The Next Level

The Next Level is a German 2025 miniseries. It starts with the premise of a reporter investigating the mysterious death of a tourist in a Berlin nightclub. As she delves deeper into the case, she stumbles upon a connection to an influential businessman and is determined to unveil the truth.

In a sense, the miniseries interconnects human drama with the downfall of the mythical views of Berlin, both socially, culturally, and economically. While the characters are of real flesh and bone, the city is outstandingly depicted through great cinematography, aided by the original score by Martina Eisenreich and Michael Kadelbach.

The composers, both coming from different backgrounds, Kadelbach's expertise lays in electronic music and worked as a hip-hop producer, while Eisenreich is classically trained. Whereas their first collaboration - Eine Billion Dollar - can be described as electronic music meets countertenor, The Next Level is arguably their most consistent body of work. Their music is supplemented by an equally good additional score by Ege Ateslioglu and Niklas Falcke, while Sam Shure handled all the club music.

The score of The Next Level includes processed, clearly identifiable instruments, a variety of beats and percussion, and varying electronic sounds that capture a wide array of emotions-from a noirish soundscape to warm, pathos-filled sentiments. It includes an interesting duality between flowing atmospheres and syncopation, and when combined with a variety of other musical details, it becomes quintessential in the dramatic progression. Yet, it is especially the rough-edged, disorienting pieces of music, such as the cue Unstable Emotions, that stand out the most within the overall brooding electronic soundscape.

It is an overall varied electronic score that captures the heart and soul of the miniseries. As a separate listening experience, the flowing emotive content and electronic noir structure make for a notable experience, despite its length of 80 minutes.






Additional information by music supervisor Milena Fessmann:

The drama series “The Next Level,” based on Alexander Osang’s reportage “Death in Berghain,” is set—naturally—in Berlin. And thus in a city that never sleeps. Because every night is turned into day, because people dance through the clubs from Friday to Monday. And because quite a few people lead a nocturnal parallel life in these clubs, discovering—set to the right music—a paradise that is as hedonistic as it is self-destructive.
In a series like this, music plays an important role: it is actor and partner-in-crime, source of consolation and lover.



Additional information provided by composers Martina Eisenreich and Michael Kadelbach:

But the pulsating city leads a parallel existence: Berlin by day. The historic Berlin. Monday morning, the clubs under harsh cleaning lights. Empty streets. Crumbling facades, everything in decline—and yet, this is when the city truly comes alive… because that’s Berlin. The old Berlin. The underground, the cult. But is it really? A swan song? Where is Berlin headed? Is it sinking into shabby cult status? Or will it move forward? What does Berlin sound like when no one is there? Bruised musical landscapes dissolving into electronics.

The film music should become in a state of constant polarization, thereby raising questions and longings. Our director, Pia Strietmann, gave us the idea of a constant teasing: “There is something! A hungry, yet simultaneously lost feeling of the vastness of a pulsating city.
Like the longing for people you have never met. The hope for the myth, meaning, and purpose of one’s own life—and the question of the bigger picture. A vague scent of globalization and hidden elite. You want to find out: What is really going on in the world?"

How did we imagine the score for this? Pulling an all-nighter… a peaceful summer morning after a night out at the club. A warm open tuning, always circling the root note — like being home all the time. The high is fading, but that’s okay now. ....what would this feeling sound like if you put it in a glass?

A city suspended between two energies—
powerfully pulsating, yet simultaneously destructive.
Like two magnets that constantly repel each other.
The old and the new.
The acoustic-tactile and the digital-synthetic.
The rhythm: stuttering and pulsating.
Emptiness and vastness, a sorrowful absence—and the densely packed celebration.
Polarizing remix games with acoustic sound associations.

What we intended is to give the series its own identity—in a subtle, yet distinctive and defining way.




Tracklist
1. the next level 3:01
2. i found you (at your funeral) 3:34
3. lost in berlin 2:21
4. her reality 3:26
5. stadt der liebe (Ege Ateslioglu & Niklas Falcke) 3:48
6. collapse (Ege Ateslioglu & Niklas Falcke) 0:51
7. rosa's 2:30
8. blinded by nostalgia 2:50
9. atemnot 2:06
10. what happened to her 2:33
11. i can't go back with you (Ege Ateslioglu & Niklas Falcke) 1:44
12. stuck in perspective 2:48
13. wanna feel something (Ege Ateslioglu & Niklas Falcke) 1:33
14. trauma 2:07
15. unstable motions 3:23
16. family ties (Ege Ateslioglu & Niklas Falcke) 1:14
17. lost in detail 1:32
18. money can't buy happiness 2:03
19. paula's regrets (Ege Ateslioglu & Niklas Falcke) 2:46
20. on the run (Ege Ateslioglu & Niklas Falcke) 1:51
21. hangover 1:45
22. brenner's turn (Ege Ateslioglu & Niklas Falcke) 2:55
23. talking bout your bullshit (Ege Ateslioglu & Niklas Falcke) 1:31
24. honesty (Ege Ateslioglu & Niklas Falcke) 3:18
25. errors 3:25
26. intimacy (Ege Ateslioglu & Niklas Falcke) 1:56
27. i'm out of here (Ege Ateslioglu & Niklas Falcke) 1:51
28. ceremony 3:16
29. when things are real again 2:36
30. last level 2:31
31. keine drogen( Ege Ateslioglu & Niklas Falcke) 1:09
32. reaktor 4 (Sam Shure) 2:03
33. reaktor 3 (Sam Shure) 1:30
34. reaktor 6 (Sam Shure) 4:02

Total Album Time: 81:49




(26-04-2025)