
Bockhoff
When Brockhoff steps onto the stage, it feels a little like someone has turned up the inner life of an entire generation while somehow still whispering. Behind the name is Lina Brockhoff from Hamburg, who over the past few years has grown through the German indie scene at her own pace, yet almost unstoppable. Her songs often sound light at first, but beneath the surface of 90s-nostalgic guitar riffs something is simmering: self-doubt, uncertainty, and that very particular kind of melancholy you feel more than you can describe.
With her debut EP, she first caught attention in 2022 a raw and honest introduction to her world. On June 5, her first full-length album “Easy Peeler” will be released. Is she starting over now, or rather reaching a new peak? The album’s opening track of the same name is about opening up, about vulnerability, about peeling back the layers one by one carried by guitar, refined with strings and framed by indie-rock, grunge and pop-leaning beats. It captures that paradoxical feeling of being strong while also completely overwhelmed.
Brockhoff writes songs that don’t want to hide. Musically, she moves somewhere between Phoebe Bridgers’ melancholy and Soccer Mommy’s coolness but above all, she sounds like herself. Recently, together with Shelter Boy and Philine Sonny, who played Immergut in 2023, Brockhoff officially rang in this year’s festival season. In Back Then (I Was Something) they laugh, sing and show us with refreshing honesty what it means to make it through a crisis.
It’s this mix of clarity and overload that makes her special. She asks questions without necessarily answering them. She describes feelings many of us struggle to put into words. And she shows that sensitivity is not a weakness it might even be a strength. When she performs, she brings stories with her. And probably a moment or two when you pause and think: “Damn, that’s exactly what it feels like.”
Or, as she puts it herself: some people are hard to crack. Brockhoff isn’t. She’s an “Easy Peeler” and that’s exactly why she cuts so deep.