On his second album White Space, to be released on VIERNULVIER Records on 8 March, the Belgian musician and visual artist Youniss reflects on his own personal “panic attack” instilled by the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. With heralding vocals bathing in polyphonic fragility, shrieking guitar sounds, and rattling patched-up drumwork with electronic-like textures, he delivers his own take on a perfectly imperfect 90s punk rock meets IDM cassette tape – giving a voice to his inner existential outcries.

As an exploration of identity and self-expression, Antwerp-based Youniss moves his way through the awkward, intrusive feelings that accompany performing as a Black man with an Arabic name through the gaze of the western world. The music and graphic concept of White Space is fueled by the pain caused by being misperceived and the feeling of being lost in the search to fit in. Translating this album to stage, Youniss and drummer Tim Caramin explore and express Youniss’s discomfort through music, costume design, set pieces, and projection.

This performance is a co-production of VierNulVier, de Brakke Grond, deSingel & STUK.