Rewire presents the second round of artists and projects confirmed for the 2021 online edition of the festival, taking place from 6-9 May fully online.
This second announcement comprises 41 artists and projects, including a very special collaboration between legendary 90-year old Brazilian singer Elza Soares and American avant-garde trumpeter jaimie branch, who will present a work created together in a remote residency. Kenyan sound artist KMRU and Dutch filmmaker Donna Verheijden are presenting a commissioned audiovisual collaboration, whilst Taiwan-based Meuko! Meuko! & NAXS Corp., Polish duo Pussykrew, Britons Clifford Sage and NYX all present unique interactive works. Alongside this, Rewire is teaming up with virtual club platform Club Qu, presenting sets by artists from Brazil, China, United Kingdom, Jordan, and Mexico; Badsista, Hyph11E, Tzusing, BFTT, Bashar Suleiman, and Siete Catorce, in this community-driven online environment on the Saturday night of the festival.
Also added to the programme are a range of acts close to home such as Able Noise, Bby Eco, Jonny Nash, Lyckle de Jong, No Plexus, Ronald Langestraat & Tim Koh, and Schroothoop. Their performances have been safely recorded in iconic venues across The Hague such as the Kunstmuseum, Electriciteitsfabriek, and Koninklijke Schouwburg. Artists further afield, such as Russian producer and singer Kate NV, Japanese acts Satomimagae and OOIOO, Indonesian duo Raja Kirik plus many more artists will present site-specific recorded performances from all over the world. More film projects have also been added to the programme.
In collaboration with Het Nieuwe Instituut, the Rotterdam-based centre for architecture, design, and digital culture, Rewire is presenting the symposium ‘For the Record: In Another Setting’. This symposium will discuss design tactics for collective music experiences in and beyond pandemic times. Also added are a number of additional discursive talks and workshops that address the overarching festival theme of (Re)setting.
Please see below for more details about the second artist announcement. Check out the fully announced programme here.
→ Attend the Facebook event here.
The 2nd round of artists announced for Rewire 2021:
Able Noise
AM Kanngieser presents Between Death And Dying There Is A Hum *
Archivo Auxiliar
Badsista
Bashar Suleiman
Bby Eco
BFTT
Caroline Claus in conversation with Peter Cusack
Clifford Sage presents Tuner
Devi Mambouka presents Voice Design
Dhanveer Singh Brar
Elza Soares & jaimie branch *
Flight of the Giant Swan by Joe Hatt
Hyph11E
Jason King
Jessika Khazrik presents Pharmakopoeia قرابادين *
Johanna Hedva in conversation with Jessika Khazrik
John Bence presents Love *
Jonny Nash
Kate NV
KMRU & Donna Verheijden*
Levy Lorenzo performs Aphasia by Mark Applebaum
Lyckle de Jong
Maria W Horn presents Dies Irae
Meuko! Meuko! & NAXS Corp. present 0 Selves *
No Plexus (Bec Plexus & No Compliments) presents Manicurism *
NYX presents Mutualism feat. Belinda Zhawi & Nick Cobby *
OOIOO
Passepartout Duo
Peter Cusack
Pussykrew present Serpent of Self *
Raja Kirik
Ronald Langestraat & Tim Koh
Salomé Voegelin in conversation with Jennifer Walshe
Satomimagae *
Schroothoop
Siete Catorce
Tellurian Drama by Riar Rizaldi
Tzusing
Valencia James presents Volumetric Performance Toolbox
Yamila presents Eyelidless
* world premiere
Second round of artists for Rewire 2021: in depth
In a truly special collaboration spanning generations and continents, iconic Brazillian vocalist Elza Soares will be collaborating with Brooklyn-based trumpet player jaimie branch in remote residency at Rewire 2021. A legend of Brazilian music, Elza has an incredible musical oeuvre that stretches back over seven decades mixing samba with jazz, soul, funk, rap and electronics, whilst her life-story is a rags-to-riches-to-rags rollercoaster of highs and lows, personal triumphs and tragedies. branch is a versatile performer, who constantly explores ways to expand the technical limitations of her instrument, and deepen the language of free jazz and improvised music.
Kenyan sound artist & musician KMRU’s works are made up of disorienting drones, evocative field recordings, noise and improvisation. At Rewire 2021 he collaborates with Dutch filmmaker and video artist Donna Verheijden to create a new audiovisual work responding to one another’s artistic practice. As a contemporary image maker, Donna sees it as a responsibility to analyse and criticise today’s imagescapes.
Meuko! Meuko! is a solo project of Taipei based artist Pon, the experimental music producer and live performer. For Rewire 2021 she collaborates with Taiwan based, network embedded art collective NAXS Corp. on ‘0 Selves’, an explorative, interactive audio-visual journey. Audiences must wander through the immense virtual world, to discover live sets, motion-captured virtual performances, and a deceptive virtual fable.
Pussykrew are a Polish-born, NYC-based award-winning duo of Directors and Artists. For Rewire 2021 they present their immersive gaming odyssey ‘Serpent of Self’, exploring themes of materiality, non-binary dreams, mysticism, primal forces of nature and ritual. London based CGI artist and musician Clifford Sage works with animation and virtual world building, exploring audio interaction and non-linear storytelling through game engines. He presents the newest iteration of his ever evolving audiovisual project ‘Tuner’ at Rewire 2021, in which the audience can interact live. London-based collaborative drone choir NYX present ‘Mutualism’, their collaboration with spoken word artist Belinda Zhawi and visual artist Nick Cobby. Mutualism is a 360 degree immersive audio-visual experience which uses the power of collective female voice to create a metamorphic meditation, embodying our relationship with nature, symbiosis transformation and collective consciousness.
In collaboration with virtual club Club Qu, Rewire will present a number of DJ-sets and hybrid club performances on the Saturday night of the festival at the club. Imagine a rave and a video game combined, in an immersive, interactive, community-led 3D club where attendees can party with one-another whilst experiencing performances from artists from across the globe. Brazilian DJ Badsista’s musical ability leads the dance floor by various genres of electronic music, such as techno, Chicago house, Brazilian funk. China's Hyph11E is at the forefront of a new generation of producers in Shanghai spearheading China’s club music movement, boasting dark, formidable sound design arranged into hard-hitting and intricate club rhythms. Mexican producer Siete Catorce has formed a unique and signature sound coupling tropical rhythms, both old and new, with styles like dubstep, drum n bass and footwork. Rich in rhythms and references such as industrial, EBM and techno, Shanghai-based Taiwanese producer Tzusing’s DJ sets across Europe have earned him a rabid following. Leeds-based DJ and producer BFTT is known for a precise, hyper-futuristic take on UK sound-system music, and Bashar Suleiman, a producer and DJ based in Amman, Jordan started experimenting with sound back in 2011 and has evolved as an electronic music producer through time.
The first of a number of performances specially recorded in The Netherlands is No Plexus, a genre-queer electronic duo comprising of vocalist and composer Bec Plexus and producer No Compliments. They present ‘Manicurism’, a visual album in collaboration with Roel Wouters of interactive design studio Moniker. The visual album features otherworldly locations that have been drastically transformed by human intervention: the Celestial Vault at Kijkduin, Riff in Dronten and a meticulously planted bonsai farm in Oudenbosch.
Able Noise is baritone guitar player George and drummer Alex, two experimental musicians based in The Hague and Athens respectively. Focusing on the live experience, the duo engineer a minimal and visual performance using voices, field recordings and cassette tapes. Amsterdam-based visual artist and producer Bby Eco makes utopian music he describes as eco-pop. At Rewire 2021, he will perform music from his newly released debut album ‘Grow!’, with hymn-like songs telling a story of personal transformation, love, dreams and our spiritual connection to nature. Multi-instrumentalist Jonny Nash will be performing a set based around this album, centred around guitar and tarawangsa, in the monumental Electriciteitsfabriek. The Hague-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Lyckle de Jong will perform an exclusive interpretation of his faded, lo-fi concept album ‘Bij Annie op bezoek’. Dutch jazz musician Ronald Langestraat and US born multi-instrumentalist and visual artist Tim Koh collaborate on a performance. Both will be recorded at the Kunstmuseum in The Hague. Using instruments made from reclaimed trash, Schroothoop forge a kinetic fusion of reggaeton, jazz and Afro-Cuban music. The band will bring their arsenal of curious noisemaking objects to Rewire 2021 to perform their semi-improvised ‘proper canned junk’ live.
Since 2013, Moscow-based producer, composer, designer and author Kate NV has been crafting angular, '80s-inspired electro-pop. In 2020 she released ‘Room For The Moon’, a melancholy set of lunar abstraction released on the esteemed RVNG Intl label. We’re excited to welcome her to perform the album at Rewire 2021. Another RVNG affiliate is Japanese musician Satomimagae. Her new album ‘Hanazono’, to be released in April on RVNG, is an ecology of simple, cyclical refrains that are bathed in humming ethers, blending electronics and field recording with ludic and layered folk vibrations.
The irreverent Japanese all-female quartet OOIOO has grown into one of the most respected bands in experimental rock. At Rewire 2021 they will present a recorded performance with music from their 2020 album ‘Nijimusi’. Also thankfully rescheduled from Rewire 2020 is a performance by the Indonesian duo Raja Kirik. Transposing Jaranan Buto folklore and the myth of the King Menak Jinggo (the Dog King) into present day, Raja Kirik explore music and dance as a vehicle for protest.
Swedish composer Maria W Horn is interested in the manipulation of time and space through sonic extremes, oscillating between minimalist structures and piercing power electronics utilizing both digital and analog synthesis as well as acoustic instruments and audiovisual components.. She presents ‘Dies Irae’ at Rewire 2021, a piece composed for female vocal quartet and electronics which will be recorded for the festival.
Born in Bucharest, Filipino-American Levy Lorenzo works at the intersection of music, art, and technology. He will perform ‘Aphasia’, conceived originally by Mark Applebaum for singer and two-channel tape, and commissioned by the GRM, Paris. The tape, an idiosyncratic explosion of warped and mangled sounds provides the backdrop of this audio narrative, whilst the singer performs an elaborate set of hand gestures, an assiduously choreographed sign language of sorts.
The Spanish composer, cellist, singer and producer Yamila will present ‘Eyelidless’ at Rewire 2021, a multidisciplinary performance. Decentralising the stage and the performing artist, the piece challenges the notion of the concert.
Passepartout Duo is a music group comprised of pianist Nicoletta Favari and percussionist Christopher Salvito. The group's 2020 LP release, ‘Vis-à-Vis’, features compositions written for a portable handmade instrumentation that accompanied the duo during a month-long train journey across Central Asia. They present an extended video for ‘Vis-à-Vis’ at Rewire 2021.
Jessika Khazrik’s practice as artist, writer, technologist and DJ ranges from composition to machine learning, performance, visual art, ecotoxicology and history of science and music. For Rewire 2021 she presents ‘Pharmakopoeia قرابادين’, a series of web responsive anti-ads that plays with the interlink between the histories and futures of remedies and media.
As part of the discourse programme of Rewire 2021, which features talks, workshops and meditations, Rewire collaborates with Rotterdam architecture and design centre Het Nieuwe Instituut on a symposium entitled ‘For the Record: In Another Setting’. The symposium approaches the idea of the collective music experience during and beyond the pandemic, discussing tactics and challenges from a design perspective.
A number of projects make up the symposium including Valencia James, a performer, maker and researcher. She presents the ‘Volumetric Performance Toolbox’ alongside digital experience creator, Sorob Louie and spatial interaction lab, Glowbox. Archivo Auxiliar; a Mexico City based collective developing a digital archive documenting the history of electronic music and its social production within a regional context, will take part in the symposium as well as Jason King, a musician, DJ, performer, producer, songwriter, curator, journalist and scholar.
As part of the wider discourse programme, Rewire invites Peter Cusack, a field recordist and sound artist with a long interest in the sound environment. At Rewire 2021, he will give an individual lecture on sonic journalism. Cusack will also be in a separate discussion with Caroline Claus, a Brussels-based urban (sound) researcher, as they explore the topic of durational sound practice.
Salomé Voegelin is Swiss/British artist, writer and researcher engaged in listening as a socio-political practice. Composer and performer Jennifer Walshe was born in Dublin, Ireland. Her music has been commissioned, broadcast and performed all over the world. At Rewire 2021, Voegelin and Walshe will share a conversation around written scores, the body and possible worlds. Jessika Khazrik and Johanna Hedva will also join in conversation to unpack processes of grieving and creative production.
Devi Mambouka, known as Masma Dream World, is a multi-disciplinary artist and sound therapist. She will share a Voice Design meditation that aims to optimise our awareness and capacity to listen. AM Kanngieser is a geographer and sound artist. Their work ‘Between Dying and Death there is a Hum’ is an intimate journalling of grief, parental death and trauma linked to themes of embodiment, mourning and repair. Dhanveer Singh Brar probes the cultural subtext in contemporary Black music. Brar's talk at Rewire will take us on a walk through Wood Green Shopping Centre, London accompanied by Free.Yard's Regnorts (N22 Momentation Mix).
Finally Rewire confirms three additions to its film programme. Filmed across two weekends in November 2019 by director Joe Hatt, Flight Of The Giant Swan is a candid audio-visual testament to the raw electronic punk energy of Giant Swan, aka Robin Stewart and Harry Wright, as they embark on a UK tour in support of their self-titled debut album. John Bence, an artist with an established omnivorous sound-world where early music, British avant-garde sounds, ambient and electronic forms can exist simultaneously, will present a short film to accompany his 2020 album ‘Love’. Indonesian artist and filmmaker Riar Rizaldi presents his short film ‘Tellurian Drama’, an eclectic essay film in which archival history collides with personal narratives on the history of technology, nature and colonisation.