By Jonas Opperman
When Kribs arrives at this interview, he looks exhausted but happy. Beer in one hand, some studio gear in the other, he says he’s “super good, but tired.” Something big happened last night after more than 10 years working in the electronic music scene:
“Apparently, I met my new booking agent, and we chatted for ages about my future plans.”
Co-founder of the music label Instinkt Lab and a passionate DJ and producer, Kribs is a key figure in Cologne’s nightlife scene. He’s made a name for himself in the underground, driven by his mission to bring like-minded people together on the dance floor and beyond.
One of those like-minded people is Gayeong Moon, a professional violinist, dancefloor enthusiast, and recent collaborator, who tells me with a cheeky grin: “To be honest, at first I thought he looks a little cold, kind of a low-key jerk, just from the way he sometimes appears. I guess a lot of people could think that at first.”
But then she smiles:
“After working with him, I got to know the emotional depth within his music. He was actually the opposite of what I expected.”
– Gayeong Moon
Kribs feels at home in sweaty clubs. He moves fluidly between working at his family business (repairing old vending machines), creating music in the studio, and playing on big sound systems.
Gayeong Moon is very different. She grew up in Korea and is trained in classical music. She started playing violin and piano at age 5 and moved to Düsseldorf at 18 to study classical music; these days, she works as a music teacher.
Still, they came together last year and fused their art forms to create a track called “Magic Malange,” which serves as the prologue of Krib’s second self-released studio album, Outliner, which launches on the 29th of May.
First, how did this collab happen?
It starts with Instinkt Lab, an artist-driven electronic music platform and independent record label, established in 2020 by Kribs and Miles Pinkert. From the beginning, their approach was to provide a platform for artists who are more hidden, not hyped.
Kribs explains:
“For me, organic connections are most important. Local ones, from the scene, from my circle of friends. Not necessarily working with big names, but seeing who’s interested and who brings fresh energy to the table.”
– Kribs
When Gayeong Moon showed up at the first Instinkt Lab events, she showed enthusiastic support. Kribs tells me she “never left the dance floor,” got in touch with the artists after their sets, and talked with DJs about their musical output. She was not just a dancer; she was keen to explore the culture around the music.
After getting to know each other, Kribs realized how deep Gayeong Moon’s musical knowledge goes and felt honored by her words and support.
Gayeong Moon says:
“It’s indeed art for me. Every DJ has their own sound and also a backstory they want to express in what they’re doing.”
– Gayeong Moon
What’s the biggest difference between classical and electronic music?
As a professional, studied artist, Gayeong Moon saw great artistry in DJing even though she knew little about how it works. This mutual curiosity was shared by both sides of this friendship.
Gayeong Moon says, “I started playing the piano when I was only 5 and took up the violin shortly after. I’ve played every day since. I used to practice three to four hours a day. In classical music, you learn a great deal of discipline. You learn competitions, recitals, performing on stage, and perfectionism. But you play pieces that already exist. You interpret them, but it’s not entirely your own music.”
Sometimes classical music, she says, can be inflexible. Dissonance, for example, is perceived as wrong, while electronic music seems to have more freedom.
“There’s no right or wrong here. Electronic music is more raw, more community-driven, and in the right circles, not as competitive as classical.”
– Gayeong Moon
Through their friendship, Kribs and Gayeong developed a growing interest in each other’s art. Kribs started sharing his songs with her. One song was “Magic Malange,” which at that stage was still a raw, pure ambient track.
After Gayeong listened to it and fell in love with it, somehow the idea came to her to add an acoustic touch to the piece, making it something new. The resulting piece feels magical and deeply human.
“When Kribs invited me to the studio, I had no idea what was going to happen,” Gayeong Moon says. “But I knew he made great tracks and that he believes in me. So I just said yes.”
What was it like working together?
Kribs says, “When I was little, my auntie played the piano. I wish I had learned a classical instrument as well, but for now I just play drum machines.”
He sometimes misses the warmth and depth that acoustic instruments have. “They go so deep and feel so organic and human.”
Kribs believes the purpose of making music, at least for him, is about “expressing emotions and coming to terms with life.” When the idea came to combine their skills, he hoped the end result, combining ambient and classical, would “reach a greater emotional depth” in the music.
Late last year, on a summer night, Gayeong Moon visited Kribs at his Cologne studio. They recall the space: the air smelled of Palo Santo, the sun was shining, and in the studio, the light shone on numerous electronic instruments and other equipment. Kribs bought Lewitt Stereo Acoustic Micros already plugged into the mixing console to best catch the sound of the violin.
Gayoeng Moon pulled out her Klotz violin, a beast of an instrument from 1773, which she says is “worth as much as a car.”
She had already listened to the track, but “there was no plan”, and at first, she felt a bit lost. Kribs felt even more lost. To clear the air, she started by showing him what kinds of sounds she could produce.
“I got goosebumps the first time Gayeong drew the bow across the violin. This instrument has incredible energy.”
– Kribs
What fascinated him was the range, from plucked, percussive sounds to long, sustained bowing, and even quite unconventional tapping.
In that moment, “I realized what’s actually possible,” Kribs says. It felt clear there was no right or wrong direction; they just had to bring out the right feeling.
What happened next?
A few notes already in his mind, he started humming. He did not know that Gayeong Moon had absolute pitch, the (statistically quite rare) ability to identify or produce a musical note without any reference tone. Fewer than 1 in 10,000 people have absolute pitch; it is most common among trained musicians, typically those who start very young.
This means she could take his half-formed humming, somewhere between intention and accident, and play it directly to the violin. It gave their aimlessness a direction, as if the music already knew where it wanted to go.
In the end, the result exceeded his expectations. After recording multiple takes, he ended up with a large collection of audio samples.
“Adding a nice reverb to the violin was my first idea,” Kribs says. “It immediately gave the track movement and depth, especially within an ambient context, where elements naturally blend into each other.”
Although he experimented with different effects on the violin, he ultimately chose a minimal approach.
“Aside from some reverb, I wanted to keep the instrument pure in the track and not over-process it. The violin has such a distinctive sound, so preserving its character was important to me.”
What does this album mean to both of you?
Gayeong Moon felt it was important to understand why Kribs was making the album and what the story was. Kribs shared with her:
“I had a rough year, many ups and downs. I had to balance label work, household stuff, family business, friends, and my own music in a world that seems like it’s going to fall apart at any moment.”
– Kribs
“Sometimes, all that can crash. So, of course, I got into a car accident during exactly that kind of winter slump, right before Christmas.”
Kribs tells me he was “overworked and stressed.” The result:
“I just blacked out on the autobahn and crashed my car into a tree.”
– Kribs
By some miracle, he came away with just a concussion and several cuts. He pulled out of the scene and society for a while to recover and find himself again.
He tells me this is why the album is called “Outliner.” It’s about finding identity within a world where your own identity can often feel empty—eroded by social media, societal expectations, and comparison games.
Kribs explains: “‘Outliner’ can be interpreted quite poetically, as someone who draws just the outline of themselves. To me, it means an identity not yet fully formed, still in the sketch stages.”
He says he hopes it suggests a state of becoming, where the self is not fixed but taking shape, balancing between disorientation and the fragile process of rebuilding meaning.
What surprised you most about each other while working together?
“Me first!” Gayeong Moon says when I ask this.
“I didn’t know Kribs that well,” she says. “But that day, he told me his story, because I needed to understand him in order to work with him. He immediately opened up and shared everything.”
She adds, “His mindset showed me he wants to do his own thing, that he has a clear vision of where he wants his music to go.”
In the process, Gayeong Moon got to see firsthand how electronic music artists produce tracks.
“It’s not just pushing buttons! The studio, for them, is a safe haven. That was beautiful to witness. And it’s so different from what people see in the club.”
– Gayeong Moon
Kribs adds: “In the club, we’re still nervous. That’s partly where this sense of distance comes from. Sometimes people get upset when I don’t recognize them or when I am not willing to talk to everyone. It’s dark, I already said hi to 20 people, my social battery is low, and I have to play a four-hour closing set.”
“We’re DJs. Of course we try to look cool and confident. But we’re also performing in front of people who are deeply into music, and that creates a lot of pressure.”
– Kribs
It’s not as easy as it looks, Kribs muses, “because not everyone was born to be a big performer.”
Gayeong Moon nods: “Yeah, there’s this idea that DJs are distant or closed off. But once you see how much emotional work goes into what they do, it changes things.”
“It’s not just performing. It’s carrying a room through the night, not for ego, but for the collective experience on the dancefloor.”
– Gayeong Moon
Tell me more about the album.
Kribs laughs: “I mean, it’s still mostly Ableton Live as the backbone,” Kribs says. “From there, it’s a mix of analog drum machines, a couple of synths, and a lot of resampling.”
“I like when machines feel slightly unstable. If everything is too clean, it loses emotion for me. A big part of ‘Outliner’ was making digital tools feel like they’re breathing. Not perfect but alive.”
– Kribs
In producing a track, he likes to “create friction.” This means small imperfections, slight detuning, random modulation, and elements that mimic the unpredictability of human performance.
Outliner consists of eight tracks, referencing over a decade of electronic music. There are elements of early gabber intensity, the spaciousness of ambient, and the repetitive hypnotic feel of techno. “Magic Malange” opens the album as the only collab, while the remaining seven tracks are built entirely by Kribs.
Compared to his previous release, which featured multiple collabs with artists from his wider network (like Egotot and Miles Pinkert), this release is mostly, intentionally, him.
“My last album was very outward-looking, very connected to my peers. This one is more internal.”
– Kribs
That decision shaped how the album was released. Instead of releasing through Instinkt Lab or another imprint, Kribs opted for a self-release. “It felt right to do it fully on my own.”
Still, his local network is embedded in the project. There’s a vocalist contribution from Nora Chiba, visual direction and photography by Lola Schmalbuch, mastering by Tangram (aka Arclab Studios), PR by mojo (for transparency, this is me), and project management by Christina (no last name given) from Habitus.
Even in a very solo work, the collective spirit is alive. What is an artist without friends?
Gayeong Moon, what’s next for you?
Lately, she’s enjoyed bringing her classical training to more electronic music projects. She already played at an ambient show hosted by Cologne-based collective and label Brutalism.
When she met the collective, “I presented some pieces. One was called ‘Freundschaft.’ They liked the idea of me performing it at their next event, as most of the people coming to this intimate gathering are friends.”
This event, described as “an ambient concert,” happened late last year at St. Gertrud, a brutalist church in Cologne.
Shrouded in smoke, Gayeong Moon opened that show with a solo, playing the violin in a big reverberating church. The sound echoed off the walls in a way that was slightly clashing, slightly off—a jarring, powerful art form.
“I can imagine myself going more in this direction, fusing classical with ambient,” Gayeong Moon tells me.
Then she looks sideways at Kribs and pats him on the shoulder: “And, of course, with Kribs again.”
Follow Kribs on SoundCloud and Instagram. Follow Gayeong Moon on Instagram.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Born in Köln and now living in Berlin, Jonas Opperman is a vinyl DJ, producer, and scene journalist. He writes for Hinterhaus and Electronic Beats. He is dedicated to the music scene and elevating the voices within it.
Words: Jonas Oppermann
Edits: Alexander Cheves
Photos: Mara Menzel + additional photos courtesy of the artists
