photos by Toni Petraschk
German progressive/krautrock outfit SEK presents their new single, “Die Schlacht Bei Lützen,” and a video for the track, premiering today on Everything Is Noise. The song marks the second single preceding the band’s debut LP, Wallensteins Garage, nearing release through Exile On Mainstream Records in October.
For four years, SEK has been simmering beneath the surface of Berlin’s underground music scene. After two DIY cassette releases, the trio now breaks through with Wallensteins Garage, a debut that is equal parts concept album, historical meditation, and expansive psychedelic rock journey.
SEK takes its name from the initials of the members’ surnames, following the naming tradition of classic jazz ensembles. The trio consists of guitarist Paul-Willy Stoyan (Gavial, Jacke Schwarz), drummer Georg Edert (Elder, Gaffa Ghandi), and bassist Lucas Kazzer (Gaffa Ghandi, Borders Down), three musicians with long-standing roots in Berlin’s independent rock scene. Bringing together backgrounds in heavy psych, progressive rock, punk, and experimental music, they have forged a collective sound driven by improvisation, curiosity, and a shared fascination with storytelling through music.
Wallensteins Garage was recorded and mixed by Fabien de Menou, produced by Fabien de Menou and SEK, mastered by Stefan Brueggemann at Mastering Room Berlin, with photography by Toni Petraschk and cover artwork by Benjamin Butter (Gavial) who also provides keyboards on the album, with additional keyboards on “Auftritt zu Pappenheim” by Fabien de Menou
Now, SEK presents their musical triptych depicting the turmoil during the Battle Of Lützen in the new video for “Die Schlacht Bei Lützen.” The Battle of Lützen is the main event in Wallenstein’s Garage. Here, the Bohemian Generalissimus meets his nemesis, the Swedish King on the front lines. Wallenstein loses one of his best allies, field marshal Pappenheim, to an enemy bullet. More importantly, Wallenstein’s beloved horse Amore Mio is wounded and dies. At the end of the battle the Swedish King dies, but there is no clear victor. What remains is a devastated landscape, more than ten thousand dead soldiers and Wallenstein truly broken. These are the events that he goes over and over again while he is sitting in his garage in front of the dead Amore Mio, now a taxidermy.
The music video, edited by SEK guitarist Paul-Willy Stoyan, tries to convey the chaos of battle by taking footage from the 1978 German documentary about Wallenstein. Scenes depicting the preparation for battle are increasingly distorted, mirrored, and duplicated. As the battle turns more into chaos and devastation, there is no more distinction between fact and fiction, history and story, war and peace, noise and silence.
The band states, “We did not really know how to turn a battle into music, so we started with an opening riff that is more driven by rhythm and groove. There is a sense of order and structure in this, similar to how we imagined the armies would be present on the battlefield. As we worked through the events of the battle, we added parts representing the chaos of battle, slower and quieter moments that allow for grieving. Hovering above all of this is, of course, the absolute pointlessness of war and the absurdity of Wallenstein recovering his dead battle horse from a fight that left more than ten thousand soldiers dead.”
Everything Is Noise writes within their extensive writeup of the song, “Across the nine-minute exploration of progressive krautrock that is ‘Die Schlacht Bei Lützen,’ Berlin-based trio SEK do what few bands dare: attempt to visualize a real historical battle through instrumental means. Though certainly not the first artist to translate the intensity of a battlefield into musical terms – the galloping equine rhythms of Iron Maiden‘s ‘The Trooper’ being a classic go-to example – a lyrical narrative usually follows suit. SEK bravely set forth with no words to fall back on, leaving only their compositional skills to do the talking.”
Watch SEK’s “Die Schlacht Bei Lützen” video first at Everything Is Noise RIGHT HERE.
Exile On Mainstream will release Wallensteins Garage on black vinyl bundled with a CD and digitally on October 30th. Preorders can be placed at the label webshop HERE and Bandcamp where “Auftritt Zu Pappenheim” is streaming HERE, and digital presaves are found HERE.
SEK has booked a run of tour dates across Germany preceding the album’s release, with shows running from October 9th through 17th, including a hometown release show for the record. All confirmed dates are listed below, and additional live plans are in the works for the coming months.
SEK Tour Dates:
10/09/2026 Aaltra – Chemnitz, DE
10/10/2026 Neue Zukunft – Berlin, DE *record release show
10/13/2026 Ostpol – Dresden, DE
10/14/2026 secret show/ask a punk
10/15/2026 KuBa – Jena, DE
10/16/2026 Bunter Hund – Zittau, DE
10/17/2026 Kulturhof – Lübbenau, DE
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