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FriRecent Warp Records signee Lorenzo Senni appears in support of his new EP, Persona. With a specially designed live show, he continues his journey in deconstructions of 90s hard trance, this time focusing on his self-described personal experience of "rave voyeurism" as the only sober SXE-head amongst gabber and hardcore-loving best friends during his formative years in Rimini. The paradoxical nature of this disciplined restraint and moderated ecstasy is the core of Persona.
Composer and sound artist SØS Gunver Ryberg is widely admired for infusing raw noise and meticulously textured field recordings with relentless, high-octane kick drums and other techno vocabulary in order to unleash a sonic storm.
CTM alumnus Robert Henke, whose accomplishments both as a producer and an engineer have irreversibly shaped the international electronic music landscape, will showcase VLSI, his newest album as Monolake, in a special surround-sound Berghain appearance.
DJ Luki is a musician who explores the deeper realms of techno. Confined to a wheelchair and with a limited range of movements and dexterity, Luki uses a DJ instrument specially developed by Creme Organization affiliate Kassen and Moos at Amsterdam-based studio STEIM with the help of artist-developer Marije Baalman. Together the group address technology’s design norms and its inherent limits for nonstandard users. Kassen will provide DJ support for the performance.
With a high-energy set involving military fluxus fitness trickery and strict sound and light patterns, N.M.O. will premiere "Deutsch Am Fuß" (DAF), a band-inside-a-band project blending unheard transatlantic rhythmic club interludes with a retro-esque FRG flavour. Their live "happenings" shed light on the performativity of dance music and the disparity between human and digital rhythm generators.
Surgeon collaborator and Lady Gaga muse and costume designer Lady Starlight’s straight-up techno is followed by Taiwanese-born Shanghai resident Tzusing, who specializes in savage, gritty industrial techno à la L.I.E.S.
CTM co-curator Opium Hum returns to the festival again, supporting the evening with his fantastical soundscapes and subterranean, shifting pulses.
N.M.O. are presented with the SHAPE Platform, co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.
Lady Starlight is an NYC-based performance artist, rock historian and longtime Lady Gaga collaborator who, in addition to DJing classic rock and heavy metal, is now holding her own among techno heavyweights. After moving to New York at the age of 27, Starlight became an influential figure in underground nightlife.
Opium Hum, aka Michail Stangl, builds his DJ sets using sombre, hazy drones and fantastical soundscapes permeated by deep and shifting rhythms, creating what can only be called a waking dream.
SØS Gunver Ryberg is a composer, sound artist, acoustics fanatic and theatre enthusiast from Copenhagen. She gained much deserved attention after playing a number of events, including a Boiler Room night curated by Objekt, Sample & Hold at [ipsə], Berlin Atonal, and Norberg festival in Sweden. Her music flaunts hypnotic, immersive currents of structured chaos.
Thunderous club sounds are the modus operandi of this techno aggressor. The Malaysian-born Tzusing splits his time between Taipei and Shanghai. He initially broke into the Shanghai techno scene at The Shelter nightclub (an underground hotspot hosting everyone from Kode 9 and The Bug to Drexciya, Dam Funk, and Madlib), where he was a regular at their Stockholm Syndrome parties.
Although perhaps best known for his peerless, timeless Monolake releases on Chain Reaction, Robert Henke is also widely renowned for the music, surround-sound performances, audiovisual installations, sound art, and photography he has been creating under his own name since the early nineties, and additionally as a co-creator of Ableton Live, a program that has redefined the electronic music industry.
N.M.O. is the project between North Sea drummer Morten J. Olsen and Mediterranean synthesis aficionado Rubén Patiño. N.M.O. is an acronym that serves to frame the work of a rolling computerized ceremonial aerobics unit operating in a hybrid territory between club music, performance and inventive forms of sound spatialisation.
Lorenzo Senni is a Milan-based composer and multidisciplinary artist devoted to investigating and abstracting the mechanisms of dance music. His releases deconstruct the sounds of trance, hardstyle, hard-trance 1990s rave culture. He heads the experimental music label Presto!?. Senni’s latest EP, Persona, appeared this past November on Warp.
Lukasz Żywna is a music lover and occasional talent scout and event organiser for PIP Den Haag. He explores the deeper and harder realms of techno. Confined to a wheelchair and with a limited range of movements, Żywna uses a controller specially developed at De Zolderkamer at The Hague's Club Pip and a midi-controller developed at STEIM in Amsterdam.