About Puder

“Catharina Boutari is Hamburg's goddess from the idea machine when it comes to decisively shaping the soundtrack of a city. As a singer and songwriter with a great sense for melodies, as a label operator with an eye for the unconventional, rarely daring and as a theater director for colorful entertainment with depth.”
Reeperbahnfestival


Catharina Boutari aka Puder is a musician, performer and musictheatredirector from Hamburg, Germany. She runs her own feminist record label, Pussy Empire Recordings. Born in Austria, Boutari combines diverse identities with a self-possessed verve, a skill she learned from her Egyptian father and German mother. In addition to releasing 3 albums, 1 EP and various singles, Catharina loves to fuel theater productions with music. As Puder she produces current international pop in a new way by defying the norms of traditional music recording processes and eschewing conventions.

Since 2016, Catharina has been hosting the, the "Puder Session Tapes". A format she created to give herself the freedom to explore unfamiliar musical terrain. For her albums, she has since collaborated with musicians from Germany and abroad to write songs in 10-day sessions, record them live in the studio with guests in the recording room and accompany them with a film documentary. In the past 6 analog and hybrid sessions, she has welcomed guests such as film music composer Riad Abdel-Nabi from Amsterdam, Dead Can Dance keyboardist Jules Maxwell from London, Bosnian singer Tiana Kruškić, who lives in Braunschweig, and the Iranian women's activist and singer Faravaz Farvardin, who lives in exile in Berlin. The spirit of the Session tTpes can best be summarized in a quote from David Bowie:

“Always go a little bit further into the water than you’re feeling capable of going in. Go a little out in the depth and when you don’t feel your feet quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place for stunning excitement.”

2021 Puder is part of the European Ghosts project during the Reeperbahnfestival Hamburg. 2022 she is invited to the artist residency at Westway Lab 22 in Portugal and releases the debut album 'During my Lunch Break' as a singer in the modern jazz septet 'Sir Bradley'. In 2023, her single "Of Elephants and Monsters" is played on the radio as far as Brazil and Mexico and the Puder Session Tapes 7 are created.