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 to poems she had written about her grandmas garden and its Raspberries. 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 after she got accepted at Musikhochschule Köln to study Jazz and popular singing. 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. Cracked of course.
Starting out as BOW in 2009 with a more psychedelic Rock influenced sound she self released a Demo „stiction point“ in 2015 where she teamed up with the cologne based sound engineer Sascha BEcks (Yokmo) and the electronic music producer Max Schweder (Cylvester). 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.
In 2020 she got together with a band and recorded the 5 track EP „moonist was a racing horse“ in Cologne Studio A with Niklas Schneider. While she provides the lyrics and the song the sound is band driven. 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.
in June 2021 Moonist released "Cologne" which she produced entirely on her own. Also Venice which is a collaboration with the cologne based producer Frieder Vogel aka FREEFREE whom she already teamed up with in 1018 to experiment on electronic music and songwriting, diving into the electronic currents of the song. She also produced a video to one of their collaborations.
Moonist is back in the studio with the band at Soulvision Studio Cologne to record a new Album and get ready to go back on stage in 2025 to introduce what they've been cooking up together in the Studio.
All in all there is an evolution in Moonist's songwriting and crafting that tries to stretch and shift borders in order to communicate and gain insights and understanding for a language that lies beyond genrefication.
