Hard Lounge

RWR’s latest release comes straight from Berlin’s underground Electronic Jazz scene. Simon Herody, originally from the South of France but living in the German capital since 2020, delivers an eight-track suite of ambient-informed Jazz.The album grew out of solo gigs in hotel lobbies, low-key half improvised sets where Simon blended sequenced electronics with live sax, clarinet and flute. These in-between spaces, half-public and half-private, set the tone for Hard Lounge: an eight-track trip that’s ambient enough to fade into the background, but rich enough to keep you engaged.There’s a clear love for 80s New Age and Electronic Jazz, but it’s not just nostalgia — the album also channels leftfield Japanese Pop and Ambient. A big turning point was hearing Heisei No Oto (that killer compilation on Music From Memory) & Music For Dance & Theatre, Vol. 2, also released on MFM, which blew the doors wide open in terms of texture and mood.While working shifts at Motif, a bar and record shop in Neukölln, Simon started deep-listening to these kinds of records, thinking about how sound can shape space and attention. Design and architecture trickled into the album’s artwork, hinting at a broader idea: that music, like furniture or lighting, can be part of how a space feels — part of the design. That blend of curiosity and immersion became the blueprint for Hard Lounge, a record that plays with presence, atmosphere and memory.