We hope you’re all recovering well after our first full day yesterday! Just like yesterday, today is brimming with exciting and cutting edge music and events. Here are a few highlights among an expansive programme of performances, talks, installations, and screenings across the city. Be sure to check out the full programme timetable here, including the return of the Proximity Music exhibition and audio walks, another afternoon of discussion as part of our context programme, and of course, our film programme continues this afternoon at Filmhuis Den Haag.
Yarn/Wire performs the music of Annea Lockwood – Koninklijke Schouwburg, 17:30
The renowned quarter Yarn/Wire take to Rewire to perform the music of Annea Lockwood, this year’s artist in focus. Described by TimeOut as “fearless,” “restlessly curious,” and brimming with “spellbinding virtuosity,” Yarn/Wire will perform two of Lockwood’s pieces: Into The Vanishing Point (2019), made in collaboration with Yarn/Wire; and Ear-Walking Woman (1996). In Ear-Walking Woman, the prepared piano takes centre stage, with every part of its splayed-open interior being intervened upon, massaged, plucked, and played with during the piece. It is filled with minimal, melodic, and dissonant character. With Into The Vanishing Point, prepared piano forms the sonic foundation that allows the other percussive and instrumental elements to build upon it with strident, growing tones – both lush and mysterious. Inspired by the distressing news that many insect populations were collapsing globally, Into the Vanishing Point was mapped out loosely by Lockwood to allow the members of Yarn/Wire to explore their “feelings about what is happening ecologically.” Hope and fear intermingle in these pieces, both of which tie into Lockwood’s lifelong interest in ecology, nature, and their relationships to sound.
Speakers Corner Quartet – Concordia, 20:00
Beginning their musical journey together as the house band of the renowned Brixton-based spoken word and hip hop session Speakers Corner in 2006, Speakers Corner Quartet have spent over 15 years honing their craft while developing a vast collaborative community. As a bedrock of the South London music scene, they drafted in a dream-team of collaborators for their debut album, Further Out Than The Edge (2023), including: Sampha, Kelsey Lu, Leá Sen, Joe Armon-Jones, Kae Tempest, and Rewire alumni Tirzah, Coby Sey, and Mica Levi. Their special, reverberating brand of experimental, lo-fi jazz and hip hop sounds like musicians at the peak of their game, but also like a group of friends coming together to enjoy music in a very pure sense. At Concordia this evening, hear through their songs the deep trust that Speakers Corner Quartet has cultivated and honed over years of working together and sharing joyously in the spirit of communality.
Rafael Toral – Amare - Conservatoriumzaal, 20:00
Rafael Toral is a true gem of the experimental music canon. Over the span of his prolific career, he has worked across rock, ambient, contemporary, electronic, and free jazz both as a solo musician, leader, and in collaboration with musicians such as Chris Corsano, Alvin Lucier, Phill Niblock, Christian Marclay, and Sonic Youth. Toral’s glassy, prismatic compositions are part of an ambitious project that sits beyond ambient, drone, and electronic free-jazz, signalling Toral’s next phase of harmonic and tonal experimentation. His long-anticipated album Spectral Evolution (2024) was chosen by Jim O’Rourke to reboot his Moikai label after a 22 year hibernation. It’s a wonder of peaceful, microtonal ambient music, where reverberating and long-sustain guitars interweave jazz harmony with electronic sounds from an alien rainforest. This evening at Amare, Toral presents Spectral Evolution in a special live performance.
Iceboy Violet – PAARD II, 21:45
Performing their Netherlands debut at Rewire 2024, British rapper and producer Iceboy Violet’s unique releases have been bolstering the northwest UK’s experimental scene over the last few years. Borrowing inspiration from places as far flung as the hardcore punk scene to Odd Future to Daniel Johnston, Iceboy Violet’s songs, although painted with a harsh brush, are hued by vibrant colours. The sonic world they build for listeners to escape into is vivid and engulfed in reverberating echoes. Tinted with nostalgia but truly forward looking, warm distorted synths swim over tectonic bass drums as Iceboy Violet spits their verses. Cavernous soundscapes define their music, where lush concepts rub up against frictive textures and moving vocals that bring a crooning, stretched-out quality to the often frenetic rap canon. Amidst the noisy debris of Iceboy Violet’s tracks is a humble and comforting sense of self-discovery. Catch their performance tonight at PAARD II to sense their powerful vulnerability as it rebounds across the burnt-out tonality of their songs.
Svitlana Nianio – Lutherse Kerk, 23:00
Ukrainian artist, musician, and singer Svitlana Nianio will perform twice at Rewire (both today and on Sunday), but this first performance takes place in the atmospheric Lutherse Kerk – a venue fitting for the air of mystery surrounding Nianio. A mainstay of Kyiv’s independent music scene of the 80s and 90s, Nianio’s minimal, slow pop for piano, voice, and electronics rings out with deafening clarity and subtle introspection. Her back catalogue is an overgrown garden of underground cassette rarities, including Transilvania Smile (1994), which is full of lo-fi intimacy and sauntering, baroque melody; and a release with Oleksandr Yurchenko titled Znayesh Yak? Rozkazhy (1996) that brims with the carnivalesque, operatic playfulness and solemn hymns that characterise Nianio’s work. Nianio’s songs – holding as much a sense of mystery as she does herself – inevitably invoke a wonderful feeling of discovery and intrigue. This intimate performance at Lutherse Kerk will be special.
Amor Muere – Koninklijke Schouwburg, 23:00
The exceptional Mexico-City based experimental supergroup Amor Muere will play at Koninklijke Schouwburg this evening. Made up of musicians Gibrana Cervantes, Concepción Huerta, Camille Mandoki, and Rewire alum Mabe Fratti, Amor Muere create singular orchestral ambient-pop compositions for voice, cello, electronics, tape, and violin. Expect hurtling string instruments that crescendo towards the skies as crunchy waves of ambient texture flood your ears. Always layering and then stripping back, the immense cacophonous sounds of Amor Muere are punctured by scarcity: moments where beautiful vocal refrains emerge from amidst the rubble. Listening to Amor Muere is like taking an unforeseen pilgrimage to some holy place; a ritualistic and transcendental vitality vibrates in their performances.
Maria W Horn & Sara Parkman, ‘Funeral Folk’ – Grote Kerk, 00:00
As the clock strikes midnight, the incomparable Maria W Horn & Sara Parkman take to the exquisite surroundings of Grote Kerk to perform Funeral Folk. A five-piece ensemble of musicians will bring to life this ritualistic and fantastical album that blends traditional folk elements with experimental electronic composition and doom metal. The exalting brays of flutes, the ghostly harmonies of a timeworn choir, and the gnawing drones of guitars and synthesised organs signal their arrival. In this collaboration, Horn and Parkman’s arboreal songs echo with an ornamental and cadaverous stillness. Along with such ideas of death come ideas of renewal and reincarnation; such celebratory sensations are ever present in the complex compositions of Funeral Folk. Don’t miss this likely unforgettable performance at Grote Kerk which is sure to shake the historic building’s foundations.
Nick León & Ezra Miller – Korzo - Zaal, 00:00
Elsewhere at midnight, Nick León & Ezra Miller present the world premiere of their collaborative live A/V show at Korzo. Nick León is the guardian of the Miami club sound. His buoyant, vibrant, gluttonous latin club sound borrows influence from his Colombian heritage and Miami upbringing. With releases on Mexican label N. A. A. F. I. and Colombian label Tra Tra Trax and a recent production credit on one of 2022’s most critically acclaimed pop albums, Rosalía’s MOTOMAMI, León is only going from strength to strength with his bouncy, rhythmic productions that summon dancers to the floor like magic. Tonight, León presents the world premiere of a live A/V collaboration with digital artist and designer Ezra Miller, who is known for his inventive and fluid creations that span real-time generative art, interactive websites, live performances, and immersive experiences.
Niecy Blues – Lutherse Kerk, 01:00
Making their European premiere at Rewire is South Carolina singer and producer Niecy Blues. Their music explores themes such as grief, self-acceptance, lineage, ritual, and emotional vulnerability. Don’t miss Niecy Blues’s special blend of ambient and R&B when they perform at Lutherse Kerk in this special late-night performance. In their much lauded Exit Simulation (2023), the ghostly harmonies of downtempo gospel melt into reverberating looped vocal improvisations in an album that flourishes anew with each passing song. Niecy Blues’s sound world is one of gentle lullabies, heuristic pop hooks, and world-class R&B melody. Their music has a magnetic softness at its centre. It’s hypnotising, comforting, and haunting.
Jlin & Florence To, ‘AKOMA’ – PAARD I, 01:00
Returning to the festival – after making her debut in The Netherlands at Rewire 2016 and performing with choreographer Wayne McGregor’s dance company at the 2019 edition – is beloved experimental footwork maestro Jlin. This year she brings a world premiere performance of AKOMA, a new live A/V show with visuals by artist and director Florence To, developed during a residency together at EMPAC, New York, and featuring music from Jlin’s new album. Starting production in her teens on a cracked version of FL Studio, Jerrilynn Patton’s work as Jlin has continued to change and grow since she debuted alongside icons and stalwarts of juke on Planet Mu’s Bangs & Works Vol.2 (The Best Of Chicago Footwork) in 2011. Jlin’s diverse sounds pull from places like opera and horror films but stayed close to the beating heart at footwork’s core: the ever reliable high-BPM bass drum. This live A/V show is something you don’t want to miss.
Photo by Pieter Kers