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Expat New Zealand punk veteran Kieren Hills has played in punk, deathrock, hardcore, crust, grind, and d-beat bands from Australia, Germany, and New Zealand since the late 1980s. Following “the wreck of the plague year twenty-twenty”, he says there has been a “greater affinity with machines, making the creation of Schkeuditzer Kreuz inevitable”. As Schkeuditzer Kreuz, Kieren now creates harsh, dark, confronting and apocalyptic post-industrial music from a cabin that he built in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Australia. Kieren began his journey into underground music in New Zealand during the 1980s, before relocating to Australia with riotous Wellington NZ punk rock group S.M.U.T. in 1993. He is perhaps best known today as longtime bassist with Sydney hardcore band Dark Horse, but over the years has played in countless underground bands, including Stuttgart, Germany’s Murder Disco X, and occasional Australian deathrock/gothic punk outfit Death Church. Kieren meanwhile traces his discovery of noisy industrial and experimental post-industrial music to his youth in New Zealand, influenced by a previous generation of punk musicians who had begun to explore different possibilities: Skeptics, CeLL, Invisible Dead, and Children’s Television Workshop among them. These local groups in turn led Kieren to the music of Laibach and Einstürzende Neubauten, Big Black and Butthole Surfers. In more recent years, leading up to the creation of Schkeuditzer Kreuz, Kieren also became a fan of artists including Australia’s Knife, Religious Observance, and Kollaps; and KUBINE from Yokohama, Japan. The first Schkeuditzer Kreuz record was a five-song 12” EP called Give Me Nothing, launched with a 15-date tour through Eastern Australia in March 2021, and which produced the video-singles ‘Give Me Nothing’ and ‘Amerika’. The record sold out on tour, leading to the second record: a 7” released on the Inner City Uprising label, titled D-Beat Raw Synth Punk. This record is an industrial tribute to the noisier end of punk rock, and has two songs – one original, and a cover of Australian hardcore / d-beat band Pisschrïst. The third Schkeuditzer Kreuz record was a split EP with Sydney legends Low Life – both covering Discharge – ‘State Violence State Control’, released by Winter Garden Records to coincide with an art exhibition with the same theme. The fourth Schkeuditzer Kreuz record was the debut full-length LP – Isolated and Alone. Originally pressed in China and planned for an October 2021 release, local authorities deemed the record “not fit for export” due to its allegedly “subversive content”, and all copies were destroyed, along with the stamper plates and artwork. A second pressing of the album was finally released in December 2021 through Bad Habit Records, distributed by Bad Habit and Already Broken Records in Australia, and Pyrrhic Defeat Records in the UK and Europe. The album included the video singles ‘Broken’, and an updated album version of ‘State Violence State Control’; the latter video showcasing Schkeuditzer Kreuz live in Melbourne. Met with rave reviews, the Isolated and Alone LP sold out largely on the strength of extensive Australian touring. The new album, No Life Left, displays an obvious progression from its predecessor, with Schkeuditzer Kreuz moving more confidently into the post-industrial space, while retaining the industrial-noise-punk roots of previous records. No Life Left is released on 25 August 2023 through Bad Habit Records (AU) and Sorry State Records (US), with UK and European distribution to be confirmed.