Before Rewire kicks off on Friday, dive into the music programme with the third of our ‘Festival Routes’, pointing you to the shows that you certainly don’t want to miss. This route highlights the producers, vocalists and composers that push the boundaries of pop-adjacent music far into uncharted territories.
The free-spirited experimentalism of Meredith Monk resonates through the Rewire 2022 lineup, with many other musicians embodying Monk’s playful and adventurous philosophy of music making. Marina Herlop is undeniably one of those artists, a conservatory-trained composer, vocalist, and pianist who is currently extending her sonic set of tools to the more cybernetic side of music. During Rewire, she will perform material from her recently announced album Pripyat, to be released on PAN in May.
Watch "Marina Herlop - miu" by "FACTmagazine" on https://www.youtube.com/
The Saudi/Egyptian duo MSYLMA & Ismael combine echoes of pre-Islamic and quranic poetry with r&b and experimental club music. On their collaborative album النسيان / The Tenets of Forgetting, producer Ismael provides a lush electronic patchwork of swelling synths, emotive sound design and club-adjacent percussion to provide a hypnotic framework for MYSLMA’s soaring, plaintive voice to shine through. During Rewire they’ll perform their album live.
claire rousay shares the stage with a small ensemble including Mari Maurice from More Eaze on violin, Harpist Marilu Donovan and violinist Adam Markiewicz from NYC-based duo LEYA, to reinterpret the music of her most recent album Everything Perfect is Already Here in a live setting. The American percussionist, improviser and producer has brought an unusual intimacy to her adventurous take on experimental pop, creating sounds that magnify the importance of everyday life's often-ignored moments - from voicemails to whispered conversations.
Start your Saturday with an immersive live show by Eartheater, who is joined on stage by renowned ambient duo LEYA — who are also performing at Rewire on Sunday 10 April. Gliding between the serene and the turbulent, contemporary club sounds and pastoral folk music, digital punctuations and classical composition, multi-instrumentalist, composer and vocalist Alexandra Drewchin has forged a striking signature as Eartheater. During Rewire, she will perform material from her breathtaking album Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin.
Following that cathartic performance, transport yourself to a totally different sonic landscape with the world premiere of a live show by —__–___. Consisting of Austin-based multi-instrumentalist More Eaze and Dayton, Ohio-based Orange Milk founder Seth Graham, —__–___ creates an other-worldy clash of sound sources, including lush instrumentals, processed vocals and jittery samples.
Pushing music performance even in more extreme directions is M Lamar, a composer, performer and musician who works across opera, metal, performance, video, sculpture and installation to craft sprawling narratives of radical becomings. During Rewire the artist will premiere a new work called Machines and Other Intergalactic Technologies of The Spirit, a piece that is heavily inspired by Sun Ra’s retro-futurist sci-fi projections on the mind and spirit.
Gagi Petrovic is an instrument builder, composer, vocalist and musician with the aim to bring human gestures into the fold of electronic music. On the Sunday afternoon of Rewire 2022, he will perform two works on his unique GEST instrument that combine the abstract experimentation of electronic music with the human depth of the singer-songwriter.
Listen on bandcamp
Also fusing the human with the electronic, albeit in a less abstract way, is Lisa and the F.I.X. You could say that this musical alter ego of the hyper-productive composer Luke Deane is unequivocally pop, but the desire to experiment and challenge conventions is still there. At Rewire 2022, Lisa presents her debut album Footsteps On The Wall. produced by and featuring leading musicians from Asko|Schönberg and Slagwerk Den Haag. Together they combine the sensuality and vulnerability of pop with brooding textures from contemporary club music.
Probably one of the most renowned names in contemporary avant-pop is Grouper, the moniker of the Oregon-based musician Liz Harris. She creates intimate songs that are often covered under a hazy blanket of fuzzy static and crackling reverb. Pop and folk at its core, but with the melancholic weight of dreamy ambient, Grouper creates opaque sound tapestries through which emotionally piercing melodies and dreamlike vocals still shimmer like bright stars on a cloudy night.
The festival nears its conclusion when Yamila performs a live rendition of Visions, her equal parts intimate and epic second album. Yamila dances between electronic and analog music, tradition and experimentation and offers a journey on Visions that prodigiously unites baroque accents, Spanish folklore and contemporary electronic music.