Press Release 27. November 2018

PRESS RELEASE 27. NOVEMBER 2018

CTM FESTIVAL 2019 – PERSISTENCE

SECOND WAVE OF ARTISTS & PROJECTS ANNOUNCED

FESTIVAL FOR ADVENTUROUS MUSIC & ART, BERLIN 20th Anniversary Edition, 25 January – 3 February 2019

With Linn da Quebrada’s 10-person live performance pushing firmly against political violences; headlining shows by breakcore pioneer Venetian Snares and ferocious noise rock duo Lightning Bolt; a night in collaboration with Tbilisi’s famed Bassiani featuring residents HVL, Zitto, NDRX, and Kancheli plus guests Anastasia Kristensen, Temp-Illusion, and Machine Woman; and a survey of some of Africa’s latest rap and club sounds from the likes of Slikback, Sho Madjozi, Gafacci, Phatstoki, and MCZO & Duke together with Sarah Farina’s Through My Speakers collective; CTM 2019’s music programme swells to enviable proportions. What’s more, Raster-Media will present a collaborative installation at nGbK; and Nik Nowak’s massive new “The Mantis” loudspeaker sculpture will rumble through the gargantuan Halle am Berghain, replete with several live performances by Nowak with Hyperdub boss Kode9. These latest confirmations provide ever more ways of engaging with the 20th edition’s Persistence theme, which is not only a fitting allegory for the festival’s 20th birthday, but also attempts to consider what is worth being persistent about, and how. CTM 2019 will again play out across some of Berlin’s most standout cultural and nightlife venues, including regular partners such as HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berghain, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Festsaal Kreuzberg, Heimathafen, and SchwuZ; and new partners DAAD, nGbK, and Grießmühle. A limited number of Festival Passes remain on sale, and tickets to certain individual events are now available. A reminder that two open calls with deadlines of 2 December are still out: the CTM 2019 MusicMakers Hacklab Open Call hosted by Peter Kirn of CDM, and the Research Networking Day 2019 Open Call that seeks innovative and critical submissions from students and researchers from different European graduate and postgraduate programmes traversing the fields of audio, arts, media, design, and related theoretical disciplines, which address the scope of CTM 2019’s Persistence theme. As always, CTM takes place parallel to and in collaboration with transmediale/festival. The jointly organised Vorspiel 2019 programme will again bring together a wide range of Berlin-based artists, initiatives, and venues, hosting a city-wide programme of cultural events. The next CTM 2019 announcement is coming up mid December – stay tuned! › www.ctm-festival.de

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SECOND WAVE OF CTM 2019 ARTISTS & PROJECTS

Badsista [BR] / CTM x Bassiani with Anastasia Kristensen [DK], HVL [GE], Kancheli [GE], Machine Woman [RU], NDRX [GE], Zitto [GE] / Bendik Giske [DE/NO] / Dasha Rush, Valentin Tszin & Stanislav Glazov [RU/DE] / DJ AZF [FR] / dj. flugvél og geimskip [IS] / DJ Marcelle [NL] / DJ Svani [NO] / Gafacci [GH] / Jerusalem In My Heart [CA] / Juba [UK/DE] / Kikelomo [UK/DE] / Kristiina Männikkö [FI] / LeFeu [FR/DE] / Linn da Quebrada [BR] / Lightning Bolt [US] / Phatstoki [ZA] / Ratkje & Barruk [NO/SE] / Reka [SE/DE] / Maria W Horn [SE] / MCZO & Duke [TZ] / Miss Djax [NL] / Pedro Oliveira [BR] / Perera Elsewhere [DE] / Pininga [BR] / Putas Vampiras [BR] / Qumasiquamé [INT] / Reka [ES/DE] / Sara Fumaça b2b Foresta [INT] / Sarah Farina [DE] / Sentimental Rave [FR] / Sho Madjozi [ZA] / Slikback [KE] / Sote [IR] / Tim Tetzner [DE] / quest?onmarc [US] / Vanligt Folk [SE] / Venetian Snares [CA] / Walter Vinyl [DE] The “Raster. Labor” installation at nGbK gallery with: Byetone + Mieko Suzuki [DE/JP] / Dasha Rush [RU/DE] / Frank Bretschneider [DE] / Grischa Lichtenberger [DE] / Robert Lippok [DE] And an installation that faces-off two massive loudspeaker sculptures at Halle am Berghain: Nik Nowak [DE] – “The Mantis” feat. performances by Nowak with Kode9 & Infinite Livez [UK/DE] & video projections by Moritz Stumm [DE]

Opening CTM 2019 with a live rendition of her audiovisual album Pajubá is Linn da Quebrada. Considered to be Brazil’s answer to Lemonade, Pajubá takes its name from a cant language often used by the Brazilian queer community. Quebrada is known for making music that appropriates the often violent funk carioca genre to passionately rebut transphobia and other political violences, delivering “paeans to her country’s femmes and queers.” (Remezcla) She vociferously and unapologetically fights for space for those not often granted it, and was described by Mykki Blanco as an artist who “flaunt[s] her intellect as much as her queerness.” Over two nights, she will appear alongside dancers, percussionists, and DJs Pininga and Badsista. Badsista, who also MCs alongside Quebrada, will spin an energetic blend of rave cuts, funk carioca, and bass tunes at Panorama Bar. Pininga is a NAAFI and Staycore affiliate, and global bass explorer, who will also play a solo DJ set at SchwuZ on the same night that Quebrada herself will present her special “Trava Linguas” DJ set. An equally inspiring kick-off occurs at CTM 2019’s opening club night at Berghain, launched together with Bassiani. Persisting amidst a tumultuous political climate, the Tbilisi-based venue and crew have earned a formidable reputation in the worldwide club scene for their excellent music programming, for uniting a passionate community that strives to counter injust politics, and for creating one of the rare spaces for the LGBTQ community in Georgia. After being shut down by local authorities for politically motivated reasons, the club became the catalyst and center of widespread protests that brought tens of thousands of young people to the streets, and garnered an international solidarity campaign and extensive press coverage that went so far as to positively affect the country’s restrictive politics. In a celebration of the power of dance to unite, residents HVL, Zitto, NDRX, and Kancheli will be joined by previously announced Iranian duo Temp-Illusion; Anastasia Kristensen, a resident of Copenhagen’s Culture Box and queer party Mainstream, who will premiere her first ever live set; fervent yet playful techno producer Machine Woman; and a very special guest TBA. US noise rock band Lightning Bolt have churned out roaring recordings and delivered maniacal performances for two decades now. Known for confrontational performances, Lightning Bolt revolutionized underground rock in immeasurable ways. Throughout their rising fame, they’ve consistently maintained their own indie and unpretentious path, focusing on concerts that bring together artist and audience through sonic pandemonium.

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From pioneers to new adventurers, a range of hard-hitting artists will appear across a night that echoes last year’s gabber infused Berghain Friday. Breakcore pioneer Venetian Snares will return to the festival in an appearance that harkens back to CTM’s famed Wasted nights. Nyege Nyege Tapes affiliates MCZO & Duke will be repping the vibrant singeli music scene of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, with an energetic blend of rap and rapidfire beats. Putas Vampiras is part of Brazil’s celebrated Vampire Haus crew, who are known for spirited, inclusive, and accessible parties that feature hard, unyielding sounds. Sote, a driving force behind Tehran’s experimental music scene, will deliver a brand new decimating hardcore set. SHAPE platform supported artists will also appear: DJ AZF is on the rise as one of the most exciting names in French industrial techno, and Sentimental Rave who conjures the untamed spirit of the golden age of raves. Returning to CTM is Through My Speakers, a Berlin-based family united through their shared love of bass music. TMS founder Sarah Farina and members LeFeu, Qumasiquamé, and Walter Vinyl have invited special guests Slikback, Gafacci, Phatstoki, and Sho Madjozi to join them at CTM. Kenyan producer Slikback made a name for himself with 2018’s gnarly, bassy Lasakaneku, which came out on Nyege Nyege’s new label, Hakuna Kulala. One of Ghana’s most sought-after producers, Gafacci has created hits for some of the biggest names in Ghanaian music will appear in support of his first solo EP, AHUNDA. Phatstoki is part of the Pussy Party team, a night that provides a regular platform for queer, femme, and women DJs/ artists to “practice, incubate, exchange, and expose.” Sho Madjozi is the South African rap queen known for gqom-rooted tracks such as “Huku” and “Dumi Hi Phone.” Versatile producer Dasha Rush, actor and dancer Valentin Tszin, and visual artist Stanislav Glazov will present Les Territoires Éphémères, an audiovisual piece that explores inconsistencies in memory and perception across generative imagery, movement, and abstract poetry. Jerusalem In My Heart is a live A/V project featuring musician Radwan Ghazi Moumneh and filmmaker Charles-André Coderre. Their influences are diverse, stretching across post-punk, psychedelia, and folk recordings from Beirut and Syria. Sonically, JIMH fold acoustic buzuk and zurna instrumentation into layers of distortion, reverb, and saturated synth work, creating gorgeous atmospheres and poignant melodies. With their third full-length, Daqa'iq Tudaiq, released earlier this year, JIMH continues to expand the horizons of its profound conceptual and aesthetic engagement with Arabic/Middle-Eastern traditions. A highlight from last year’s CTM edition, Perera Elsewhere returns to give an adventurous live band performance of eerie ambient textures, psychedelic pop, avant-R&B, and experimental folk at Festsaal Kreuzberg, alongside the previously-announced appearance of A Tribe Called Red. Through A Series of Gaps Rather than a Presence, artist and sound researcher Pedro Oliveira will offer an artistic, decolonising framework for investigating what he calls the “colonial politics of sonic biometrics.” Oliveira examines acts of collecting, ranking, taxonomizing, and normalizing vocal traits and their subsequent weaponization in the border-industrial complex. Through vocal performances using content from voice recognition and accent recognition databases, Oliveira builds a new form of anti-archive sonic insolence. Berlin-based writer and visual artist Tim Tetzner will present I Just Can’t Avoid the Void in Avoid, a multi-channel composition woven from 1500+ feedback snippets of hardcore tracks released between 1981 and 2018. The work explores the resistance to appropriation and commercialisation seen especially in hardcore genres originating in punk, which, still going strong after over 40 years, might suggest successful strategies and codes for the perseverance of subcultures.

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With the support of Upnode festival network and Music Norway, Nordic artists feature heavily in this year’s edition. Renowned experimental vocalist Maja Ratkje and Ume Saami singer Katarina Barruk will present “Avant Joik,” a piece that explores and experiments with joik (a Saami vocal tradition). Ratkje’s extensive discography includes the acclaimed Voice (2002), which consists solely of timbres constructed from her experimental vocal techniques. Barruk has emerged as a vital voice in the persistence of her native Ume Saami language – a moribund tongue with approximately 10 native speakers left today. Credited with producing one of the year’s craziest records (Self-Titled Mag), Vanligt Folk released Hambo in September 2018. The record takes its name from a traditional Swedish dance, amalgamating its music with minimal wave, EBM, and dub influences. The trio rail against the rise of the far-right in Sweden in a record that intertwines tradition with dry, bizarre humour and erratic, eccentric production. Kristiina Männikkö is the Helsinki-based DJ with a love for electro, EBM, techno, and moody, mystical electronic sounds. DJ Svani is one of Norway’s most exciting DJs, blending kuduro, dembow, hip hop, and R&B. Swedish composer Maria W Horn distorts time and space through sonic extremes, playing with and manipulating mental states. Bendik Giske is a queer artist and saxophonist that utilises physicality, vulnerability, and endurance to solder together jazz and club music with mesmerising performance. The unapologetically quirky dj. flugvél og geimskip will bring electronic and gaming-inspired pop with an Icelandic twist in support of her forthcoming album, Our Atlantis. CTM’s club programme swells further with the addition of Saskia Sledgers, better known as Miss Djax, who has deservedly earned herself the title of ‘Acid Queen.’ One of European rave culture’s most influential DJs of the 90s, Slegers has spent roughly 30 years slamming together techno, acid, and other hard rhythms and radioactive sounds. Since discovering punk and dub music in 1977, the eclectic, singular DJ Marcelle has deservedly gained a cult following. Known for adroit mixing with a three-turntable setup, Marcelle’s unconventional approach can be heard on her regular radio show, Another Nice Mess. Qween Beat and House of Amazon affiliate quest?onmarc’s output has been described as “austere yet high-impact.” (Thump) and amalgamates unusual pairings of ballroom, house, metal and industrial. Continuing CTM’s tradition of exploring Berlin’s new, upcoming sounds, a variety of local rising talent will also feature. Juba runs club night Boko! Boko! with Tash LC and Mina. Her sets evidence a love for afrobeats, afrohouse, and baile funk; and she can be found hosting Afroelectronik on Berlin’s Cashmere Radio. One of the hosts of Tresor’s New Faces parties, Reka will thrown down a versatile techno set. Sara Fumaça and Foresta, two members of Berlin’s female and non-binary DJ collective, No Shade, will offer a special b2b DJ set. Fumaça is a visual artist and DJ who spins Portuguese dance music and global bass sounds. Foresta describes her style of mixing as “[b]ass-heavy, restless, [and] diverse.” Fellow No Shade member Kikelomo, host of Cashmere Radio’s Pass the Aux, will also appear, bringing her blend of UK garage, grime, and global bass to CTM.

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RASTER. LABOR

With Byetone + Mieko Suzuki, Dasha Rush, Frank Bretschneider, Grischa Lichtenberger, Robert Lippok Opening: 25.1.2019 | 18:00 Runs: 26.1.–3.2.2019 | 12:00 – 22:00 Venue: nGbK, Oranienstr. 25, 10999 Berlin-Kreuzberg Free entrance

With the premiere of Labor, seminal electronic imprint Raster and CTM celebrate a collaboration almost as old as the festival itself. Byetone + Mieko Suzuki, Dasha Rush, Frank Bretschneider, Grischa Lichtenberger, and Robert Lippok will take part in the inaugural edition of the piece, utilizing sparse hardware setups to craft perpetual, regenerating compositions. Active since 1996, Raster is the influential German label that has released music from Ryoji Ikeda, Kyoka, Atom ™, William Basinski, Kangding Ray, and Belief Defect, among others. Conceived by Olaf Bender, David Letellier, and Frank Bretschneider, the Lab is created in close collaboration with Raster artists. With Labor, Raster explore artistic processes, and how they diverge and develop from the same starting point or set of conditions. Five tables with minimal Eurorack setups and a handful of studio monitors form the basis of the piece. The analogue hardware generates and manipulates control voltages, forming a framework in which the artists can complete, connect, and interact with the modules. As the setup does not contain any sound producing components, participating artists will select sound sources themselves, which could range from minuscule to gargantuan sonic objects. They may choose to mechanically generate sound, or to integrate microphones and amplify sound. Generative composition, whether through regulating sonic events or strategic compositional decisions, has been a key part of electronic music’s history. Labor references both academic and DIY histories of analogue synthesis, exploring open and dynamic fields of hardware experimentation. The intention of the setup is to enable interested audience members to directly observe cause and effect, so digital software will be avoided. Berlin’s neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (nGbK) will host the inaugural iteration of the piece. Active since 1969, nGbK is one of Germany’s foremost art societies – they are invested in exhibitions, artistic interventions, research projects, interdisciplinary projects, publications, and more. nGbK is built on a unique structure that allows members to be directly involved in its activities; they understand art as a form of action that directly impacts social processes.

Raster. Labor is supported by SchneidersLaden, ME Geithain, and the Planungsbüro Silberberg. The installation is presented in cooperation with neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (nGbK). Funded by the Senate Department of Culture and Europe.

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NIK NOWAK – “THE MANTIS” Installation with music created in collaboration with Kode9 and Infinite Livez Video projections by Moritz Stumm Opening: 25.1.2019 Runs: 26.1.–3.2.2019 Live performances: 31.1. & 1.2.2019 Venue: Halle am Berghain, am Wriezener Bahnhof, 10243 Berlin-Friedrichshain

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The latest work in sonic warfare researcher Nik Nowak’s arsenal is “The Mantis,” a two-tonne monumental sound sculpture that, in a biomimetically hydraulic manoeuvre, rears up, preparing itself to do battle at a height of four metres. Nowak will premiere his new sonic behemoth in a face-off against his earlier “Panzer” loudspeaker tank across a border fence, harkening back to the sonic wars that took place during the Cold War at the German/German border in the early 1960s. Live musical interventions by Nowak and sub bass addict Kode9 with MC Infinite Livez, as well as video projections by Moritz Stumm, will punctuate the installation’s weeklong showing within Halle am Berghain. Beginning in 1961, in the embryonic days of the Berlin Wall, a sonic war erupted at the German/German border that continued until 1965 and found entry into history books under the name “Lautsprecherkrieg.” East Berlin had been trumpeting propaganda and Communist Party songs over the wall into West Berlin, to the point of disrupting public gatherings. But after they successfully ridiculed a speech by West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer at the Brandenburg Gate, the West Berlin government decided to reply in thunder-sized counter-propaganda. The US-backed Studio am Stacheldraht (SaS – “Studio at the barbed wire fence”), a mobile unit of several heavy trucks and Volkswagen buses each bearing clusters of the latest loudspeakers, thus came into being. Each truck alone was able to emit noise louder than a jet engine. It was said by the SaS chief that if deployed all together, the resulting noise would have enough power to "disturb (a person’s) hearing and make them vomit." Referencing these sonic wars 30 years after the fall of the Wall, Nowak’s “The Mantis” is a mobile sound system with chain drive that is equipped with twenty-three 8" speaker cones, a 21" subwoofer, and 4 tweeter horns, which are fired by three power amplifiers to produce 7500 watts of sound. Berlin-based artist Nik Nowak critically examines the use of sound as a weapon and propaganda medium on the one hand and as a cultural catalyst on the other. Hyperdub label boss Kode9 (Steve Goodman) has had a defining influence on UK bass music and is the author of the acclaimed book, Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear. Moritz Stumm is a Berlin-based video artist specialised in multimedia performances. London-born, Berlin-based Infinite Livez is an MC channeling the likes of Sun Ra, David Bowie, and Parliament-Funkadelic.

“The Mantis” was made possible by generous support from Sennheiser.

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CTM 2019 THEME – PERSISTENCE

As polarising stances and simplistic rhetoric continue to proliferate at alarming rates, we are faced with the difficulties of resisting them and the rifts they create. The challenge lies in cultivating persistence without tumbling into rigidity or dogma – in cultivating a steadfastness through a recognition of diversity, difference, and hybridity while also embracing fluidity, uncertainty, and flux. With Persistence, CTM 2019 examines the aesthetic and societal potentials and pains of perseverance, and of its opposite: the transient and the provisional, and considers the struggles that come with balancing continuity and changeability. Music and art today are characterised by continuous searching, open-ended experimentation, and the speculative nature of hypotheses, which allows for a positive adoption of uncertainty. A hypothesis is always open to being corrected or discarded. It requires constant questioning and exchange: Listening, critical discussion, and doubt are inherent components of this process, as are sensing and recognising inconsistencies and differences. A decisive difference between artistic and scientific hypotheses is that art and music take subjective feelings, personal experiences, empathy, the imaginary, and desire as their starting points. Artistic propositions can therefore never be completely eliminated, and because they need to be experienced, they offer transitory moments of radical pluralisation. Thinking and acting on this basis is a form of resistance against essentialism and naturalistic misconceptions, against the absolute, and unshakable identities, and also against the corrosive powers of uncertainty. So, can music and art provide us with methods to move towards new societal horizons? Can we maintain a productive, idealistic kind of perseverance – a persistence of the transitory? The persistence of transience is not only a fitting allegory for CTM Festival’s 20-year anniversary, it also describes an attempt to think of collectiveness, community, and subcultures as fleeting, experience-based associations. It’s a framework for considering them as testing grounds for collective speculation rather than rigid or exclusive constructs. CTM has always strived to provide a forum that facilitates exchange and networking between different creative communities, while at the same time fostering open spaces of possibility that also allow those who are non-associated to navigate the interstices and try things out. In order to keep such spaces open, however, we must also insist on stable economic conditions. To survive as an artist and to maintain communities and spaces of open discourse make for great challenges worldwide. We urgently need concepts, tools and structures that enable music and cultural creators to continuously experiment in a self-determined manner and to freely associate themselves. CTM’s 20th anniversary edition – which was for a long time unimaginable to us – brings together many actors and initiatives across music, culture, and technology to imagine, discuss and celebrate open and pluralistic structures.

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FESTIVAL PASSES, TICKETS, PRESS ACCREDITATION CTM 2019 Festival passes remain on sale. Festivalgoers can choose from CTM 2019 Gold and regular passes, as well as CTM / transmediale 2019 Connect Passes that grant access to both festivals. Available while quantities last. Press accreditation is open, with an application deadline of 7 January 2019. Tickets to individual events are now available for a selection of concerts, with more going online throughout December. For more information and to purchase, please visit: https://www.ctm-festival.de/festival-2019/tickets/

PRESS CONTACT Guido Möbius › [email protected] › +49 (0) 30 29002161

FESTIVAL CONTACT CTM Festival Veteranenstr. 21, 10119 Berlin › [email protected] › +49 (0)30 4404 1852

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CTM 2019 PARTNERS & FUNDERS

Institutional Partners Embassy of Canada | Embassy of the Netherlands | Music Norway | Québec Government Office Berlin

Sponsor: Sennheiser

Supporters: SAE | Starcar

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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