The festival’s first weeknight at Berghain presents several exciting acts exploring themes of  protest, complexity, and escape.

Poetess and musical activist AGF presents a protest-inspired hybrid DJ/live performance based on her project, "Mycelium," which was commissioned Deutschlandfunk Kultur Klangkunst.

The night follows with a quadraphonic performance byJessica Ekomane. Ekomane uses psychoacoustics and polyrhythmic structures to explore how we strive for meaning/seek familiarity when faced with chaotic or complex musical information, much like we do when faced with the intricacies of real life.

Self-taught UK pop visionary Klein may represent what it means to be truly original in the post-digital era. Her fidgety collages attend to various emotional layers in parallel, thereby portraying our age’s turmoil of distraction and promise of simultaneity.

Based on sound material submitted by radio correspondents from all over the world, Olaf Nicolai’s "In the Woods there is a Bird" melds sounds from demonstrations, riots, and rallies originally recorded for news broadcasts. Devoid of their usual radio commentary or written indices, the concrete audio objects become detached and undefined, allowing the artist to mix, reference, and re-reference them into an urgent sonic essay about power and powerlessness, authority and protest. The performance will feature bass and contrabass clarinetist Theo Nabicht. As with AGF's piece, "In the Woods there is a Bird" was commissioned by documenta 14 and Deutschlandfunk Kultur as part of the radio programme titled, Every Time A Ear Di Soun.

Contrasting the restless disquiet of Nicolai’s soundscapes, Scottish musician Drew McDowall will give the European premiere of his solo, "revisited" version of the legendary Coil masterpiece Time Machines, which still packs a punch today as a classic of late-20th-century drone and ritual music. The performance commemorates the album’s reissue on Dais Records this past fall, twenty years after it first went out into the world.

Also included in the night is access to the impressive Halle am Berghain, which will be the site of "Physical Rhythm Machine_Boem Boem", an immersive, playful installation by Dutch artist Philip Vermeulen. With the visceral acoustic instrument, the Physical Rhythm Machine (PRM), Vermeulen shoots balls at speeds of up to 150 km/h into large resonant boxes. Because the shots can be fired at precise intervals, the machine can generate intricate rhythmic patterns. Various artists will be invited to create short rhythmic compositions to be brought to life via the momentum of the balls. Alternatively, the machine itself can also create non-metric, free rhythmic structures on its own using pre-programmed algorithms. The PRM visualises violent compositions while resonating the space and the bodies of the audience.

Physical Rhythm Machine_Boem Boem" at CTM 2018 is kindly supported by the Embassy of the Netherlands. Philip Vermeulen is also supported by the Creative Industries Fund NL.