See you at Le Guess Who? 2018 8-11 November 2018 Early Bird 4-Day Festival Passes for LGW18 available from 9 - 30 November 2017.
Le Guess Who? program guide
Index 4 Tickets & Info 6 Festival Map 8 Venue addresses 10 Artist biographies 88 Club 3voor12 • Lombok Festival • Le Gig Poster? 91 Le Mini Who? • Le Bazarre • Le Feast • The Wire Interviews 94 Partners 95 Behind the scenes at Le Guess Who?
Behind the scenes at Le Guess Who? Board Members: Franc Faaij, Matthijs Timmer, Marlies Timmermans, Sjoerd Wennekes, Tanja de Jonge
Jasper Willems: Festival Copywriting Triomf: Production & Decoration Loudmouth: Artwork Ramdath: Website
Johan Gijsen: General Director Bob van Heur: Creative Director
Thanks to our Family Members For their support in helping make Le Guess Who? an even more immersive experience: JP Bartels, Gerben Boersma, Albert Faber, Edwin Haast, Andrea Grazioli, Frank Janssen, Bauke Karel, Andre Klerk, Daniel Ladd, Wim Litjens, Steve Mansee, Jack van ’t Pad, Floor Spapens, P.Steenkamer, Jolanda Terpstra, Maxi Torau, Arjan de Vet, Frans Vreeke, Hans Vrijmoed, Jasper Willems.
Barry Spooren: Head of Promotion Jessica Clark: International Marketing Gijs Cals: Artist Production, Nienke Bodewes: Festival Production, Margriet Colenbrander: Business Coordinator, Jacob Hagel: Program Assistant, Rinke Vreeke: Coordinator Satellite Projects Justine Haantjens: Volunteer Coordinator, Sandra Maat: Assistant Production & Marketing, Matthijs Mantel: Assistant Production & Marketing, Mathé Többen: Assistant Production & Marketing
Also want help us develop the festival, and to make a bigger impact? For more info on becoming part of our Family, visit www.leguesswho.com/family.
Welcome to our most Le Guess Who? year yet. This has been a year of strong voices, and we too have felt a cultural responsibility to curate this edition with clear intentions and present meaningful content with a message. How to represent the Underrepresented? How to expose the Unknown? Not just crate-digging, but posing a counterpoint to an increasingly monocultural image of the world which is being presented. A reminder to investigate and question, rather than repeat what’s already being said. Witnessing so much disharmony sparked an interest in presenting artists from countries held in suspicion, as a reminder of all the beauty in the world which deserves to be seen. And to acknowledge that exploring the Unknown gives us the opportunity to find something in it to love rather than allowing our ignorance of the Unknown to encourage us to fear and exclude one another.
The question mark has long been our logo, and this year we use it to pose direct questions. A challenge to discover and to ask, to be open, and willingly immerse yourself in something new and perhaps be overwhelmed. To engage, to discuss, and to approach without judgement. Words can’t express our respect and gratitude to the performers and artists present, the elders among us, and those only here in spirit. Enjoy the music!
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Tickets & Info + Wristband Pickup Our Ticket & Info Area is located in TivoliVredenburg, right next to Utrecht central station. To ensure entrance to the festival venues, you need to exchange your ticket for a wristband here. Please note: you cannot pick up your wristband at other festival venues.
Timetables and Program Guide Printed timetables and our Utrecht Treasure Guide are available at the Ticket & Info Area. Although we try to offer you the best up-to-date information, info on all printed matter is subject to change. For the latest updates, please visit leguesswho.com, or keep an eye on our Twitter: @LEGUESSWHO - Hashtag: #LGW17
Opening hours Ticket & Info Area at TivoliVredenburg: Thursday: 17:00 - 00:00 Friday: 17:00 - 00:00 Saturday: 17:00 - 00:00 Sunday: 11:30 - 21:00
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Mega Record & CD Fair November 11 & 12 Jaarbeurs, Utrecht 500 dealers from all over the world will bring obscure music on vinyl and cd
pre sale | dealers list | plan of the fair etc.
WWW.RECORDPLANET.NL
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for venue addresses, see next page.
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Venue addresses 1. TivoliVredenburg Vredenburgkade 11 2. Venue Varkenmarkt 16 3. Jacobikerk St Jacobsstraat 171 4. EKKO Bemuurde Weerd Westzijde 3 5. Voorstraat 6. Neude Square 7. Theater Kikker Ganzenmarkt 14 8. Museum Speelklok Steenweg 6 9. Domkerk Achter de Dom 1
10. Academiegebouw Domplein 29, 3512 JE, Utrecht 11. Stadsschouwburg Lucasbolwerk 24 12. Kytopia Oudegracht 245 13. Louis Hartlooper Complex Tolsteegbrug 1 14. De Helling Helling 7 15. LE:EN Heuveloord 140 16. Pastoefabriek Rotsoord 7b 17. Lombok 18. dB’s CAB-Rondom 100
Ticket & Info Area
Our Ticket & Info Area is located in TivoliVredenburg, Vredenburgkade 11. To ensure entrance to festival venues, you need to exchange your ticket for a wristband here. Please note: you cannot pick up your wristband at other festival venues. Please keep in mind that venues have limited capacity. Make sure to be on time if you want to be assured of entrance. Some performances may be loud. Please provide your own earplugs or get them at venues like TivoliVredenburg, De Helling or EKKO. 8 Le Guess Who? Program Guide
15 NOV
Vrije Geluiden Live met o.a. Colin Vallon
15 & 16 NOV Fleet Foxes 16 NOV
Songhoy Blues
17 NOV
Walid Ben Selim
18 NOV
Bing & Ruth
19 NOV
Grandbrothers
20 NOV
Paradise
23 NOV
Matteo Myderwyk
24 NOV
Made To Break (Ken Vandermark)
25 NOV 28 NOV
DICE met o.a. Noga Erez & IDER Wolves in the Throne Room
1 DEC
John Bramwell (I Am Kloot)
6 DEC
MOON HOOCH
16 DEC
Finn Andrews (The Veils)
20 & 21 DEC Soulwax
28 JAN
Ray Anderson, Paul van Kemenade, Han Bennink & Ernst Glerum Marcin Wasilewski Trio
13 FEB
Avishai Cohen (bas)
2 MRT
Girls in Hawaii
4 MRT
Metropole Orkest & Henrik Schwarz
11 MRT 23 MRT 1 APR
Jef Neve Mario Batkovic Fluister: Julien Marchal + Christine Ott Transition Festival i.s.m North Sea Jazz
7 JAN
14 APR
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Abdel Karim Shaar
Abdel Karim Shaar Curated by Jerusalem In My Heart Lebanese legend Abdel Karim Shaar is the last of his generation still performing classical ‘Tarab’ repertoire: a musical form that expresses a state of emotional transition. Shaar developed his vocal talent as muezzin in a mosque as well as in a Christian church choir. The singer is known for performances that both challenge himself and the audience in a deeprooted emotional exchange, which often entails two to three hours of improvisation around one particular musical theme.
Ahmed Fakroun feat. Altin Gün Libya’s Ahmed Fakroun is a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and pioneer in modern Arabic music. As a rhymist (based on a form of Algerian folk music dating back to the 1920s), he is one of the most forward-thinking and gifted individuals. Fakroun’s 1983 album Mots d’Amour is a landmark album that combines funk, folk, synth and psych pop with more traditional Arabic sounds, which got him praise from David Byrne and Bat For Lashes and granted him a cult status amongst crate diggers. Fakroun will perform with Dutch-Turkish Altın Gün. 10 Le Guess Who? Program Guide
Alanis Obomsawin performing ‘Bush Lady’ Curated by Jerusalem In My Heart Alanis Obomsawin received worldwide acclaim as a filmmaker and visual artist. Her work is binded by crusading for the rights and well being of indigenous populations while simultaneously celebrating their culture and heritage. Lesser known but equally impressive are her endeavors as a lyricist and musician. Obomsawin has sung since the 60s, performing for humanitarian causes at universities, museums, prisons, festivals and art centres. Her 1988 album ‘Bush Lady’, which she performs in full at LGW, features traditional songs of the Native American Abenaki people, as well as original compositions.
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Aldous Harding Curated by Perfume Genius Kiwi musician Aldous Harding stops you dead in your tracks with her remarkable dark folk hymns. A magnetic stage presence, Harding taps into different moods and characters, often in the very same song. Ranging from anxious states to unspoiled beauty, her new album ‘Party’, recorded with John Parrish, goes beyond the orthodoxy of voice-and guitar-strummers, striking that rare balance between fragility and fullblown, theatrical possession.
Photographer: Cat Stevens
Alexander von Schlippenbach & Han Bennink Curated by Han Bennink Alexander von Schlippenbach is the founder of the famous free jazz superensemble Globe Unity Orchestra, which at different points featured Peter Brötzmann, the late Jaki Liebezeit, Paul Rutherford and Willem Breuker. In 1988, he started the Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, venturing into orchestral jazz and experimental big band music. Von Schlippenbach also recorded the complete works of Thelonious Monk in 2005, released under the title ‘Monk’s Casino’. 12 Le Guess Who? Program Guide
The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda performed by the Sai Anantam Ashram Singers Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda’s devotion to spirituality defined the final decades of her life. In 1983, she established the 48-acre Sai Anantam Ashram outside of LA, where she quietly began recording music. Earlier this year, Luaka Bop (the label founded by David Byrne) released the first compilation of recordings from this period: a powerful, largely unheard body of work that finds Alice singing for the first time. The release showcases a diverse array of recordings, including performances on harp, with small ensembles, and a 24-piece vocal choir. We celebrate Alice Coltrane with the European premiere of these recordings, performed live by the Sai Anantam Ashram Singers, to bring this meaningful piece of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda’s legacy into focus.
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Altın Gün Anatolian psych folk revivalists Altın Gün are a power pact between members of Jacco Gardner and Jungle By Night, who wound up crossing paths with musicians Erdinç Ecevit Yildiz and Merve Dasdemir; two scholars of Turkish pop, disco, seventies rock and traditional music. The result is as explosive as it is hot. Altın Gün is as much a preservation of these vibrant sounds as a fresh musical exploration of it.
Aquaserge France’s Aquaserge shape their own fantastic musical planet, sprouting out lush prog workouts, weirdo pop and meditative dance grooves. Comprised of a rotating cast of characters from acts like Stereolab, Melody’s Echo Chamber and Tame Impala, Aquaserge transcends the notion of being just a band: the group consists of singular musical marvels that form a free-reigning movement in the vein of Sun Ra or Magma.
Ashtoreth 12-Hour Drone Ashtoreth is the solo moniker of Belgian musician Peter Verwimp. As Ashtoreth, Verwimp draws heavily from the power of shamanism, to adapt and incorporate influences from other religious and spiritual ways of life. His immersive performances indeed come across as rituals or ceremonies, a foundation on which to build through improvisation, whether it’s through vocal mantras or guitar drones.
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Ben Bertrand
Ben Shemie
12-Hour Drone Ben Bertrand is a Brussels-based bass clarinetist who cut his teeth in the Belgian modern classical scene. Bertrand once invented a device that enables him to transform the natural sound of his instrument into electronic ones, allowing him to create inventive loops and orchestrations. On his first EP ‘Era/Area’, Bertrand arranged a collection of sonic motifs, molding them into fascinating and hypnotic musical artifacts.
12-Hour Drone Indeed, the voice of Suuns has plenty more junk in his trunk. Ben Shemie’s fascination with classical music, radio art, new technologies and the free-form experimentalism of labels like Warp Records funnels into vast improvisations in noise/feedback, ambient swells and surround sound laptop compositions. What Shemie has in store for 12-Hour Drone? The clued-in know it’ll be every bit as innovative, headstrong and self-ruling as his principal unit.
Ben Frost Ben Frost’s interests are as vast as his output is, creating music for dance companies and films, and collaborating with visual artists and poets. Frost’s music is influenced by classical minimalism as well as by punk rock and metal, his throbbing guitar-based textures emerge from nothing and slowly coalesce into a huge, piercing sound: grand and physical. Just how far he’s willing to go? 2014’s A U R O R A was written while traveling through the war-torn, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. 16 Le Guess Who? Program Guide
Ben Frost
Big|Brave
Black Lips
Montreal’s Big|Brave occupy a unique sonic space. Merging guitar torrents, withered noise bursts and shamanic yelps into a fully fleshed-out artistic vision, Big|Brave make believers everywhere their singular intensity touches down. This band is living proof there are many stones of standard rock instrumentation left unturned. Big|Brave will play their own set, as well a more experimental show during our 12Hour Drone.
Still the crudest, strangest and loudest band from Atlanta. On their eighth LP, the cheekily titled ‘Satan’s Graffiti or God’s Art?’, the band unrolled an 18song epic revelling in Wall Of Sound grandiosity, odd spoken word vignettes, trigger-happy spaghetti-western glee and genrehopping madness, which also features Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono. Once the chips are down, few bands pack a punch on stage like The Black Lips do.
Black Lips
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Black Power Tarot Exhibition by King Khan & Michael Eaton Under supervision of surrealist filmmaker and spiritual guru Alejandro Jodorowsky, King Khan and Game of Thrones-designer Michael Eaton created ‘The Black Power Tarot’. The cards are depictions of 22 prominent African American personalities, mostly musicians, but also magicians, comedians, authors and activists, including Richard Pryor, Nina Simone, Howling Wolf, Tupac, Curtis Mayfield, Alice Coltrane, Sun Ra and Erykah Badu. During Le Guess Who?, these cards will be exhibited on maximum scale.
Brian Case Brian Case’s debut solo album ‘Tense Nature’ consists of abstract ambient tracks depicting a dark environment, built around tape loops and repetitive grooves. The Disappears-frontman has definitely made good on that tense nature of his with second LP ‘Spirit Design’. Be forewarned: the decaying noise-laden junkyard of industrial claustrophobia is cranked up to a whole new level.
18 LePower Guess Who? Program Guide Black Tarot
Brötzmann/Leigh Curated by Grouper Over the span of two albums, the dynamic of pedal steel player Heather Leigh and brass/woodwind maestro Peter Brötzmann has become truly transcending: a continually evolving high-energy exchange with both players pushing the potential of their instruments all the way into-thered. Leigh and Brötzmann take on bruising krautrock, devouring and spitting it into the realms of freejazz and fragmented psychedelic noise, to form a ritual music that’s completely their own.
The Bug vs Dylan Carlson of Earth ‘Concrete Desert’ is a colossal masterpiece created by The Bug (Kevin Martin) and Earth’s Dylan Carlson. On this tandem project, Carlson and Martin plunge into deep sonic abysses, with drone metal and electronic dancehall/dub uniting in glorious stomach-churning fashion. Smoldering guitar drones and industrial dub inflections blend into vast soundscapes, piercing the veil of the American Dream to reveal a barren nest of decay and suffering.
Cate Le Bon Curated by Perfume Genius Cate Le Bon is celebrated for her playful lyricism, and her inventive pop melodies combined with post-punk takeoffs. Last year, the Welsh avantpop songwriter released her most tantalizing record yet with ‘Crab Day’. Now, she perform a stripped-down piano set, adding new depth to her playful wit and peerless creativity.
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Charles-André Coderre presents Granular Shadow (film) Curated by Jerusalem In My Heart Charles-André Coderre is a Montréal-based filmmaker dedicated to working with analog techniques. Coderre is a member of the Montreal collective of experimental cinema Double Negative and also performs in the audiovisual project Jerusalem In My Heart alongside Radwan Ghazi Moumneh. Granular Shadow is an experimental thriller shot on several types of film, ranging from handmade film emulsion to expired footage. Le Guess Who? will mark the movie’s world premiere.
Circuit Though a prosaic name like Circuit may not jump at you on a festival poster, this bunch’s modus operandi epitomises all kinds of absurd. Circuit isn’t so much a band as it’s a lab of musical Mad Scientists. This winsome collective channels the satirical sloganeering of Devo, the frantic genre-hopping of Mr. Bungle and the slapstick theatrics of Zappa and his Mothers. If these names ring true to you, however, you’ll know there’s nothing remotely comparable to Circuit’s all-out musical smorgasbord and quirky shenanigans.
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Coby Sey Curated by Grouper Coby Sey is a NTS Radio DJ and musician who released a 5-track record on Young Turks’ sub-label Whities this year. A long time collaborator of Mica Levi and Tirzah, Coby now forges his own path as producer. Sey’s atmospheric sound spans the realms of live instrumentation, samplebased productions, and classical and experimental music. Similar to Actress and Dean Blunt, Sey’s work reflects the steamy and sheltered eroticism of London’s nightlife. On stage, Sey will be joined by Sax player Ben Vince.
The Como Mamas Hailing from the small town of Como, Mississippi, this vocal trinity of gospel singers perform their spirituals together with members of the DapKings. Each heartwarming voice has its own set of characteristics, and an abundance of life experiences hidden within. The powerful, raspy vocals of Ester Mae Smith, the soothing hum of Angelia Taylor and Della Daniels’ energetic, spirited delivery exist in perfect harmony, forging into the kind of gospel that can move and save you, lift you up and pull you through.
The Como Mamas
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Dälek Dälek’s signature corroded rap experimentalism bubbled up with masterpiece ‘Filthy Tongue Of Gods And Griots’, released on Mike Patton’s Ipecac label. These veteran agitators have never been ones to stick within the rigid parameters of genre, holding the utmost contempt for conservative expectations. Instead, Dälek pioneer a volatile and timeless strain of hip-hop, drawing as much from My Bloody Valentine as Public Enemy. New album ‘Endangered Philosophies’, also out on Ipecac, is a work of guttural catharsis.
Dark Buddha Rising Finnish experimental metal band Dark Buddha Rising combines ghostly drone music, sinister guitar currents and shamanistic singing to startling effect. A constantly evolving beast, Dark Buddha Rising draw inspiration from a number of things: the universe as a constant cycle of energy, geometric imagery and the sheer absurdity of our existence. A space doom excursion to truly rejoice and immerse yourself in.
Dedekind Cut Curated by Jerusalem In My Heart Fred Warmsley was once a vital member of Joey Bada$$’s Pro Era crew under the moniker Lee Bannon. Gradually however, the Sacramento native started to veer into more amorphous sonic territories. Under the moniker of Dedekind Cut, Warmsley occupies that sweet spot between contemporary hip hop and Brian Eno’s ambient experimentations, creating a landscape of meditative ambience, jarring beat fragments, samples and contorting drones.
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Den Sorte Skole Danish sample-duo Den Sorte Skole creates magical, musical storytelling across time and space. By sampling obscure records from all over the globe, all possible genres and from all times, these guys take you on a dark trip into a parallel world where ancient ghosts and future robots communicate through heavenly spirituals and poisonous rhythms. Almost 15 years in the game, the band earned a well-deserved headliner show at this years Roskilde Festival.
Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek This multi-nationality Anatolian rock outfit is fronted by Turkish vocalist and musician Derya Yıldırım. With members from Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy, Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek offers a metropolitan take on Turkish psych rock traditionals, as well as performing original compositions that pick up where heroes like Özdemir Erdoğan and Aşık Mahzuni Serif left off. On stage, the band perform as a spirited, tight and groovy unit, revelling in propellent take-offs and hypnotic melodies.
EANN 12-Hour Drone artist Martijn Comes’ composition ‘Eann’ will be performed on the Dom church carillon. He wrote it for his son, exploring themes like family, roots, saying goodbye, a tragic loss, and returning. For Martijn, it was a complete new experience to perform for a whole city: “I had to write not just for the sake of creativity, beauty, personal ‘meaning’ and professionalism, but for the people I see and meet every day.”
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Ekin Fil Curated by Grouper Ekin Fil’s ambient compositions sound like eerie, disintegrated remnants of a Cocteau Twins tune. Istanbul-based musician and composer Ekin Üzeltüzenci happily chooses full-on abstraction over song. Behind an icy fog of dripping reverb, her vocals hardly ever register beyond whispers and sighs, always just out of reach. In a way, Ekin Fil’s music feels like a force relieving you from gravity’s pull towards more ethereal realms.
Ellen Arkbro 12-Hour Drone Stockholm musician and composer Ellen Arkbro is motivated by generating and absorbing sound. Whether she has her hands on a 400year old pipe organ or a grid of digital equipment, the results are equally stunning. Arkbro’s music is driven by an alert awareness of the present, making her able to trace down fresh links between genres like blues and classical music.
Essaie pas Essaie pas is one of the most exciting bands you’ll find on James Murphy’s influential label DFA Records. The group features burgeoning Canadian electronic maestro Marie Davidson as one of the founding members. Fans of Cabaret Voltaire, Propaganda, Giorgio Moroder and Human League will fall head over heels for Essaie pas’s “dystopian futurism”, “dark wave disco” and “Teutonic lullabies”, as The Guardian puts it. Essaie pas
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Ex-Easter Island Head Curated by James Holden UK-based musical collective Ex-Easter Island Head incorporates multiple prepared electric guitars struck with percussion mallets, creating music that explores group interplay, repetition and melodic invention through purposefully limited means. The results are highly hypnotic compositions that sound almost electronic, despite being of physical nature. EEIH have collaborated with a.o. the BBC Philharmonic, Arnold Dreyblatt, and Rhys Chatham, and acclaim from media have seen the collective compared to Steve Reich, Brian Eno and Claude Debussy.
Farai Two years ago, Zimbabwe-born, UK-based musician/poet Farai delivered a straight-up banger in ‘The Sinner’ on the Vol. 1 compilation of African diaspora collective NON Worldwide. Consider that time in-between well-spent. On her debut EP ‘Kisswell’, she joins forces with producer Basil Anthony Harewood, aka TØNE, to reimagine the roots of post-punk and new wave in a visionary and self-possessed exercise in futuristic pop. Ex-Easter Island Head
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Farida & The Iraqi Maqam Ensemble
Farida & The Iraqi Maqam Ensemble Curated by Jerusalem In My Heart Farida Mohammad Ali’s mastery of the ancient maqam discipline - a lifetime’s pursuit - is truly extraordinary. In execution, this traditional singing technique requires full command of complex melodies, as well as understanding the embedded philosophies within them. But most of all, it’s common custom in Arabic cultures for maqam singers to be male. Farida Mohammad Ali however, is well-versed in maqam albaghdadi, a form of maqam rooted in the very beginnings of civilization, emphasizing and encouraging more improvisational singing.
Fhloston Paradigm Curated by Shabazz Palaces Fhloston Paradigm is one of the many groundbreaking excursions of renowned Philly producer, musician and DJ King Britt. Hyperdub debut ‘The Phoenix’ and this year’s followup ‘After…’ encompass the spirit of the analogue synth-based sci-fi soundtracks that have captured Britt’s imagination. As Fhloston Paradigm, Britt opts for impulsive experimentation, cosmic ambience and wordless vocal improvisations over the more structured techno leanings of his past.
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Flohio London grime MC Flohio made her presence known during her ace collaboration with beatmaking duo God Colony. On killer tracks like SE16, Flohio displays rapid-fire delivery and jaw-dropping wordplay, latching onto beats with laser-focussed intensity and bravado. She’s also part of the TruLuvCru, a London-based collective of creative souls mobilizing and burgeoning at the same rate as Flohio’s own mushrooming talents.
GAS (Wolfgang Voigt) Curated by Grouper Wolfgang Voigt’s groundbreaking project GAS is the sound of organic matter and technology living in perfect harmony. As he himself puts it: ‘bring the forest to the disco and vice versa’. Voigt structures his ambient/techno hybrid by distorting and sculpting existing samples beyond recognition on top of narcotic four-tothe-floor beats. GAS encompasses a beautiful future world that’s moved on from humankind, with nature once again enfolding itself over the man-made structures of days past. Narkopop, Voigt’s first GAS album in nearly two decades, was released this year on Kompakt.
Gonjasufi Curated by Shabazz Palaces Gonjasufi established himself as a mainstay in the Warp Recordsfamily with druidic masterpiece ‘A Sufi And A Killer’, effectively patching together psychedelic music, drones, electronic music, sampling, rock, soul and jazz like no one had done before. Ever since, Gonjasufi has been churning out records that defy classification, bookended by the cathartic ‘Callus’; an infernal, hardhitting record that unwinds like an anxiety-fueled inner monologue. 28 Le Guess Who? Program Guide
recordings, interviewsLeand more Guess Who? Program Guide 29
Greg Fox Basilica Soundscape presents Lending his singular talents to artists as diverse as Liturgy, Glenn Branca and Colin Stetson, drummer extraordinaire Greg Fox’s rapid fire, blistering playing style is a true force of nature. Fox’s unique take on his instrument is fueled by an continual curiosity for technology and sound. When it comes to applying the drums as means of expression, few musicians are imaginative and forwardthinking as Fox.
Grouper & Paul Clipson Grouper, the moniker of Liz Harris, continues to bewilder with the most basic resources: a voice, one instrument and the ambience of her surroundings. Her sparse compositions occupy an intimate space between sound and song, with performances transcending the relationship between performer and listener, offering a meditative and restorative experience. She will perform with the rushing, naturally psychedelic imagery of long-time creative collaborator and friend Paul Clipson, creating a uniquely immersive and transformative environment.
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Grouper • Photographer: Richard Rothman
H. Hawkline H. Hawkline’s goofball pop has the special ability to make the mundane sound quirky, whether it’s a perfectly formed bit of toothpaste on your toothbrush or shoelaces tied equally tight to avoid discomfort. Once you spell them out, they suddenly appear oddball or freakish. These tiny observations, together with H. Hawkline’s sonic quirks and Talking Heads-like funk uplift the normal everyday into something wholesome and fun.
Han Bennink Trio & Joris Roelofs Curated by Han Bennink Award-winning Dutch composer, bass clarinet player and saxophonist Joris Roelofs has performed with Han Bennink multiple times since forming an experimental duo together last year. Roelofs has practiced his craft in New York for three years between 2008 and 2011, where he put together a trio-ensemble with Ted Poor and Matt Penman. It has been a fixture in-between Roelofs’ many musical
Han Bennink • Photographer: Jelmer de Haas
adventures. Joris also plays lead alto in the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw and is a key member of Reinier Baas vs. Princess Discombobulatrix. Le Guess Who? Program Guide 31
Hellvete 12-Hour Drone Hellvete is the solo moniker of Glen Steenkiste. Previously active in Silvester Anfang and one of the founders of the Funeral Folk label, Steenkiste draws influences from early minimalism to old folk music. With the use of harmonium, bowed banjo, electric tampura and analog synth, Hellvete creates intense sounds that obliterate stale notions of time and place. Steenkiste’s music is like taking an endless shower of sunbeams: warm, comforting and mind-altering.
Hieroglyphic Being Curated by James Holden Jamal Moss, better known as Hieroglyphic Being, is one of the most distinct figures from Chicago’s rave scene. Throughout his impressive output, Moss’s glitchy style draws from the roots of spiritual jazz, industrial and acid house. Hieroglyphic Being’s performances bridge and distort concepts of futurism, folklore and ancestry, using tools like analog synths and drum machines to
speak the language of those who came before and those who will come to be.
Ibaaku Senegalese house producer Stephen “Ibaaku” Bassene’s dazzling debut ‘Alien Cartoon’ was originally meant to be the soundtrack of a sci-fi fashion show created by fellow countrywoman and designer Selly Raby Kane. For music meant to accompany an alien attack, this record certainly has a vibrant, glossedup sensation. Another surprise, actually, is how ‘Alien Cartoon’ spawned from a more grounded place: the rush and tumult of Dakar’s streets and alleyways.
32 Le Guess Who? Program Guide Ibaaku • Photographer: Jean-Baptiste Joire
ESNS: EU
THE EUROPEAN MUSIC PLATFORM ESNS: EU creative europe
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ICP Orchestra Curated by Han Bennink The incomparable Instant Composers Pool Orchestra are like the Jedi Knights of improvisation: a collective of musical marvels hacking the conventions of their individual instruments, setting an arena to clash, challenge and coalesce with one another. Founded by the late pianist Mischa Mengelberg and maverick skinsman Han Bennink, the ICP Orchestra is part jazz band, part chamber orchestra. When performing live, harmony can be found in chaos and set arrangements are often employed playfully to instill confusion. Above all, the Composers Pool’s a one of a kind celebration of individuality within a collective.
Incident at Restigouche (film) Curated by Jerusalem In My Heart Alanis Obomsawin is a renowned filmmaker and visual artist. Before she released her album ‘Bush Lady’, which she will perform in full for the first time at our festival, she made Incident at Restigouche: a documentary about the raid on the Restigouche Reserve of the Mi’kmaq Indians in 1981. The reason for this violent invasion was a restriction on fishing from local Quebec authorities, while for the Mi’kmaq, fishing was a traditional and vital element of their culture.
34 Le Guess Who? Program Guide ICP Orchestra • Photographer: Francesca Patella
Innerwoud 12-Hour Drone Innerwoud is the moniker of Ghent-based double-bass player Pieter-Jan Van Assche. His music is often described as ambient, drone and neoclassical. Drones are layered on top each other, revealing a vast range of textures and sounds, stretching the boundaries of the double-bass. Innerwoud wanders through open landscapes and craves for an anonymous darkness, as subtle melodies shine a humble light.
Insecure Men Insecure Men is the wacky side project of Fat White Familymember Saul Adamczewski and Ben Romans-Hopcraft (Childhood). First release ‘Karaoke For One’ contains nine stripped cover songs displaying windswept solitude and droll mockery, while occasionally sounding disarmingly heartfelt. On stage, Insecure Men transforms into an 8-piece band including vibraphone, lap steel guitar and saxophone.
The Invaders (film) Black Power Tarot ‘The Invaders’ talks about a generation of civil rights activists who originated from Memphis in 1967, consisting of students, Vietnam veterans, musicians and intellectuals who were inspired by black leaders like Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael. The documentary highlights the history and meaning behind this oft-overlooked group, as well as the surprising involvement with Dr. Martin Luther King. The film is scored by none other than King Khan, and sparked the artist’s idea for ‘The Black Power Tarot’. The screening includes an interview with Arish Ahmed Khan and John B. Smith, one of the founders of The Invaders.
Jambinai South Korean outfit Jambinai performs a thrilling mix of post rock, noisy jazz, dreamy ambient, electro and metal. Their traditional rock instrumentation is given quite the upgrade with electronics, effects, and traditional Korean instruments like the piri (an oboe-like reed instrument), the haegeum (a two-string violin) and the geomungo (an elongated sitar). Jambinai is equally keen on delivering heavy metal barrages as rich orchestral flourishes, plus a knack for tense free-jazz freak outs.
James Holden & The Animal Spirits Electronic explorer James Holden is not only a musician, he’s also a producer, remixer, and the founder of the Border Community label, where he releases the music of equally genre bending electronic artists. His last album ‘The Inheritors’ is an intriguing voyage across electronic and psychedelic sounds, abstract drones, kraut, and African percussion. It was built from late night studio jams on modular synths and custom hybrid analoguedigital machines. Holden’s new album ‘The Animal Spirits’ enhances his past in trance music with his love for Moroccan Gnawa music.
36 Le Guess Who? Program Guide James Holden • Photographer: Laura Lewis
Jane Weaver Manchester figurehead Jane Weaver’s twenty-year career has mostly been aimed at molding dream pop, avant-folk and psychedelic music into fully realized artistic concepts. Weaver’s last two efforts see her at the peak of her creative powers: ‘The Silver Globe’ crystallized space rock and archaic movie soundtracks and her newest album ‘Modern Kosmology’ delves into Stereolabish art pop sensations, minimal synth arrangements and psych rock.
Jenny Hval Basilica Soundscape presents In her enigmatic avant-pop excursions, Jenny Hval breaks free from trite concepts of sex, mortality, biology and pop culture. Her concept album ‘Blood Bitch’ occupies a fractured but heroic free zone between performance art and pop in similarly revolutionary fashion as Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love and Laurie Anderson’s Big Science. In Hval’s music, moments of melodic beauty light up like quivering candles within a pitch black solitude of sonic abstraction.
Jenny Hval
Jerusalem In My Heart
Jesca Hoop
Curated by James Holden Jerusalem In My Heart is the main project of Lebanon-born, Montreal-based artist and producer Radwan Ghazi Moumneh. Moumneh collects sounds and melodies, both archaic and futuristic, to create a transcending musical manifestation. JIMH performances are enthralling multi-media experiences, forging modern experimental Arabic music and electronic compositions with a punk rock impulsiveness.
On one of her newer songs, Cut Connection, Jesca Hoop tries to reconcile a love with the words “be the drummer in my heart”. The magnetic Hoop laces her distinct anti-folk with likewise playful lyricism and lush instrumentation. Her music has been consistently great at making the weighty seem weightless; Hoop’s pervasive joy in creating is so evident, there’s harmony and levity to be found in even her darkest work.
Jessica Moss 12-Hour Drone Jessica Moss is best known as a key member of Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & TraLa-La Band. Moss has played on a few seminal albums from the Montreal and Toronto scenes, including Arcade Fire’s ‘Funeral’ and Broken Social Scene’s ‘You Forgot It In People’. New solo album ‘Pools Of Light’ teeters between sweeping orchestral moods and caustic machine-driven elements, illustrating the discord between humankind and the world it inhabits.
Jerusalem In My Heart 38Photographer: Le Guess Who? Program Guide Melanie Marsman
za 17 feb
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John Maus In the lexicon of John Maus, pop music has always been a vessel for endless possibility. Much like fellow voyager Ariel Pink, pop serves as the Trojan Horse for Maus’s avalanche of ideas, philosophies, scholarly knowledge and wholehearted enthusiasm. Maus’s live performances break down and dissolve the conventional artist-audience interaction, creating situations where human expression reigns free.
Juana Molina
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John Maus • Photographer: Shawn Brackbill
There is plenty of intrigue surrounding Buenos Aires-based musician Juana Molina. At the height of her popularity as a TV host, she fully immersed herself into her prime interest: music. Over a two decade span, Molina’s albums became increasingly abstract, until finally reaching her creative and critical peak with this year’s offering ‘Halo’. The album employs an inviting and mysterious blend of opaque folk, occult narratives, layered vocals and playful minimalism.
Julianna Barwick
Kane Strang
Curated by Perfume Genius Julianna Barwick’s neoclassical/ ambient compositions revel in the art of reverb, a crystalline pollination of tiny sonic particles into soothing bundles that fill up entire rooms. Having such a vast sound surround you completely, gives her music an equally intimate as overwhelming feel, as if you’re picked up and being carried along a musical current. No doubt, perfecting this transformative experience comes from her early experience as church singer.
Last year, Dunedin lo-fi pop singer Kane Strang debuted his winsome first album ‘Blue Cheese’, and just like that, he joined the Dead Oceans roster. On sophomore LP ‘Two Hearts And No Brain’, sentimentality and cynicism walk hand in hand like an awkward couple. The album is a nuanced document of an artist scrambling in adolescence, but swinging for the fences as if his life depends on it.
Julie Byrne Julie Byrne’s lucid and enchanting folk songs speak immensely to the imagination, providing visions of the stars of the high desert, the fatigue of change, the wild flowers of the California coast, as well as the baffling mysteries of love. Byrne has the stunning ability to calm even the busiest places into a vacuum of enchantment and warmth.
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K Á RYYN K Á R Y Y N is a producer, composer and vocalist who makes textured and emotional music inspired by the human condition, science and spirituality. Born in Alabama, baptized in Aleppo and raised in Indiana, K Á R Y Y N’s early life was divided between the USA and Syria, her identity composed of both Middle-eastern and Western culture. Described by press as an electronic adventurer, K Á R Y Y N made her mark scoring music for the opera ‘Of Light’, which was described as “an extremely nourishing experience” by Björk.
Keiji Haino Curated by Grouper In his 45 years as a musician, Japanese sound wizard Keiji Haino devoted himself to one constant: to never repeat himself. To this day, Haino has done just that, always walking the unexplored passages of noise experimentation, avant-garde rock and DJing. Never looking back in his quest to scrutinize the concepts of music, sound and space has put him in the crosshairs of fellow travelers such as Stephen O’Malley, John Zorn and Faust.
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KÁRYYN
Keiji Haino & Han Bennink Curated by Han Bennink Japanese noise and avant-garde maestro Keiji Haino and freespirited Dutch drummer/percussionist Han Bennink are born miles apart, but share their ability to shape music from any place, object or situation and create something magical, often by the simplest of means and materials. Bennink and Haino are true mavericks; to them music is as ever-present as the air we breathe. All bets are off on what to expect when we finally put this duo on stage together.
Kelly Lee Owens Producer and musician Kelly Lee Owens is a cosmonaut in her own self-shaped zero gravity space. A space where machinery and ambience swell and orbit. Owens shapes this pliable universe to her liking, forming a twilight between mid-tempo dream pop and nimble acid house. In any case, her brilliant eponymous album reconfigures both icy and thermal atmospherics to compose supernatural, nurturing music for both body and spirit.
Keiji Haino• Photographer: Kazuyuki Funaki
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Kevin Morby The steady yet ever versatile Kevin Morby extends his musical range with each project he’s a part of. Morby exhibits a fleeting beauty and folk rock romanticism in his songwriting, hypnotically exploring intimate storytelling next to panoramic sounds. Third solo LP ‘Singing Saw’ picks fruits from the West Coast’s placid outer ring, whereas this year’s follow-up ‘City Music’ became a stoic meditation on lonerism in the metropolitan districts.
Klein Curated by Jerusalem In My Heart Having been raised in a religious household, you might not expect Klein’s career path started by making droned-out versions of Carly Rae Jepsen songs at open mic nights. It typifies her music though, which is both fun and sonically inventive. She lets her imagination run wild by playfully sampling R&B, noise, gospel, field recordings and soundscapes, while never shying away from pop giddiness amidst her impulsive experimental bursts.
44 Le Guess Who? Program Guide Kevin Morby
Lea Bertucci 12-Hour Drone New York musician/composer Lea Bertucci threads the needle between the physical and abstract. The soothing movements she creates with alto saxophone, electronics and bass clarinet interact with devices such as tapes and speakers, and more importantly, the space these sounds are unleashed in. Bertucci’s work is a suspenseful and highly original lingo of music that rewards the patient listener.
Leo Svirsky 12-Hour Drone Leo Svirsky is an American composer, improviser, pianist and accordionist based in The Hague. He explores the ways our listening behavior alters the way we register musical vocabularies. Disorientations of memory and spatial awareness are nevertheless rooted in song and story. As an improviser, Svirsky nosedives in both long term and happenstance collaborations with players such as Jasper Stadhouders and Ab Baars.
La Double Vie de Véronique (film) Curated by Grouper La Double Vie de Véronique is a story of two women that go by the same name and share the same hopes and dreams, even though the one lives in Poland and the other in France. Unaware of the existence of each other, their lives unravel before our eyes. La Double Vie de Véronique is a movie about love, identity and intuition, including a hauntingly beautiful soundtrack by Zbigniew Preisner.
Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares Curated by Perfume Genius The famous Bulgarian women’s choir Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares (‘Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices’) is comprised of 22 members. Performing in traditional clothing, the varying voices of the choir weave together in a serene manner, forming cunningly complex arrangements. The ensemble originated in 1952 (as The Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir), and has since been performing ancient Bulgarian folk songs which, thanks to the innovative vocal use, conjure melodies that take you across time and space. Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares will release a new album with Lisa Gerrard from Dead Can Dance in the beginning of 2018. The choir will perform songs from the new album, marking the premiere of these works in The Netherlands.
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Les Amazones d’Afrique
Les Amazones d’Afrique Les Amazones d’Afrique are a gathering of some of the strongest artistic voices of West-Africa campaigning for gender equality. These musicians and vocalists have joined together to create a force powerful enough to tear through the walls of oppression, patriarchy and disempowerment. Not only that: Les Amazones d’Afrique is a representation of the sheer diversity of Africa and all its communal voices. Being a so-called ‘supergroup’ isn’t even what’s most special here: this is life changing, vital and infectious music.
Liars Maybe it’s because of their location changes throughout the years (New York – Berlin – Los Angeles), but like the best method actors, Liars take up an entirely new set of tricks and characteristics on each album. From corrosive noise rock to freewheeling art-rock to seedy electronics: all is embraced within their ever-evolving, pioneering craft. Liars seem to have found secret wormholes to travel between these genres, coming up with unique blends of it each time. Le Guess Who? Program Guide 47
Lili Boulanger ‘Du fond de l’abîme’ performed by Radio Philharmonic Orchestra Lili Boulanger (1893) is a unique and prodigious case studies in music history, taking up singing, organ, piano, violin, cello and harp at the premature age of five. In 1913, she became the first woman to win the prestigious Prix de Rome. The Radio Philharmonic Orchestra will play her composition ‘Du fond de l’abîme (De Profundis)’, a piece on loss and sorrow, informed by the death of her father in 1900. Boulanger died at the age of 24, but to this day remains an influential figure who inspired the likes of Olivier Messiaen and Jonny Greenwood. 48 Le Guess Who? Program Guide
VR IDLES 24 + THE SWEET RELEASE OF DEATH 11 ZA EMMA RUTH 09 + JAYE JAYLE 12
RUNDLE
VR 15 12
LA NUIT TROPIQUE (O.A. BRUXAS)
VR 22 12
PERFECT INDIE DISCO MET CANSHAKER PI
VR ADRIAN CROWLEY 26 + NADINE KHOURI 01 ZA 10 03
GRUPPO DI PAWLOWSKI
ZA 24 03
FLYING HORSEMAN
ZA 28 04
MARLON WILLIAMS
FOOD DURING #LGW17: WE SERVE 3 DISHES (VEGGIE/FISH /MEAT) THE ONLY THING YOU HAVE TO DO IS CHOOSE, PAY LE GUESS WHO? PROGRAM GUIDE €12,50 AND WE’LL DO THE REST. THU-SUN, 18H-20H.
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Linda Sharrock Curated by Jerusalem In My Heart Renowned for her work with guitarist Sonny Sharrock in the 60s and 70s, Linda Sharrock has become a leading light in the world of experimental jazz and avant-garde. Her vocal delivery is a hallmark of freedom of expression: a soaring sound, alternating vocal jolts of lightning with soothing coos and whispers. Sharrock has always retained her roving spirit, collaborating with artists as diverse as The Roots, poet Ernst Jandl, jazz legends Pharoah Sanders and Herbie Mann, and pianist Wolfgang Puschnig.
Linton Kwesi Johnson Linton Kwesi Johnson’s impressive body of work includes stints as “dub poet”, political orator, recording artist and author/ journalist. His 1978 reggae album ‘Dread Beat an’ Blood’ is a statement akin to Gil Scott Heron’s ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’. A vocal personality who fights oppression against black youth, the Jamaica-born Johnson still has plenty to say. Linton Kwesi Johnson is set to deliver a powerful spoken word performance.
50Linda Le Guess Who? Program Guide Sharrock
Liu Fang Basilica Soundscape presents Liu Fang is known for her virtuosic and expressive interpretation of traditional pipa and guzheng music from China’s classical and folkloric traditions. Celebrated as being one of the greatest virtuosos, “the empress of pipa” is able to transmit the beauty and the richness of this ancient music in a clever and significant way, as well as displaying the subtle sonorities of the instruments by the power and sensibility of her play.
Lost Horizons Curated by Perfume Genius Lost Horizons is a new collaborative dream-pop project formed by Simon Raymonde of Cocteau Twins and Richard Thomas of instrumental quartet Dif Juz. The duo’s upcoming album ‘Ojalá’, released on Raymonde’s seminal label Bella Union, features various guest vocalists, including Marissa Nadler, Tim Smith (ex-Midlake), Sharon Van Etten and Karen Peris (The Innocence Mission). The word ojalá is Spanish for ‘hopeful’, which aptly sums up Lost Horizons’ mission statement: to create something powerful and meaningful that gleams in an age of darkness.
Love Theme Love Theme is an experimental drone jazz outfit comprised of Alex Zhang Hungtai (ex-Dirty Beaches), Austin Milne and Simon Frank. The group’s self-titled LP follows a travel narrative, moving across a series of locations and landscapes, reflecting the innate experiences of death and resurrection. Aching wanes of saxophones hover above the mixed percussion and synths, like the distorted echoes of Coltrane tumbling through the neon lights and dark alleyways of Kowloon at night.
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Luka Productions Productions is the bedrock of Mali-based producer, multi-instrumentalist and rapper Luka Guinda, responsible for 2017’s more mysterious and downright sensational releases. ‘Fasokan’ finds Guinda devising his own supreme version of Martin Denny’s tropical easy listening, rendering hypnotic interlocking beats with balafons, drum machines, and rousing vocal mantras. For this performance, Guinda will harken back to his first album ‘Mali Kady’, a hyperkinetic, brightly colored strain of African hip-hop.
Maâlem Houssam Guinia & Band Curated by James Holden Maâlem (or ‘master musician’) Houssam Guinia is the son and successor of the late Mahmoud Guinia, an emblematic figure in the practice of West-African Gnawa music. Gnawa is an extensive treasury of ceremonial folk, poetry and dancing, often deeply hypnotic, spiritual and rhythmbased. Both father and son have collaborated with Le Guess Who?-curator James Holden in recent years. Holden travelled to Marrakech to work with Mahmoud in 2014 and two years later, he did an enthralling one-off performance with Houssam in The Hague that imbued traditional and futuristic elements.
Maâlem Houssam Guinia 52 Le Guess Who? Program Guide
Marcia Bassett & Samara Lubelksi duo Curated by Grouper The duo endeavors of Marcia Bassett (guitars) and Samara Lubelski (violin) originated in 2009, creating alternate musical scores to existing films. It became a neat starting point to create original music together, delivering a unique blueprint for improvisational music along the way. During live shows, Bassett and Lubelski’s interplay with their surroundings gives room to chromatic noise and freakish drone music.
Mario Batkovic Curated by James Holden It’s kind of funny how one of Mario Batkovic’s most well-known pieces is called Restrictus, as ‘restricting’ is quite the opposite of his enthralling mastery of the accordion. The Switzerlandbased, Bosnia-born musician reaches a vast musical range with his instrument, rivalling the great minimalist composers of our modern age. After being curated by Savages last year, we’re honoured to have him back at the invitation of James Holden.
Madensuyu Madensuyu have always been charmed by the mysterious and esoteric, the notion that two mortal souls can inhabit a stage and conjure something bigger than themselves. Their angsty, sprawling brand of noise rock channels the gravitas of classical music and digs deep in acute emotions like loss, despair and hope. In January 2018, Madensuyu will release their new LP ‘Current’, which the band will preview live exclusively at Le Guess Who?. Le Guess Who? Program Guide 53
Marisa Anderson
Martijn Comes
Curated by Grouper Guitarist Marisa Anderson dreamy dustbowl fingerpicking style focusses on both perplexing melodies and noisy textures. Her reworkings of vintage American classics are stripped from their lyrics, shining like old relics reevaluated by present time. Latest album ‘Into The Light’ springs from that root and blooms into something abstract and oddly beautiful. Indeed, her rustic alternate reality of America is as imaginative as any oral tale.
12-Hour Drone Dutch musician/composer Martijn Comes specializes in new media, sound design and electronicacoustic compositions. Some of his harmonies sound as if they’re being exhumed from the dregs of harsh noise, while other tracks are almost extraterrestrial in nature. Switching between AM-stations, you often get spooked by faint music lurking beneath waves of static; Comes’s work feels like some ghost in the machine using all that raw material to communicate.
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Marisa Anderson
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Mary Margaret O’Hara Curated by Perfume Genius Recently declared a ‘cult hero’ by The Guardian, Perfume Genius has now invited Canadian songwriter and actress Mary Margaret O’Hara to Utrecht for a very rare live performance. Besides Mike Hadreas, her fans also include Radiohead and Michael Stipe (who declared her “a national treasure”), and in the past, O’Hara has collaborated with Morrissey, Tindersticks and This Mortal Coil. O’Hara’s lifelong flirtations with music, with many collaborations and guest features on her résumé, have only spawned one full-length album so far, only adding to the mystery that surrounds her. 1988’s iconic ‘Miss America’ contains eleven tracks of extremely heartfelt, wistful country balladry; a record which, over time, would turn out to be a very influential one. Line-up: Mary Margaret O’Hara, Peggy Lee and Aidan Closs with Marcus O’Hara.
Photographer: Eva Blue 56 Le Guess Who? Program Guide
Matana Roberts Curated by Jerusalem In My Heart Jazz musician, composer and visual artist Matana Roberts nosedives in concepts of ancestry and creative expression. The stories she tells through music; of human experiences, spirituality, improvisation and culture, are of a celebratory nature. Her most prized work ‘COIN COIN’ is, in her own words, a “panoramic sound quilting”, a mind-expanding patchwork of free jazz, sound vignettes, shamanistic screams and free form poetry.
Meredith Graves Basilica Soundscape presents The involvement of Meredith Graves (Perfect Pussy) in both mainstream and underground culture is as wide-ranging as it’s confronting. Through her roots in hardcore-punk, and her activities as a writer and journalist, Graves is known to pose the most sincere, complex and impassioned of questions. She made her mark as an outspoken, firebrand voice on issues about authenticity and
women in music. Now, Graves will engage the audience in a spoken word poetry performance.
METZ Post-grunge/noise/hardcore juggernaut and overall cool Canadians METZ have released two albums worth of aural onslaught. This time around, the band frantically push their wellestablished sound even further, capturing the notorious intensity of their live shows with new album ‘Strange Peace’, recorded with Steve Albini in just four days. To those who need their adrenaline fix, you know where to find METZ.
Midnight Sister
Moor Mother
The slinky, cinematic music of Midnight Sister is brought to you by the isolating landscape of the San Fernando Valley — its colors, its diners, its lunatics, its neon lights. The duo of Juliana Giraffe and Ari Balouzian, lifelong residents of this storied valley, have only become more inspired by the area’s mythology over the years, its two-faced magical wonderland and tragic circus.
Curated by Jerusalem In My Heart As Moor Mother, Phillybased noise artist, activist and wordsmith Camae Ayewa shapes the vocabulary of hip hop and energy of punk rock into a musical tour de force. Informed by history, Afrofuturism and scifi, this sonic time traveler and hardcore poet released over a hundred recordings since 2012. Her 2016 album ‘Fetish Bones’ garnered acclaim for masterfully reimagining electronic noise as protest songs.
Moon Duo Moon Duo’s torrent blotchy psychedelics inventively coalesce with meditative, minimalist pop. Indeed, this is inflammatory music that submerges and manifests within the subconscious like a living rorschach drawing. Moon Duo’s new album Occult Architecture Vol. 1 takes inspiration from Chinese occult esoterics, fantasy writers like Aleister Crowley and the ever-changing seasons of Ripley Johnson and Sanae Yamada’s home base: Portland, Oregon.
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Mount Eerie
Mozart’s Sister
Curated by Perfume Genius Phil Elverum’s latest Mount Eerie album ‘A Crow Looked At Me’ opens with the words “Death is real/someone’s there and then they’re not”. The album is a deeply personal document of grief, having written the first song just 11 days after the passing of his wife. It’s an emotional and confronting listening experience with Elverum always at his most disarming and soul-baring honest. Or, “barely music”, as the songwriter described it himself.
Curated by Perfume Genius It’s obvious why Caila ThompsonHannant chose the moniker Mozart’s Sister. Like that ersatz sibling, the Montreal musician has a swift ear for bubbly, uplifting melodies. In hyperkinetic and gleeful fashion, new album ‘Field Of Love’ keeps dishing out earworms and infectious toe tappers. If Mozart was considered the world’s first pop star, Thompson-Hannant is the person who will make even the most insistent avantgardists fall head over heels for pop again.
Le Guess Who? Program Guide 59 Moor Mother
Muddersten Muddersten’s ambient soundscapes make you feel like you’re part of one of an archaic sci-fi flick: gyrating drones, white noise and dissonant tones orbit the brain like satellites and spaceships. The ingredients used to achieve Muddersten’s vivid sound imagery? An unusual, highly inventive musical interaction between tape-machines, tuba, guitars and percussion that has to be witnessed to be believed.
Nadah El Shazly Curated by Jerusalem In My Heart Nadah El Shazly is one of the most versatile and progressive Egyptian musicians. The Cairo-based artist garnered that status by immersing herself in many different stylistics, including jazz, classical, blues, punk rock and electronic music. Exploring all these blueprints allows her to channel traditional Egyptian vocal techniques from a contemporary frame of reference. Performing as a one-woman band, El Shazly combines her immense vocal talent with electronic sounds, loops and pitch instruments.
Natasha Kmeto Curated by Shabazz Palaces Natasha Kmeto’s music sounds like pure pop exposing itself under the x-ray machine: fully-formed, but its anatomy and innards laid bare for all to see. Her albums ‘Crisis’ and ‘Inevitable’ are bold statements of sexual identity, with raw impulsive emotions completing her constantly transforming electronic compositions. Kmeto’s vocabulary ranges from sprawling R&B strides to anxiously throbbing club music amidst headstrong drifts of experimentation. 60 Le Guess Who? Program Guide
17 november
BUMBLEFOOT
30 november
NAVARONE
PAARD.NL
2 december
DOOL
15 december
WEVAL
WELCOME TO THE MUSIC
25 januari
ADRIAN CROWLEY
3 maART
JOOLS HOLLAND
23 mAArt
Absolutely Floyd
25 t/m 27 mei
SNIESTER FESTIVAL
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Nicole Beutler presents ‘7: Triple Moon’ ‘’7: Triptychon - Dreamtime’ is an interdisciplinary project: a combination of dance / performance, a three-dimensional art installation and a magical ritual that makes Nicole Beutler phase in and out between the present, past and future. The three female dancers on stage are constantly transforming; they appear alternately as old, young or feral, sometimes referring to a mythological figure. The performance has been described as “an ode to the woman, her strength, and mystery” by media.
Nobody Willis Earl Beal has gone incognito as a new masked superhero persona: Nobody. By leveling everything all the way back to zero, Nobody can continue to captivate with the idiom of his previous guise: a bare-for-all-to-see exercise of his own neurosis, innermost feelings and idiosyncrasies. A candid experience of a man 62 Le Guess Who? Program Guide
tearing down all restricting walls, webbing his audience into his own vulnerable, grandiose and brutally honest universe.
Nora Mulder, Mary Oliver & Greetje Bijma Curated by Han Bennink Nora Mulder is a renowned Dutch pianist and performer on the Appalachian dulcimer instrument. California-born, Amsterdambased multi-instrumentalist Mary Oliver performs the violin, viola and Hardanger fiddle in freespirited fashion as member of Nieuw Ensemble, SONOR and ICP-Orchestra. Greetje Bijma is one of the most versatile Dutch vocalists ever, able to harness her voice as an instrument that burrows wormholes between jazz and classical music.
OCnotes Curated by Shabazz Palaces Born Otis Calvin III, OCnotes has been an artist, musician, DJ, author, motivational speaker and vibrant figurehead within Seattle’s music scene since the turn of the
decade. An ever-curious artist who records as a solo entity, as one-half of Metal Chocolates, and through his countless collaborations. OCnotes is known for his wildly unpredictable and consistently on-point DJ sets, which could be considered snapshots of his comprehensive appetite for original sounds.
Oiseaux-Tempête Curated by Jerusalem In My Heart The music of improvisational collective Oiseaux-Tempete is bred from places in turmoil, be it Greece, Turkey or Lebanon. Oiseaux-Tempete embraces the freedom of improvisation, as well as the communal function of collaboration. This is secular music that crosses boundaries and cultures, embodying an intersection where post-rock, jazz, Arabic music, punk and experimental electronic music find common ground and refuge.
Omri Ziegele, Ernst Glerum & Han Bennink Curated by Han Bennink The Israel-born, Switzerlandbased Omri Ziegele is a selftaught alt sax player, honing his skills in London and at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. Ziegele has performed in theatre and with the circus, and formed the unorthodox improv trio Noisy Minority. Instant Composers Poolmember Ernst Glerum’s speciality is his unique, free-thinking take on the double-bass, but he’s also been a renowned composer and piano player in various ensembles. All three musicians are true musical eccentrics, emphasizing spontaneity, brisk noise explorations and having a good laugh along the way.
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Orphax 12-Hour Drone Founder of the Moving Furniture label Sietse van Erve has been composing under his Orphax-moniker for the better part of the past two decades. Van Erve wields his minimalist music as a stream-ofconsciousness manifestation, forging sound from electronic and acoustic instruments, other people’s compositions morphed beyond recognition and/or lo-fi droning loops. An Orphax performance prompts the listener to expand their own headspace to awesome, uncharted domains.
Patrick Higgins - Hyperborea & Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsories for Holy Saturday Composer, guitarist and producer Patrick Higgins (also a member of New York avant-garde outfit Zs) will perform with string ensemble of the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra. The performance will feature the European premiere of his own composition ‘Hyperborea No. 1’, about impending climate collapse, as well as a live rendition of Carlo Gesualdo’s ‘Tenebrae Responsories for Holy Saturday’. Gesualdo (1566-1613) was an Italian composer and nobleman from the late Renaissance who explored novel progressions, harmonies, and tonality that were unheard of in his time, and influenced the likes of Igor Stravinsky and Wolfgang Rihm.
64Patrick Le Guess Who? Program Guide Higgins
Perfume Genius
Paul Clipson: Lighthouse (films) Curated by Grouper Experimental filmmaker Paul Clipson’s Super 8 and 16mm films aim to bring subconscious visual abstractions to light. His work has screened globally at events such as the International Film Festival Rotterdam, New York Film Festival and the Cinémathèque Française. The Lighthouse program showcases a variety of dynamic sound and celluloid works with artists like Grouper, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Sarah Davachi, Lawrence English and King Midas Sound / Fennesz.
Perfume Genius Summoning songs that are deeply vulnerable and achingly confessional, Perfume Genius has become a formidable force. Applying both pop smarts and sonic innovation, the work of Mike Hadreas is a primal scream that empowers and enthralls. Ever since his 2010 debut Learning, Hadreas has stretched his music between the outmost corners of the human psyche: from soft, tender balladry and provocative theatrics to haunting, dark reflections… and everything in-between. Le Guess Who? Program Guide 65
Peter Brötzmann & Han Bennink Curated by Han Bennink Saxophonist Peter Brötzmann and drummer/percussionist Han Bennink will forever be linked by Brötzmann’s 1968 fearsome album ‘Machine Gun’. Since then, both musicians have found acclaim as restless, impassioned geniuses, crossing paths many more times; for example with the ICP Tentet and on albums like ‘Schwarzwaldfahrt’ (1977) and ‘Still Quite Popular After All Those Years’ (2004). Indeed, ‘after all those years’ their joint performances are like foundation stones of human growth; pivotal events that push musical boundaries that much further.
Pharmakon Curated by Perfume Genius Margaret Chardiet doesn’t need to change costumes to completely transform on stage. As Pharmakon, she creates an echo chamber of monstrous proportions, making Pharmakon one of the heaviest and most distressful noise acts in recent memory. In reality, Chardiet celebrates the exchange of forces between performer and audience, making live performances a punch in the gut from the get-go, and leaving a permanent impression on the psyche.
Pissed Jeans The image post-hardcore group Pissed Jeans paint on their violent and earth-scorching new LP ‘Why Love Now’ isn’t a pretty one. It’s nevertheless a vivid reflection of post-Trump America that oozes nihilistic dread and haphazard destruction. ‘The Bar Is Low’ is an anthem for our gloomy times, as Pissed Jeans’ dirty and hysterical sludge punk discharges with utmost defiance.
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Pharoah Sanders Curated by Shabazz Palaces Pharoah Sanders isn’t just one of the biggest jazz icons to ever set foot on a stage. In many ways, he transcends jazz music’s conventions like few others. His employment of the tenor sax is unequaled, using it as much for primal screaming as a graceful instrumental component. Sanders eagerly bleeds jazz traditions out into the spiritual realms of gospel, soul, African folk and R&B, influencing artists as diverse as The Stooges, Marvin Gaye and Sun Ra (who coined his moniker).
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Proto Idiot Listening to Proto Idiot is listening to Bass, Drums and Vocals, like they’ve come straight from the 80’s, as a missing link between the likes of Gang of Four, Wire, and Swell Maps. But actually you’re listening to much more: presented with tons of humor, their lyrics also have a philosophical touch. They seem a little lunatic, but they also have great energy as well as catchy tunes.
Protomartyr
Basilica Soundscape presents You could describe Detroit’s Protomartyr as a post-punk outfit, but then again, the foursome could probably care less about what genre you stick to it. ‘A flaying intensity’ might be a better descriptor for their music. The group’s previous album ‘The Agent Intellect’ was another marvelous capstone, dealing with themes of sickness, religion and
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psychology. Upending Protomartyr’s violent, razor-edged swells is the devil-may-care stage presence of frontman Joe Casey, casually magnetic in his potent lyricism.
Prurient Basilica Soundscape presents If you were to compare the world of noise music to our physical world, Prurient occupies the very bottom; the deepest and darkest dwellings in our oceans. Sound artist Dominic Fernow’s output of oblique, abrasive sounds (also as Vatican Shadow) is equivalent to the utter indifference and destructive powers of nature. Prurient performances tend to be a sonic endurance test, applying militant industrial eruptions, infernal shards of techno and malformed vocal manipulations.
R. De Selby
Relatos Salvajes (film)
12-Hour Drone As a full-time member of Utrechtbased folk/slowcore formation I Am Oak, Dutch musician Robby de Selby is a versatile talent with an ear for both delightful melodies and foggy atmospherics. De Selby has a knack for creating intriguing sound collages, loops and drones through impeccable guitar melodies. During his solo performances, he explores his guitar’s sound palette to unleash dreamy, surrealistic noise-scapes.
Curated by Shabazz Palaces Six standalone stories are featured in this film, which are united by a common theme of violence and vengeance. Director Damián Szifrón takes the idea of human behavior of people in distress to the extreme with his ‘Wild Tales’: a cynical and dark film that will leave you wondering what you just witnessed. The film won the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language.
Rabit
Richard Youngs
Rabit is the moniker of Houston producer, composer, DJ, and record label owner Eric Burton. He combines industrial, hip hop, noise, and sound collage to foster sonic spaces for the exploration of sexuality, gender, race, embodiment, and injustice. After creating a remix for Björk, he did production work for her upcoming album. Burton is looking for new ways to explore and experience sound, which you can experience at this European debut of his live a/v show.
Curated by Grouper A librarian by day, Richard Youngs spends pretty much every other minute of his waking life making music. This sonic shapeshifter’s fascinations range from Syd Barrett’s oddball folk to Gregorian chants. Youngs has been tirelessly recording music every since he became captivated as a kid by that good ol’ reel-to-reel tapemachine. Three decades later, this Glaswegian’s all-consuming creative spirit continues to amaze.
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Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe Curated by James Holden The ever-versatile Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe is a soul that keeps creating, with each undertaking achieving new depths, textures and vocabularies. Lowe’s been a mainstay with math rockers 90 Day Men and currently with drone metal gladiators Om. He stretched modular synths and vocal improvisations to haunting effect under solo moniker Lichens. And that’s just a tiny fraction of Lowe’s output.
Roy Montgomery Curated by Grouper Roy Montgomery has been a staple artist of Kiwi imprint Flying Nun. The native of Christchurch lives in an environment often struck by natural disasters, which could be why his work generally has a surging, fractured quality to it. Montgomery’s baritone is a key characteristic in his music, which ranges from dreamy minimalist songs to primal currents of noise. Not all that surprising, given his fondness for free radicals like 70 Le Guess Who? Program Guide
The Fall, Pere Ubu and The Velvet Underground. Montgomery will also perform a special set during our 12 Hour Drone.
Sarah Davachi Canadian artist Sarah Davachi’s creates immersive soundscapes with a playful exchange between ancient acoustic instrumentation and analogue synths. Davachi is a real sonic thrill-seeker who enjoys pushing the textural properties of music to the surface. Standing in the room during one of her performances is like floating weightlessly, that feeling you get during lucid dreams when the body physically reacts to images summoned by your imagination.
Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe • Photographer: Tanya Traboulsi
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Sekou Kouyate
Sevdaliza
“The Jimi Hendrix Of Africa” Sekou Kouyate is a renowned Kora-player, a free radical with one leg planted into the tradition of his homeland Guinea. The other travels out and about into modern music from all over the globe. Kouyate has been an allconsuming and inquisitive soul in his quest to usher Kora music into the future. He blends jazz with classical music and soul, while harboring complex movements evoked by his velveteen vocal pipes.
The music of visionary Dutch/ Iranian-born Sevdaliza is an open and safe arena for human expression. For this Rotterdam-based artist and musician, rigid concepts of sex, gender, image and ethnicity are as fluid as her employment of musical boundaries. Effortlessly, she molds R&B, electronic music, folk, neoclassical and industrial to serve her fearless vocabulary. Leading up to this year’s long-awaited debut LP ISON, Sevdaliza sheds different artistic skins more rapidly than most.
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Sex Swing Curated by James Holden Noise brutes Sex Swing violently grasp the listener with a probing sense of acute danger. You can expect no less from an alliance of musicians from bands like Part Chimp, Bonnacons Of Doom, Dethscalator and Earth. The group’s debut LP draws from spectral free jazz, withered 60s psychedelia, monolithic drums and sinister vocal howls. Imagine a group sounding like Suicide and Hawkwind merging together into some kind of grotesque, slimy monstrosity. Well, it lives and it calls itself Sex Swing.
Shabaka & The Ancestors Curated by James Holden At last year’s Le Guess Who?, British jazz stalwart Shabaka Hutchings performed with free jazz futurists The Comet Is Coming. This time around, Hutchings seeks out ghosts of the past with his South African brethren, The Ancestors, who are spearheaded by trumpet virtuoso Mandla Mlangeni. Together they usher the music into uncharted pathways of spiritual jazz, with Hutchings’ supple playing floating over Mlangeni’s dynamic brass outbursts.
Shabaka & The Ancestors
Shabazz Palaces
Shabazz Palaces
The Soft Moon
Shabazz Palaces have always drawn inspiration from the heart and human instinct; the Seattle-based hip hop voyagers produce transcendental albums from an intuitive frame of mind. ‘Black Up’ was fiercely poetic, whereas ‘Lese Majesty’ felt as spiritual as the free-form sci-fi dreamscapes of Sun Ra and Alice Coltrane. With their two upcoming ‘Quazarz’ releases on Sub Pop, Ishmael Butler and Tendai “Baba” Maraire are set to embark on their biggest celestial quest yet.
Born and bred in the isolated, outstretched emptiness that’s the Mojave desert, The Soft Moon’s Luis Vasquez projects equally desolate imagery to voice his darkest fears. Each album peels away another layer to reveal more brutal truths behind Vasquez’s industrial/ postwave leanings. Once he steps on stage, however, he lifts all that burdensome emotional baggage towards something potent and redemptive.
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mel k w e g
DO 16 NOV
SOPHIA
ZO 03 DEC
IAMDBB WWWATER
WO 22 NOV
KAITLYN AURELIA SMITH
MA 06 DEC
VR 16 MRT
CARPENTER BRUT TYOUTH CODE
WASHED OUT DO 22 FEB
20-26 NOV
IDFA MELKWEG 2017 MUZIEKDOCUMENTAIRES + LIVE-OPTREDENS
SON LUX Le Guess Who? Program Guide 75 tickets: melkweg.nl
The Star Pillow 12-Hour Drone The Star Pillow is a drone/ ambient moniker of Italian guitar impressionist Paolo Monti. Monti’s craft is mainly informed by his research on the relation between sound, space and human emotion. On stage, The Star Pillow feels like a cosmic broadcast in which Monti subjects his drifting guitarscapes to a wide range of tools and effects, with haunting effect.
Stella Chiweshe In her home country of Zimbabwe, music icon Stella Chiweshe is endearingly called The Queen of Mbira, becoming the first female artist to gain widespread recognition for a strictly male-dominated discipline. Chiweshe also broke new ground by becoming the first artist to successfully combine the mbira with the marimba. She took up the homegrown instrument back in 1964, originally used by Zimbabwe’s Shona people to call 76 Le Guess Who? Program Guide
the spirits of their ancestors. Chiweshe now alternates her residency in Zimbabwe and Germany, touring the world with her pioneering mastery over her chosen instrument of expression.
Steve Beresford & Gerard Bouwhuis Curated by Han Bennink Multi-instrumentalist and composer Steve Beresford applies his impressive background in free-improv and jazz with witty intellect. Whether he uses toy instruments to create soundscapes, scores TV programs or creates immersive piano performances, the results are always baffling and highly entertaining. Bouwhuis is as much a traditionalist as a modernist, with an equal love for classical pieces as well as pop music and forward-thinking experimentation. Pairing Beresford with Dutch pianist Gerard Bouwhuis causes an exciting clash of styles and backgrounds.
Sudan Archives
Steven Warwick is a Britishborn, Berlin-based musician and visual artist who performed under the moniker Heatsick in the past. Warwick moulds hypnotic dancefloor-focussed tracks in a similar way to his visual artwork, where objects and media merge and invite the viewer’s participation. Warwick’s latest album ‘Nadir’ is his most emotionally naked work, a musical reflection on processing loss.
Violinist and vocalist Sudan Archives writes, plays, and produces her own music. Drawing inspiration from Sudanese fiddlers, she is selftaught on the violin, and her unique songs also fold in elements of R&B and experimental electronic music. When she discovered the violin playing style of Northeast Africa, her eyes opened to the possibilities of the instrument, creating an alchemy of beats, layers and vocal manipulations.
Sudan Archives• Photographer: -Robb Klassen
Steven Warwick
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Sun Kil Moon
Sun Ra Arkestra
Sun Kil Moon challenges the notion that life imitates art. In the curious case of Mark Kozelek, life is art. His stream-of-consciousness folk narratives and nylon-stringed guitar meanderings make Sun Kil Moon an unnerving, funny, heartrending and always brutally honest experience. Kozelek’s head games can sometimes confuse and even alienate, but ultimately are a lesson in tough love.
The legendary Sun Ra Arkestra isn’t so much an ensemble as it is an ideology passed on from generation to generation. Founder Sun Ra (visionary pianist, poet, electronica pioneer and composer Herman Blount), derived from the planet Saturn, built a unique universe where jazz and spirituality converged. Marshall Allen, involved in Sun Ra since 1958, took over the lead after the death of Sun Ra in 1993. Under Allen’s guidance, the Arkestra continues to ascend towards parts unknown.
78SunLeRaGuess Who? Program Guide Arkestra • Photographer: Fabio Lugero
Surajit Das 12-Hour Drone India-born, The Netherlands-based sitar player Surajit Das is a savant in the canon and exploration of Indian Classical Music, having studied under Kashinath Mukerjee and vocalist Chinmoy Lahere. Mastering all the ragas according to tradition, Surajit has taken his artistry across many venues, live broadcasts and with fellow collaborators, including Deepak Chopra and Roy Martina. Aside from being an accomplished player and vocalist, Surajit also performs the Surbahar, widely considered as the larger bassdriven counterpart to the Indian sitar.
Terrie Ex & Spring Heel Jack Curated by Han Bennink Spring Heel Jack is an electronic duo with roots in drum&bass and jungle. Highlighted by their 2001 album ‘Masses’, Ashley Wales and John Coxon morphed their musical blueprint into their own version of free-jazz and improvisation. Terrie Ex is renowned as founding member of influential punk drifters The Ex. Seeing how both artists own record labels and operate in outfits known for peerless reinvention, it’s not surprising they have something else in common: both worked and performed extensively with drummer and percussionist extraordinaire Han Bennink.
Thisquietarmy 12-Hour Drone Monolithic and majestic, elusive Montreal guitar drone wanderer Thisquietarmy presented a whopping forty releases over the past twelve years. One of the more recent, ‘The Democracy of Dust’, aptly demonstrates Eric Quach’s mastery of experimental guitar minimalism. Gorgeous maelstroms of cosmic noise, oscillating psychedelics and flustering ambience are achieved with Quach’s trusty axe and a large assembly of effect pedals. Le Guess Who? Program Guide 79
Thurston Moore & Han Bennink Curated by Han Bennink Han Bennink will engage in a sonic tête-à-tête with none other than Thurston Moore. Moore claimed fame as co-founder and singer/ guitarist of influential noise rockers Sonic Youth. After Sonic Youth’s break in 2011, he kept himself occupied with his Group and a myriad of other projects, and continues to enrich the world with groundbreaking and revelatory music. His latest album Rock and Roll Consciousness is one of the more upbeat and winning releases on Moore’s résumé.
80 Le Guess Who? Program Guide Thurston Moore • Photographer: Vera Marmelo
Thurston Moore Group By Special Arrangement with Ecstatic Peace Library. No matter how far his musical interests stretch, Thurston Moore’s stylish poise is always prevalent in his work: red-hot, risqué and radical. His latest album ‘Rock N Roll Consciousness’ is a defiantly uplifting and winsome effort. Moore’s current group features an all-star cast: Debbie Googe (My Bloody Valentine) on bass, James Sedwards (This Is Not This Heat) as worthy foil on guitar and the razoredged pulse of old Sonic Youthbuddy Steve Shelley.
Tiny Vipers Curated by Grouper Seattle-based musician Jesy Fortino (who also formed Mirrorring together with Grouper’s Liz Harris) returns as Tiny Vipers after an eight-year album hiatus. With the electronic soundscape-based album ‘Laughter’, she U-turns her work as an experimental guitar-based songwriter. Drawing from German pioneers like Florian Fricke and Popol Vuh and 80s protoindustrial music, Tiny Vipers remains a vessel for intense feelings moving freely within expansive retro-sci fi atmospherics.
Tom Rogerson British composer Tom Rogerson’s wizardry skills as a pianist has been on full display with experimental rockers Three Trapped Tigers. His debut solo LP ‘Failing Shore’ - which finds him collaborating with Brian Eno - paints a tranquil, decaying landscape, with gorgeous arpeggio-laden cascades and organic sonics. With this, Rogerson discovered a place where real time improv and loop-based music blend and interact in mind-boggling ways.
Toukadime Curated by Jerusalem In My Heart Toukadime is comprised of two DJs, Krimau and Bachir, with the intent of preserving music from the Northwest African Maghreb region. Both DJs garnered steady following by deejaying and mixing different sounds and genres, revealing an obvious fondness for Afro-American culture and African music. So indeed, it made sense for Krimau and Bachir to join forces in a singular calling: unearthing rare vinyl-releases from a location that speaks to them, the Maghreb, for curious ears and connoisseurs alike to discover.
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Tune-Yards As kaleidoscopic as tUnE-yArDs manages to sound, it’s always remarkable how she seems to pull sounds out of the hat by sampling a modest drum set, a small detuned ukelele or her own elastic vocals. On stage, Garbus’s resourcefulness surrenders to a glorious and contagious sense of fun. Driven by motion and movement, tUnE-yArDs uses the cadence of Taraab music, Afrobeat, R&B and pure pop to shoulder weightier topics and concerns.
Tune Yards • Photographer: Holly Andres 82 Le Guess Who? Program Guide
Vampillia
Violent Magic Orchestra
As a live act, Japan’s Vampillia are an anomaly if there ever was one. They embrace and command both eerie silences and punishing volumes of dark oozing noise. It’s no surprise this 11-piece orchestra puts up a baffling spectacle: flamboyant prog rock, acidic black metal, poignant neo-classical minimalism and the faint but everpresent haunt of tantric vocals. Indeed, a band you’ll have to witness up close.
The Violent Magic Orchestra (VMO) is an offshoot of Japan’s brutal orchestra of everything Black, Vampillia. In collaboration with Pete Swanson (ex-Yellow Swans) and French composer Paul Régumbeau, aka Mondkopf, VMO’s album ‘Catastrophic Anonymous’ cranks up the level of cataclysm with delicious hyperbole, a juggernaut exercise in stomach-turning sub bass assaults, pneumatic blast beats and violent black metal barrages.
Veni Om
Visible Cloaks
12-Hour Drone Veni Om is the guise of towering sax fiend Otto Kokke, one half of death jazz deconstructionists Dead Neanderthals. Kokke takes less of a Lovecraftian approach as Veni Om however, proving he can pull off lucid tranquility and joyous, sweeping arrangements with just as much grace. In many ways, Veni Om is Kokke’s personal sonic crusade, a generous pursuit for peace of mind within an increasingly preposterous modern existence.
As we struggle to keep up with a world enwrapped in digital technology, its influence on art and communication is often dismissed as harmful. Spencer Doran and Ryan Carlile’s ambient project Visible Cloaks on the other hand, injects a refreshing and bold pioneering spirit in the use of digital synthesis. The album ‘Reassemblage’ shatters the idea of futurism being something cold and devoid of heart, caressing the listener with tonal and textural bliss: music of unspeakable exotic beauty.
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Weyes Blood Curated by Perfume Genius Weyes Blood’s West Coast folk reverie can be as sensitive as surreal. Multi-instrumentalist and singer Natalie Mering’s inspirations range from Harry Nilsson’s pop majesty to Wolf Eyes’ feverish noise. Even her most elegant folk songs, inspired by 60s folk and 70s psych, always hint at the surreal: the more you listen, the more you uncover that there’s something hidden below, be it distant electronics, or warped background vocals.
William Basinski Curated by Grouper Best known for his famous four-part masterwork ‘The Disintegration Loops’, William Basinski has been a vital figurehead in the New York art scene for over three decades. Starting his musical life as a classically trained clarinetist, Basinksi soon immersed into the field of tape loops. Using slowly degrading, crumbling tape with very dystopian sounds granted him revelatory conceptions about lifespans, nature and memory. No musician has captured humankind’s gradual withering within the cycle of nature so movingly and vividly. 84 Le Guess Who? Program Guide
William Basinski
XAM Duo
Yat-Kha
Curated by James Holden Matthew Benn and Christopher Duffin have cut their teeth with psych trailblazers Hookworms and dream pop authors Deadwall respectively. As XAM Duo, they’ve blossomed into an ethereal electronic jazz outfit, combining spiralling and soothing melodies with jitterbug rhythms. XAM Duo’s fantastic 2016 debut LP devises spacious but minimal currents of sound, equally transparent and colorful in nature.
The phenomenal Yat-Kha, a legendary Siberian ensemble led by Albert Kuvezin, has expanded Tuvan folk music and throat singing into a global phenomenon. Kuvezin was also the founder of traditional Tuvan group HuunHuur-Tu, but eventually, Yat-Kha embodied an escape from the movement’s time-honored parameters. Yat-Kha playfully reconciles Kuvezin’s love for Tuvan folk with his many other muses: blues, electronic music, folk, rock & roll and anything else that sparks his interest.
Yann Goudron 12-Hour Drone As a hurdy-gurdy player, composer and sound artist, Yann Gourdon focuses on the various ways acoustic instruments work together with landscapes, objects and man-made structures. Simultaneously, he learned to play traditional music from Auvergne, France by listening to field recordings made there. Goudron is now researching this repertoire with his experimental music collective La Nòvia.
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Yves Tumor Yves Tumor is one of the most mysterious and gripping experimental musicians to emerge in recent memory. On his critically well-received LP ‘Serpent Music’ he combines abrasive, slithering IDM electronics with festering, ambient soul passages. Tumor’s live shows are generally highly unpredictable affairs mired in lightning bolt tension, a rush of unorthodox crowd interactions and unhinged punk rock brutality.
Zeal & Ardor Swiss-American musician Manuel Gagneux funnels the spells of black metal into howls of Tom Waits-esque juke joint blues. Suffice to say, results are nothing short of spectacular. Debut album ‘Devil Is Fine’ offers a dazzling array of elements somehow working in cohesion, be it hallowed chants, jackhammering blast beats, power electronics or Reichian minimal music. Live, Zeal & Ardor becomes a whole other beast: arcane and overpowering, yet beautiful in all its contrasts.
Zeal & Ardor • Photographer: Matthias Willi 86 Le Guess Who? Program Guide
voor ons complete programma:
www.effenaar.nl
Rewire 2018 6-8 April, The Hague Laurie Anderson • SUUNS • Nina Kraviz Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein perform Stranger Things Floating Pointslive Ben Vince • Chino Amobi • Deena Abdelwahed • JASSS Karen Gwyer • Mhysa • Ninos Du Brasil • Raphael Vanoli Rupert Clervaux & Ben Vince • SCRAAATCH • The Thing UUUU (members of Wire, Coil, Tomaga) • Ziúr + many more to be announced
Check for the latest line-up update: www.rewirefestival.nl
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Satellite Events Every year during Le Guess Who?, we host some Satellite Events, showcasing local musicians, products and artwork that is related to the festival. This year also sees the very first edition of our Lombok Festival on Friday. Find a short outline for these events below, and pick up our Utrecht Treasure Guide (festival newspaper) to find out much more.
Club 3voor12/Utrecht Thursday, 9 November at dB’s (free entrance) Every month, local music website 3voor12/Utrecht hosts a showcase evening for talented Dutch bands in dB’s. This free entry evening provides a stage for three upcoming artists: Jo Marches, Bieldermann & Fungo Bat.
Lombok Festival Friday, 10 November (free entrance) Our new satellite event highlighting this vibrantly diverse neighborhood: 8 locations, a food market at Moskeeplein, and a musical line-up consisting of Le Guess Who?-curated acts together with many local musical heroes & talents.
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Le Gig Poster Thursday-Sunday, TivoliVredenburg For the fifth year during Le Guess Who?, we host an exhibition in TivoliVredenburg with silkscreen posters that are designed especially for the festival. More than 50 national and international silkscreen artists create a poster for one of our performing acts. Most of these limited edition posters are for sale. Le Guess Who? Program Guide 89
Le Mini Who?
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Le Bazarre
Le Mini Who? Saturday, 11 November at Breedstraatbuurt (free entrance) Le Mini Who? transforms many of Utrecht’s shops and bars into improvised venues for (mainly) Dutch underground bands to play, where people jostle for position in low-capacity locations to catch a thirty-minute set by one of the many promising bands.
Le Bazarre Saturday, 11 November at Neude Square (free entrance) Le Bazarre is a renowned and travelling market inspired by quality vintage, second hand and indie craft. Visitors can wind their way through stalls of vintage, design, regional products, and graphic art. Mobile kitchens on-site offer fresh food and local delights.
Le Feast Sunday, 12 November Every year, Le Feast invites you into a living room in Utrecht, to enjoy a feast together with people you don’t know (yet). Utrechtian home-chefs will transform their living room into a cozy brunch restaurant, welcoming other visitors of Le Guess Who? to join for a massive brunch feast. More info: leguesswho.com/ utrecht/le-feast.
The Wire Magazine artist Q&A’s Sunday, 12 November at LE:EN (free entrance) The Wire is a monthly music magazine celebrating and interrogating the most visionary and radical musicians. As a partner of the festival, The Wire’s deputy editor Joseph Stannard will host two artist Q&A’s at the festival; the first will be a double interview with The Bug & Dylan Carlson (Earth); the second will be with festival curator Jerusalem In My Heart. Le Guess Who? Program Guide 91
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ROTOWN ROTTERDAM COMING-UP... SLEEP PARTY PEOPLE FRANCOBOLLO
BIG THIEF
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE
LUWTEN WALTER TV
JEN CLOHER TOPS
LISA HANNIGAN
WIDOWSPEAK
THE MOLOCHS MAMMÚT
...AND MORE CHECK ROTOWN.NL Le Guess Who? Program Guide 93
Funders
Media Partners
Creative Partners
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Index 4 Tickets & Info 6 Festival Map 8 Venue addresses 10 Artist biographies 88 Club 3voor12 • Lombok Festival • Le Gig Poster? 91 Le Mini Who? • Le Bazarre • Le Feast • The Wire Interviews 94 Partners 95 Behind the scenes at Le Guess Who?
Behind the scenes at Le Guess Who? Board Members: Franc Faaij, Matthijs Timmer, Marlies Timmermans, Sjoerd Wennekes, Tanja de Jonge
Jasper Willems: Festival Copywriting Triomf: Production & Decoration Loudmouth: Artwork Ramdath: Website
Johan Gijsen: General Director Bob van Heur: Creative Director
Thanks to our Family Members For their support in helping make Le Guess Who? an even more immersive experience: JP Bartels, Gerben Boersma, Albert Faber, Edwin Haast, Andrea Grazioli, Frank Janssen, Bauke Karel, Andre Klerk, Daniel Ladd, Wim Litjens, Steve Mansee, Jack van ’t Pad, Floor Spapens, P.Steenkamer, Jolanda Terpstra, Maxi Torau, Arjan de Vet, Frans Vreeke, Hans Vrijmoed, Jasper Willems.
Barry Spooren: Head of Promotion Jessica Clark: International Marketing Gijs Cals: Artist Production, Nienke Bodewes: Festival Production, Margriet Colenbrander: Business Coordinator, Jacob Hagel: Program Assistant, Rinke Vreeke: Coordinator Satellite Projects Justine Haantjens: Volunteer Coordinator, Sandra Maat: Assistant Production & Marketing, Matthijs Mantel: Assistant Production & Marketing, Mathé Többen: Assistant Production & Marketing
Also want help us develop the festival, and to make a bigger impact? For more info on becoming part of our Family, visit www.leguesswho.com/family.
See you at Le Guess Who? 2018 8-11 November 2018 Early Bird 4-Day Festival Passes for LGW18 available from 9 - 30 November 2017.
Le Guess Who? program guide