Munich Hosts Dressed in Sound as Textile Orchestra Turns Factory Tools Into Album

This Wednesday in Munich, the ensemble Dressed in Sound marks the release of Sharper Than a Needle with a rare live performance. The album is built from a textile orchestra — spindles, spools, zippers, sewing and knitting machines, a spinning wheel, even credit cards and magnetic strips. Together they produce a rhythmic, often startling, cacophony that never loosens its grip on the labor it evokes.

The instrumentation reads like a workshop inventory. Water splashes and synthesizer beeps open the record alongside ancient mechanical sounds. On the first side, individual machines sputter and screech into life, coaxed along by the players. Human breath cuts through, then scissors, then a voice. Men and women both appear in the group, though the work deliberately engages with the traditional image of female strength — endurance, stubbornness, creativity — tied to textile production.

A clothing moth even makes an appearance, treated not as threat but companion. The second side expands into collective sound: a dressmaker’s dummy converted into a noise cello, a sewing machine choir. Drums crash in with three minutes left, driving the record toward an industrial pulse where distorted voice and synths surrender the final word to the machines. Sharper Than a Needle doesn’t simply celebrate these sounds. It asks who made the fabric we wear, and at what cost.