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The profile · researched 20 October 2026
Seventeen tracks, three cities and a name change: Markus Nikolaus after Lea Porcelain
Markus Nikolaus co-founded the Berlin duo Lea Porcelain, then spent four years building a solo record in Funkhaus, Los Angeles and Rio de Janeiro. Released in February 2026 under his own name, it now tours under the billing of his backing band, DÏE ACÏD KÏDS.
From a Berlin duo to a name of his own
Markus Nikolaus spent most of the last decade as one half of Lea Porcelain, the Berlin duo he co-founded with producer Julien Bracht. The pair worked a seam of electronic music, post-punk and indie rock with folk edges, and reviewers kept tracing the sound back to 1980s new wave: dark, metallic, heavy on reverb. Two albums came out of it, "Hymns to the Night" in 2017 and "Choirs to Heaven" on 21 May 2021, the latter eleven tracks the duo had worked at for close to three years.
There was never a third. Writing for what became "Choirs to Heaven" had already pulled Nikolaus somewhere the band was not going, and after the second album the two parted over differing ideas of what Lea Porcelain should be. Speaking to C-Heads in November 2022, Nikolaus explained that songs originally intended for the duo had turned into a separate phase of work that needed its own identity, and that putting it out under his own name mattered: "A fresh start without disguise or filter. Something no one ever could take away from me."
That interview also contains the line that best describes his attitude to performing. Asked about the stage, he answered that being on it is "taking the lion for a walk outside."
Lockdown, the Porzellan Bar and the Funkhaus
The years between the two projects were not quiet ones. With venues shut, Nikolaus moved into promoting, running underground techno nights under the name PORZELLAN BAR — partly to keep earning, partly to keep live music happening at all. The name later attached itself to his own releases.
Funkhaus, the former East German broadcasting complex on the Spree, is the other constant. Lea Porcelain had played outdoor shows there, and Nikolaus wrote the bulk of the solo album inside it. He has described a building where parties ran alongside his own sessions, people playing records within earshot and no particular pressure to behave like a studio, and said that energy went straight into the record. Most of the songs came out of nights, then got recorded in the daylight that followed.
The musicians who helped him finish it were friends rather than hires, and they took a collective name: The Acid Kids.
The record
"The Acid Kids" came out on 20 February 2026, carried by his own Porzellan Bar imprint with Zebralution and Rough Trade on distribution. It is a long album by any measure — seventeen tracks running 69 minutes 42 seconds — and it was assembled slowly, across Funkhaus, Los Angeles and Rio de Janeiro between 2020 and 2023. The music was essentially done in 2024; the gap before release came down to coordinating labels across territories.
The spread is deliberate. Where Lea Porcelain sat fairly still inside post-punk and darkwave, this record moves between psychedelic rock, straight electronics, indie, industrial, trip-hop and rave, and declines to settle. "Bicycle Day" opens on a bassline that unwinds into shadowy indie pop. "#6" drops the vocal entirely for techno-industrial. "All in Your Head" is the track closest to the old band. "Hold Me Close" arrives as a heavily processed, pitch-shifted take on Madchester rave. "Piece of You", "Rich" and "Never Let You Go" are the other songs reviewers singled out, and Pnksnd features on one track.
Nikolaus has framed it as the inverse of the duo's composure: songs that are more direct and unguarded, written for immediacy rather than atmosphere, with the solitude of the writing and the volume of the Porzellan Bar nights both audible in the same seventy minutes.
How it landed
Reception has been warm but not uncritical, and the criticism is consistent: the length. Thomas Bästlein gave it 7 out of 10 in Plattentests, calling it psychedelic and introspective, a record that spreads across nearly seventy minutes and asks for patience, and conceding it runs a little chaotic. Readers on the same site have been considerably more enthusiastic, averaging 9 out of 10.
Soundmag reached a similar verdict from the other direction, noting that the album jumps wildly through styles and sounds while held together by a dark underlying tone and a fondness for reverb, and judging it varied but somewhat exhausting — with one or two genuine finds inside it. The German blog Einen hab ich noch covered it on 24 February 2026, reading the seventeen tracks as a move into EDM, industrial and psych rock with trip-hop and rave at the edges, and ran a vinyl giveaway alongside the write-up.
Taken together, the critical line is that Nikolaus has made something more ambitious and less disciplined than anything Lea Porcelain released, and that the trade is worth it.
Where things stand now
The billing has shifted. The album is credited to Markus Nikolaus, but the live project increasingly goes out as DÏE ACÏD KÏDS, taking the band's name and the album title and keeping the diaereses.
The sequence so far is short and specific. The full album was played live for the first time at Kantine am Berghain on 27 November 2025, nearly three months ahead of release, with a limited double vinyl sold only at the venue. A London date followed at Paper Dress Vintage on Mare Street on 10 March 2026. On 22 May 2026 the band played a stripped-back set in the Brat Cave on Denmark Street in London, billed as DÏE ACÏD KÏDS UNPLUGGED, to mark the debut.
One date is currently on sale: Ponyhof Club, Klappergasse 16 in Frankfurt am Main, on 10 November 2026, doors from 19:00, tickets €17.50 through Universe. It is a small room, which matches the pattern of everything the project has played so far.
The show, now
A DÏE ACÏD KÏDS show is a small-room proposition built around one long album. The Berghain Kantine launch on 27 November 2025 was the first time the record was performed in full, doors at 19:00 for a 20:00 start, with Monstera Black and alys(alys)alys playing live before him and a limited double vinyl pressing sold at the venue and nowhere else; tickets were €17.67. The London show at Paper Dress Vintage on 10 March 2026 ran 19:30 to 23:00, over-18s only, with IMISSMYMOM — an East London band known locally for high-energy warehouse sets — and Monstera Black again in support; promoters pitched the night as post-punk, rock and electronics played loud and distorted in an underground room. The band also demonstrated the material survives being taken apart: on 22 May 2026 they played an acoustic set in the Brat Cave on Denmark Street to mark the album. Whether a given night draws on the album's industrial instrumentals such as "#6" or its quieter end varies, because the record spans both; the recurring note from reviews of the album, and the thing a seventy-minute set has to manage, is how much ground it covers. The next date on sale is Ponyhof Club in Frankfurt am Main on 10 November 2026, doors 19:00, €17.50.
Researched from plattentests.de · soundmag.de · c-heads.com · berghain.berlin · wander-app.fr · einenhabichnoch.com · universe.com · brat-clothing.com