Tim Hecker returns to Berlin in support of his new album, Love Streams, to be released in April 2016 on label 4AD. The album was created while examining ideas such as "liturgical aesthetics after Yeezus" and the "transcendental voice in the age of auto-tune", with vocal arrangements scored by Oscar-nominated composer Jóhann Jóhannsson. Berlin-based visual artist Marcel Weber aka MFO designed a dramaturgy of atmospheric light for the show, building on the artists’ first collaboration last fall at Unsound and HKW’s inaugural Technosphärenklänge evening curated by CTM.

Hecker is known for his intense explorations at the intersections of noise, dissonance and melody through dramatic, and sophisticated drone performances that confront listeners through their physical and emotional immediacy. Using noise, omnipresent in nature and technology, to blur the distinction between natural and synthetic Hecker’s organic and highly abstract compositions absorb recorded sounds while also synthesizing new ones, and interact with the resonant qualities of the performance space to de-centralise the positions of performer and listener through fully immersive soundscapes. 

Born in the dead, dread-filled haunted hills of Michigan, Wolf Eyes are the rabid beasts of Trip Metal & have been plowing through new tunnels of the underworld since 1997. The group has released over 100 recordings in their relatively short lifespan, on labels such as Sub Pop, Hospital Productions, Hanson Records and De Stijl Records. They have collaborated with Anthony Braxton, Black Dice, Double Leopards, John Wiese, Mammal, Prurient, and Smegma. In their own words, Wolf Eyes concerts promise "Pure audio stunn, homemade post-nuclear terror & claustrophobic atmospheres — the most shattered and confusing horrorvision since Bo Diddley dropped the duct taped warhead on all humans in 2024."

We Will Fail is a project by Aleksandra Grünholz, and of of the SHAPE platform's 2016 supported artists. She debuted in 2014with a two-part album called Verstorung via MonotypeRec, receiving many positive reviews. Difficult to classify, her music’s main focus is rhythm, engendering associations with techno and club music, however the artist claims that hers is music to listen to rather than to dance. She has just released a new album, titled Hand That Heals / Hand That Bites (Monotype Rec). The seven tracks comprising the Hand that Bites are brimming with energy, and described by Grünholz as "...ruder, more brutal, stronger, but at the same time more basic" in an attempt to convey strength that can seduce and mesmerize at the same time. Titled Hand That Heals, the eight following companion tracks offer an alternative version of the same story in a subtler tone, reflecting the artist's fascination with observation and reality: "Everyone sees it a little bit differently. (...) The fact that something could be black and white a the same time was the starting point to work on this new album."

→ Facebook Event

Presented by SPEX / ByteFM / Ask Helmut

The SHAPE platform is supported by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.