Experiments in a Prenzlauer Berg basement

By Rafi Mercer
New Listing

Ausland is one of Prenzlauer Berg’s most uncompromising listening spaces — explore more in our Berlin Music Venues guide.

Venue Name: Ausland
Address: Lychener Str. 60, 10437 Berlin
Website: https://ausland-berlin.de/
Phone: [not publicly listed]
Spotify Profile: [not available]

Some venues exist to entertain. Ausland exists to explore. Hidden in a modest basement space off Lychener Straße, this independent arts venue has, since the early 2000s, served as Berlin’s laboratory for experimental sound. There is no neon signage, no slick bar frontage. You arrive at a plain door, descend narrow stairs, and step into a space where convention dissolves. Here, music is not polished for easy consumption; it is raw, improvised, and unafraid of silence. Ausland is less a bar and more a community, held together by the conviction that sound should always be pushed to its edge.

The system is functional rather than ostentatious: PA speakers chosen for clarity and flexibility, mixers configured for both live performance and playback. It is not a hi-fi shrine in the way of other listening bars, but fidelity here is judged differently. Ausland’s philosophy is that sound should be true to its source — whether that’s a double bass bowed until it groans, a laptop generating glacial noise, or a field recording of birds layered with spoken word. The equipment serves the art, not the other way around.

Programming is relentlessly adventurous. The calendar includes improvised jazz, experimental electronics, sound art installations, avant-garde classical, and everything in between. One night you may hear a trio stretching a single note across forty minutes; another may present modular synths twisting through chaotic textures. Ausland has hosted international artists on the fringes of their genres, as well as local collectives testing new ideas. There are listening sessions too, where archival recordings or curated themes are presented with the same seriousness as live acts. The through-line is curiosity.

The acoustic environment is bare, even rough, but surprisingly effective. Concrete walls and low ceilings create a resonance that suits the rawness of the performances. Audiences sit close — on folding chairs, benches, sometimes the floor. There is no separation between performer and listener; the room itself becomes part of the composition. Silence here is as powerful as sound. When a piece ends, the stillness that follows feels like another movement, unscored but essential.

Drinks are offered, but modestly: a small bar at the back serves beer, wine, and soft drinks. There are no elaborate menus, no curated pairings. Refreshment is secondary, almost incidental. The purpose of Ausland is not to sustain nightlife but to sustain listening. Those who come know this. They accept the trade-off: fewer comforts, more immersion.

Consistency has been Ausland’s strength for over two decades. Run by a collective of volunteers, it has survived without compromise, maintaining a programme that refuses to bend to commercial trends. Nights are unpredictable, sometimes challenging, occasionally transcendent, but always intentional. The space has become a touchstone for Berlin’s experimental scene, a place where risks are taken and boundaries tested. It has remained small, unpolished, and defiantly itself.

The audience reflects that ethos. Artists, students, sound designers, travellers — people drawn less by spectacle than by the possibility of hearing something new. Many come alone, others with collaborators, but all share a seriousness about listening. At Ausland, applause is often delayed, as if the room itself needs time to process what just happened. That patience, that willingness to sit with uncertainty, is what makes the community unique.

Leaving Ausland, you emerge back into the leafy calm of Prenzlauer Berg, the streetlamps soft against cobblestones, the air cooler for the silence you’ve left behind. But in your ears, the residue lingers: a drone, a scrape of strings, a voice stretched until it becomes texture. Ausland reminds you that listening is not always about comfort. Sometimes it is about confrontation, about discovering sound’s outer edges.

For this, Ausland earns a ★. It is not a hi-fi temple, nor does it try to be. But it respects listening absolutely, treating sound as something to be engaged with deeply, however unusual. It is a venue for the adventurous, the seekers, the restless — and in Berlin, a city that thrives on experimentation, it is essential.

See our Listening Bar Collection

Rafi Mercer writes about the spaces where music matters. For more stories from Tracks & Tales, subscribe, or click here to read more.