London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Sunday, Sep 14, 2025

No Bra: 'In Britain, I was seen as page-three humour'

Susanne Oberbeck sings sexually charged songs in a German accent while standing topless and sporting a moustache – and at last she’s found an audience that understands her

In 2003, Susanne Oberbeck saw a headline in the Sunday Sport referring to a member of S Club 7. “Rachel Stevens,” it said, “with no bra.” Oberbeck, who is German, was sufficiently intrigued by this sleazy tabloid prurience to name her own band No Bra.

Originally a duo, No Bra soon became known for Oberbeck’s habit of intoning sexually charged lyrics in a Nico-esque accent over industrial sounds while standing topless and wearing a moustache. No Bra’s single Munchausen – in which two hipsters try to outdo each other with extravagant boasts (“I used to share a squat in Camden with Nina Hagen and she used to make pizza out of dead cats”) – even got championed by the unlikely figure of BBC Radio 1’s Pete Tong when it was released in 2005.

Oberbeck is about to release the third No Bra album, Love and Power. In the video for the single Bangin, she’s still topless but the moustache has gone. She is lying surrounded by a posse of similarly disrobed, heavily tattooed people from New York’s queer underground performance scene, singing lyrics inspired by French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari over stark electronic beats: “Rubbing our dicks together in the house of love / Rubbing our tits together in the house of love.”



While Oberbeck’s MO has barely changed, No Bra has found a new relevance in a time of gender fluidity. Oberbeck moved to New York in 2010 and found her tribe: people such as Shayne Oliver, former fashion designer for Hood by Air, now making records; rapper Mykki Blanco; and Björk and Kanye West collaborator Arca, on whose forthcoming album she appears.

“I’d played so many shows in London,” says Oberbeck, speaking by phone from New York. “I came here and the responses were so positive and it was seen as more avant garde. In Britain it was, ‘It’s really cool but it’s a bit funny, a bit page three humour.’ In America, they don’t have that.” What New Yorkers do have, though, is a downtown performance art tradition stretching back decades, and a habit of embracing eccentric misfits. No Bra fit right in.

“It definitely feels like a new moment of relevance for her,” says the artist Wolfgang Tillmans, who photographed Oberbeck standing topless in a multistorey car park for the sleeve of Love and Power, and who has known her for 20 years. “That is always fantastic for artists who just do their thing, don’t search to be in the zeitgeist, then end up just naturally in the midst of it or ahead of it.”

Long before gender-nonconformity became widely talked about, Oberbeck was living it. Growing up queer in the countryside north of Hamburg, she felt alienated from the family life expected of her, but found an answer in her father’s collection of existentialist and gay literature. “I was reading Simone de Beauvoir when I was about 15 and thought it was the only thing I could see that was remotely relatable, that you dedicate your life to your work and don’t sit with some guy in the same house every day.” Her other big inspiration was British style magazines such as i-D and the Face. “They opened up a world – ‘Wow, there are places where the women look cool, not everybody’s white and there’s a music culture.’”

She studied film at Camberwell School of Art in London and was drawn to the city’s alternative gay scene, which was “a lot more encouraging of unusual females”. It also influenced her focus on sexuality. As Tillmans says, Oberbeck “has a very particular way of including all sorts of sexual subjects in her work without it being either stereotypically German or titillating saucy English”. Sex Slaves in the White House is an unsettling diagnosis of Donald Trump’s unsatisfied urges and their consequences for the rest of us: “Tied up on a leash, the whole world is in peace, because now there’s sex slaves in the White House.” In 2016, she posted a video of herself and the Russian artist Slava Mogutin cruising for sex on London’s Hampstead Heath while singing a wobbly version of Leonard Cohen’s I’m Your Man.

Sex, she says, is the main thing her friends talk about: “There’s so much hypocrisy around female sexuality, you encounter it every day.” She’s determined to break down taboos while providing an alternative to a popular culture that she says just promotes consumerism. “It’s nice to have things that will make life easier but, at the end of the day, it’s directing your energy and desires in a way that’s soul-destroying.”

Oberbeck believes that identity politics are important, but too easily co-opted by capitalism. She prefers to explore how people relate to one another than who they are, imagining a non-binary, science-fiction world “where you’re not being assessed by your identity”. It all takes us back to her Bangin video, and its slightly sinister, multiracial, sexually indeterminate cast, with this deadpan presence at its centre – an outsider with whom the rest of the world is catching up.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
Tens of Thousands of Young Chinese Get Up Every Morning and Go to Work Where They Do Nothing
The New Life of Novak Djokovic
The German Owner of Politico Mathias Döpfner Eyes Further U.S. Media Expansion After Axel Springer Restructuring
Suspect Arrested: Utah Man in Custody for Charlie Kirk’s Fatal Shooting
In a politically motivated trial: Bolsonaro Sentenced to 27 Years for Plotting Coup After 2022 Defeat
German police raid AfD lawmaker’s offices in inquiry over Chinese payments
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Volkswagen launches aggressive strategy to fend off Chinese challenge in Europe’s EV market
ChatGPT CEO signals policy to alert authorities over suicidal youth after teen’s death
The British legal mafia hit back: Banksy mural of judge beating protester is scrubbed from London court
Surpassing Musk: Larry Ellison becomes the richest man in the world
Embarrassment for Starmer: He fired the ambassador photographed on Epstein’s 'pedophile island'
Manhunt after 'skilled sniper' shot Charlie Kirk. Footage: Suspect running on rooftop during panic
Effective Protest Results: Nepal’s Prime Minister Resigns as Youth-Led Unrest Shakes the Nation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
King Charles and Prince Harry Share First In-Person Moment in 19 Months
Starmer Establishes Economic ‘Budget Board’ to Centralise Policy and Rebuild Business Trust
France Erupts in Mass ‘Block Everything’ Protests on New PM’s First Day
Poland Shoots Down Russian Drones in Airspace Violation During Ukraine Attack
Brazilian police say ex-President Bolsonaro had planned to flee to Argentina seeking asylum
Trinidad Leader Applauds U.S. Naval Strike and Advocates Forceful Action Against Traffickers
Kim Jong Un Oversees Final Test of New High-Thrust Solid-Fuel Rocket Engine
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Macron Appoints Sébastien Lecornu as Prime Minister Amid Budget Crisis and Political Turmoil
Supreme Court temporarily allows Trump to pause billions in foreign aid
Charlie Sheen says his father, Martin Sheen, turned him in to the police: 'The greatest betrayal possible'
Vatican hosts first Catholic LGBTQ pilgrimage
Apple Unveils iPhone 17 Series, iPhone Air, Apple Watch 11 and More at 'Awe Dropping' Event
Pig Heads Left Outside Multiple Paris Mosques in Outrage-Inducing Acts
Nvidia’s ‘Wow’ Factor Is Fading. The AI chip giant used to beat Wall Street expectations for earnings by a substantial margin. That trajectory is coming down to earth.
France joins Eurozone’s ‘periphery’ as turmoil deepens, say investors
On the Anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s Death: Prince Harry Returns to Britain
France Faces New Political Crisis, again, as Prime Minister Bayrou Pushed Out
Murdoch Family Finalises $3.3 Billion Succession Pact, Ensuring Eldest Son’s Leadership
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Court Staff Cover Up Banksy Image of Judge Beating a Protester
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Nayib Bukele Points Out Belgian Hypocrisy as Brussels Considers Sending Army into the Streets
Elon Musk Poised to Become First Trillionaire Under Ambitious Tesla Pay Plan
France, at an Impasse, Heads Toward Another Government Collapse
Burning the Minister’s House Helped Protesters to Win Justice: Prabowo Fires Finance Minister in Wake of Indonesia Protests
Brazil Braces for Fallout from Bolsonaro Trial by corrupted judge
The Country That Got Too Rich? Public Spending Dominates Norway Election
Nearly 40 Years Later: Nike Changes the Legendary Slogan Just Do It
×