Saâda Bonaire More Women (2013)
In early ’80s Bremen—a gray industrial port better known for football, beer and brickwork than for postcolonial pop experiments—a band emerged from the underground club scene: Saâda Bonaire. Fronted by models-turned-singers Stefanie Lange and Claudia Hossfeld and co-founded by local DJ Ralph “Von” Richtoven, the project sounded like something beamed in from a stranger, better future.
The project was more of a conceptual collective than a traditional band. Saâda Bonaire recorded with a rotating cast of musicians, including several Turkish and Kurdish players from Bremen’s migrant communities, a bold choice for the time and almost unheard of in the West German pop landscape. Their hybrid sound was given shape by British dub legend Dennis Bovell (The Slits, Linton Kwesi Johnson), who produced their first sessions at Kraftwerk’s Studio N in Cologne in 1982.
Their music played with contradictions: drums pulsing, synth stabs bouncing off flutes and funk bass. Lange and Hossfeld delivered lyrics in a detached, yet explicitly sensual undertone, exploring themes of female autonomy, class and desire. In “More Women”—our song of the day—they coolly reject the male gaze of Berlin’s streets and express longing for, you might have guessed it, more women.
Now comes the bummer: Despite the forward-thinking vision, EMI shelved their debut after just one single. The official reason? A&R costs had ballooned. Label insiders claimed the Saâda Bonaire sessions exceeded the recording budget for Tina Turner’s Private Dancer, which was being developed around the same time. The project was quietly buried and for decades, Saâda Bonaire faded into obscurity, a near-mythical footnote in German music history.
It wasn’t until 2013, when Brooklyn label Captured Tracks reissued their shelved material, that Saâda Bonaire finally found their audience. The debut album (technically a compilation of unreleased ’80s tracks) gained instant cult status in certain circles for its genre-bending brilliance and progressive lyrics. In a way, Saâda Bonaire remains a striking example of what happens when experimental pop and politics align—only to be sidelined by the industry machine.
Lucky for us, this one made it back.
Dig Deeper
A radical, genre-defying film set in a dystopian near-future where the U.S. has supposedly undergone a peaceful socialist revolution—but oppression persists. Told through pirate radio, street protests and guerrilla media, it follows a group of Black, queer, working-class women who organize against patriarchy, racism and state violence. Blending vérité documentary style with sci-fi, punk aesthetics and a fierce DIY ethos, the film captures the urgency of feminist resistance—and remains uncannily relevant.
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