almost seductive, Christoph hears things in guitar textures that most people miss, Carsten thinks about rhythm like someone who’s spent decades learning it. They’ve been together since 2013, long enough to trust each other’s instincts.
The formation story is unsentimental. Maewa’s old band fell apart, she found Christoph, they found Carsten through a friend, a drummer came and went, and eventually they realized the three of them made better music than the four. That’s it. No origin myth. Just three people whose taste aligned.
They’re funny about the band name. It came from My Artificial You,
a joke that compressed into May—which Christoph, who spent 25 years running a company before walking away to focus on family and music, has since called insanely stupid for the digital age.
He’s right, and he knew he was right, and now it’s their name. There’s something honest about that kind of self-aware mistake.
The new album is My 1st Sony,
and each of them pulled different songs close. Smear
wrote itself for Maewa in twenty-five minutes—the kind of song that’s just there, whole. Christoph wants the longer ones live, especially the guitar parts that let him disappear into his own riffs. Carsten’s drawn to Micropsycho,
which he describes with real precision: verses that feel dark and contradictory, then unwinding into a rush, like that moment on a steep coaster when you’re about to drop.
Maewa reads constantly—astronomy, mythology, politics, whatever lands in front of her—and loves science fiction films. That feeds her lyrics. Christoph spends hours experimenting with guitar sounds, building an archive of fragments. Carsten incubates ideas until they hatch, then helps shape what the others bring. It’s a natural division, the way most working bands find their rhythm.
Balancing the music with everything else is harder for some than others. Maewa teaches yoga and acts, so she builds her schedule around the band. Christoph has the luxury of having already left corporate life behind—his choice, and it cost something, but now music gets his full attention. Carsten said flatly, For me it’s actually difficult. But what must be done, must be done.
That exhaustion was real.
They all dream differently about collaboration. Maewa wants to work with Lady Gaga, respecting her songwriting and presence. Christoph worked with some of his heroes in the late eighties and found it mostly disillusioning, but he’d still talk effect pedals with Russell Lissack from Bloc Party. Carsten wants to sit down with will.i.am and figure out how you make music into money—the most honest answer anyone gave me.
Right now it’s touring and working on the second album at the same time, running hard because there’s something still inside them that hasn’t come out. They’re not sure what it is. A great song. A whole record. Peace. All three. It’s there, and it’s coming.