Fotos: Nadine Schwickart
Moonist is the singer - songwriter and producer Lisa Ruhland from Cologne, Germany. Born 1982 in Göttingen into a dentist family she realized early on she was not into teeth but listening to her parents LP collection, sing along with it and playing the piano, writing her first songs about her grandmas garden and its Raspberries that tasted like nothing else. School got finally cool as she joined her first Indi rock band flammable liquid as their front singer and lyricist when she was 16. As playing Basketball had provided her with RnB and Hip Hop music so far, it then was Mr Druck (Mr. pressure) who opened up his band practice room and got the Indi Band their first gig. RIP! After eight years of local stardom, she finally moved to cologne in 2004 to study Jazz and popular Singing at Musikhochschule Köln. That's where she got in touch with Jazz music for the first time which kicked her out of her rock tube comfort zone. Later on it was electronic music, then producing electronic music starting out with reason, garage band and logic and later albleton live to paint sonic pictures to then play with a band.
in 2015 Moonist self-released a Demo called "stiction point" where she teamed up with the cologne based sound engineer Sascha BEcks (Yokmo) and the electronic music producer Max Schweder. First time experimenting with computer generated music the album is a mix between electronic driftwood, sampled sirens, pop punk and a broad spectrum in her vocal expression and mirrors the artistic surroundings of an art community she was living with at that time.
2020 she got together with a band and recorded the 5 track EP „moonist was a racing horse“ in Cologne Studio A with the music producer and drummer NIklas Schneider. The EP was performed live and Moonist released three music videos along with it, collaborating with fellow friends and artists from cologne. Say Hi to Rebecca and Moonist and strange way to begin. It's souly, it's funky, it's folky and combines raw experimental pychedelic rock moments with a lean into the evergreen Pop melody.It's a trip really. Hoofes rattling to the beat of the drum - breathless at times Moonist wanders through the meadows of the mind. Still you get a sence of embracing whatever comes up in front of the inner eye, is elementary to the songs.
Inspired by electronic music Moonist collaborated With the cologne based electronic music producer Frieder Vogel on the four track EP Clipping, via the Cologne based Indie label Hey!band in 2025 along with a music video playing around with a Mac Book Camera tool on Venice and a digital collage on cologne which marks the first song she produced entirely on her own.
On August 12th 2022 Moonist released The EP "live at topaz studio cologne" which was recorded live in the Studio by Reinhard Kobialka. It is experimental Pop Music, with a lean into fusion, Jazz, the vividness of a lifeband and a soulful voice and set out to break through the silence and apathy of the corona Pandemic and get back on stage to perform Songs like seachimes and Intuition at Urania Theater Köln that same year.
After molding the band together, writing, producing and crafting 11 Songs she then packed them up to record at Maarweg Studios Köln with the band and the sound engineer Jan Niemeyer (Soulvision Studios). The new Album Sprit Shake will be released in 2026 via hey!band.
imagine! Prince and Roisin Murphy breaking through the stratosphere in a turquoise cadillac and after sweeping out the mooncraters lean back to listen to Joni Mitchel's moon mess lip-syncing to songs like Supernova, tell me 'bout the moon and spotlight. Rumors about the album already being leaked via WWW since the rough tapes got stolen on a Northern European airport last summer, have not been confirmed by the MNGMT!
**Mardi Li - the newsshaper**
