Roomer: A Safe Space
Berlin's shoegaze supergroup shares their story and a mixtape of influences
Granted, calling the experimental rock trio Roomer a “supergroup” might feel slightly overblown – but its three members have indeed been fixtures on Berlin’s progressive music scene for years.
There’s singer/songwriter Ronja Schößler, an elusive figure on the city’s indie folk circuit; electroacoustic drone composer/synthesist Luka Aron; and drummer/producer Ludwig Wandinger, an improvising musician and visual artist with a knack for free jazz and electronic beats. Former guitarist Arne Braun left the group amicably.
The sound on Roomer’s debut album Leaving It All To Chance leans quite heavily towards 1990s shoegaze and 4AD-style dream pop. Released on forward-thinking jazz/third stream label Squama, the record layers phasing guitars with loose drumming, droney textures and Ronja’s vocals that display diaristic, poetic lyrics in a vulnerable-but-detached style standing out against any type of generic ‘indie cool’.
Weirdly enough, the album also features a cover version of a Psychic TV song from 1982, “Stolen Kisses”.
Determined to unpack their story, I jumped on a Zoom call with the trio.
Roomer is more than a band. These three musicians in their late 20s seem to be actual friends, close ones even, having known each other and played together in various constellations since the pre-pandemic days.
While every one of them is involved in multiple other projects, this group seems to be extra dear to their heart. Ludwig even proudly shows his level of commitment by rolling up his sleeve, uncovering a Roomer logo tattooed on his upper arm.
He tells me the logo was designed by Shy alias Special Guest DJ, founder of the 3XL label and a central figure of Berlin’s leftfield electronic/ambient cosmos.
Still, Ludwig eschews the idea of being part of any ‘scene’.
“I don’t want to go to the same bar every night, see the same people, have the same conversations all over again”, he quips. “It’s more like – what do I feel like tonight, what kind of input do I need? Do I want to go to [queer ambient listening bar] kwia? Do I want to dress up and go to [arts space] Schinkel Pavillon or rather hear some experimental music at [performance venue] silent green?”
“I was never a scene girl, or a clique person in general”, Ronja chimes in. “If I’d restrict myself to hanging out with the indie crowd, I’d be super bored.”
Roomer’s distinctive musical direction owes to the diverse tastes and histories of the three main band members – and most of all, the place where they all meet and intersect.
Ludwig tells me he grew up in Weilheim, a small town in Upper Bavaria and home to The Notwist, one of Germany’s most beloved indie rock exports. He started playing drums in alt-rock and punk bands, later studied jazz in Berlin and immersed himself in the city’s rich improvised music scene.
Ronja first learned classical flute in music school, but in her youth she discovered the guitar as a vessel. At 14 years of age, she started to write and sing songs that would develop into her own idiosyncratic vision of indie folk.
Like Ludwig, Luka hails from a small town where he played in grunge, punk and metal bands, later pivoting towards electroacoustic composition, minimal music, jazz and free improvisation. He just came back to Berlin from achieving his masters degree in Stockholm.
“Roomer felt like a homecoming of sorts too, like returning to that very first spark when I started making music”, he reminisces. “We’re not a traditional indie band. Our roots lie in free improvisation, and we like to make a bit of noise between songs.”
“For this album, we tried to capture our live sound”, Ronja adds. “We developed the music together in our rehearsal space. I write all of the songs, bring them along and then we play – that’s how it’s been for around four years now.”
“Luka and I don’t really need to do much”, Ludwig deadpans. “The songs work well with just Ronja on guitar and vocals. Sure, we’ll add sounds and textures, and we might tweak the arrangement or interpret the songs in our way. But basically, they’re done by the time we start working in the studio.”
I ask Ronja, who seems like the quiet one in the room, if she explains her song ideas to her bandmates first. “Never”, she objects. “And also, I don’t write linear stories – it’s more about images I want to evoke, and I guess trying to enhance those images through the music. But we just enter the studio and play. Less words, more listening.”
Ludwig and Luka admit that it might happen they understand Ronja’s lyrics quite late in the process, maybe while working on the arrangement of a certain song at the mixing desk.
I hear references to my own youth’s soundtrack in Roomer’s music – bands like My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth, Low, Slowdive or The Cranes.
“Of course we know and love all of those bands”, Ludwig nods. “I feel there’s still some kind of consensus around what’s good music, right? With us, it’s not so much that we have similar tastes; we just know each other quite well. I think I know what Ronja likes, and what she dislikes. Same goes for Luka and myself.”
“It’s like this Venn diagram, and there’s a big overlap in the middle”, Luka adds. “We don’t really listen to much of the same music, and our solo works are pretty disparate too. But we often listen to music together, and we are constantly hanging out at each other’s concerts.”
Leaving It All To Chance feels like a coherent snapshot of this moment in time. Who knows, the next Roomer release might sound completely different, given the varied history and the various projects of the band members.
“This album features a classic band sound,” Ronja states, “but Roomer has a much broader perspective to me. To me, it just feels like a safe space.”
The Roomer playlist
Fascinated by the diverse influences of their sound, my additional assignment for the band was to create a playlist of current and all-time favorites.
Roomer took on the challenge, collecting ten tunes that they keep on heavy rotation. “I tried to pick tunes that not everyone knows”, Ludwig says. “Sure, we all love the Cocteau Twins, but I’d rather use this space to reveal some obscure gems that I’d really like people to listen to.”
Wednesday – Fate Is… (2020)
Ronja: “This song is absolutely addictive. I love how Karly’s vocals glide effortlessly – playful, airy, yet strikingly sharp. There’s an energy to it that makes me want to move and play air drums along to it.”
hoodie x james K – Scorpio (2023)
Ludwig: “Ultra deep cut, remember hearing this for the first time when unreleased at Shy’s place and it catapulted me into a complete different sphere which I didn’t want to end ever.”
The Sounds They Made – Dark Horse (2024)
Luka: “A recent discovery. They are a duo from the same Berlin orbit. It’s all notes slipping, gear humming, silence stretching longer than you’d expect–with no rush to fix anything, no cover-up. And somehow that makes it all more daring than any wall of sound.”
Portishead – Wandering Star (1994)
Ronja: “Revisiting Dummy, Portishead’s debut album, and this track really stuck with me. The steady bass has a magnetic pull, drawing me in and holding me there. It carries a haunting blend of darkness and hope.”
Jessica Pratt – Half Twain the Jesse (2012)
Ludwig: “Spent many cold winter nights listening to Jessica Pratt, getting warmed from inside and getting constantly reminded what matters most to me in music.”
Deradoorian – Mask of Yesterday (2020)
Luka: “It often takes a couple of listens before I notice a song’s lyrics. Usually I get pulled in by everything else first – the texture, the structure, the emotional weight of the sound. Mask of Yesterday was probably the last song I had on repeat. Only days after sending it to a friend I share distant memories with did the lyrics actually reveal themselves to me. It felt almost uncanny, like their meaning had already settled inside me without me realising.”
The Breeders – Iris (1990)
Ronja: “This is my favorite track from Pod. Kim Deal’s cracking voice adds a raw, dynamic edge – both strong and vulnerable at once. It feels like you’re right there in the room with the band. The whole album is worth a listen.”
Stina Nordenstam – Another Story Girl (1991)
Ludwig: “Stina is an ultimate artist for me.. so unique yet familiar to the ears. Amazing mood and eeriness. Beautiful harmonies, catchy yet interesting.”
Jessika Kenney & Eyvind Kang – Dies Mei (2005)
Luka: “I love this duo. You hear echoes of Sufi singing, early polyphony, even Byzantine chant – but distilled into something more minimal, more timeless. The sense of time here is disorienting; the pre-echo on the vocals reminds me of that ghost-like effect when vinyl grooves bleed into each other, as if past and present slip out of order.”
Joanne Robertson – Am I Grief (2020)
Ronja: “The opening track of Painting Stupid Girls draws you into an intimate, almost fragile atmosphere that lingers throughout the record. The natural room reverb gives it a raw, unpolished feel – like she’s singing just for you, close and unfiltered. It’s less like hearing a finished song and more like being inside the creative process itself.”
The full playlist is on Spotify, song links above lead to Bandcamp.
Roomer’s debut album Leaving It All To Chance is out now.