Mother’s Cake is a band that mistrusts the straight line. Even at their most locked in, there is a sense of precision built to misbehave. Disorder makes them comfortable, while lunacy is fuel, and psychedelia is ecstasy. In their best work, Mother’s Cake revel in executing near-impossible turns while still sounding as if they might set the map on fire.
The band formed in 2008 in Tyrol, Austria, with vocalist and guitarist Yves Krismer and bassist Benedikt Trenkwalder at the centre, and drummer Jan Haußels completing a trio. From the beginning, their instincts ran counter to the museum's version of rock. They place skill in the service of momentum, borrowing the authority of funk and dance music, while retaining the narrative patience of progressive rock.
Creation’s Finest in 2012 is a debut stuffed with ideas just itching to burst forward. Yet the central contradiction is already there, a love of push and pull, of control that keeps flirting with collapse. By 2015, with Love the Filth, that tension became a signature. The writing is tighter, meaner. There is psychedelia there, in the sense that time is the proverbial flat circle. There's also a punkish instinct to vandalise any passage that even begins to feel stable. The band’s humour begins to show a refusal to treat heaviness solemnly. No Rhyme No Reason in 2017 reads like a small manifesto. Arrangement becomes a way to avoid sounding like competent rock musicians doing competent rock things.
For Mother’s Cake, touring behaves like a compositional engine. They have played relentlessly, sharing stages with Deftones, Iggy Pop, AC/DC, Alice in Chains, Deep Purple, and more. When you share bills across the guitar spectrum, you can't rely on theory to carry you. You either hold the room, or you don't. Their live documents make that point pretty clear. In Off the Beaten Track, captured at Propolis in 2014, and Live at Bergisel in 2018, you can hear the band's true medium—a slow accumulation of pressure until something breaks, followed by the immediate pivot into a new pocket.
Cyberfunk! in 2020 clarifies how seriously the band takes groove as a form of power. Their satire arrives as the sound of a band rolling its eyes at authority while keeping bodies moving. “I’m Your President” is the cleanest example. In its humorous rebuke of a certain orange-skinned idiot, it presents funk as searing contempt through Trump-era boasts and soundbites: “the beauty of me is that I’m rich”.
That tension between control and sabotage reached its sharpest point on Ultrabliss in 2024. Mother’s Cake expanded into a four-piece in the Ultrabliss era, bringing multi-instrumentalist Raphael Neikes into a permanent role on guitar and keys. A second melodic voice allows lines to weave, giving Krismer room to move between riff and texture without carrying the entire upper register alone.
Several tracks on Ultrabliss behave like miniature stage narratives. “Clockwork,” close to ten minutes, keeps shifting its foundation. The equally long “Love Me” smears time itself as it dissolves the grid. “On a Trip” is another invitation to follow the band into where the usual rules need not apply.
Mother’s Cake invite a particular kind of listening. Their music is full of easter eggs, sly gestures, and references. The band’s mind seems wired for collage, and that collage instinct is part of why their live sets can feel like a single continuous piece. All of this lands without a safety net on Wednesday, March 25, 2026, when they return to Control Club.
It is easy to describe Mother's Cake as a band that refuses to sit still. The more precise way to say it is that they refuse stasis as an ethical position. Disorder, properly handled, becomes a form of care because it forces everyone in the room to remain awake.
