Following up our first announcement, we now reveal the second round of artists and projects for Rewire 2019. Individual day passes, as well as Saturday club tickets and special Sunday performance tickets are now on sale.
Taking place in The Hague from 29 to 31 March, the programme for the ninth edition of Rewire festival is now expanded with performances and special projects by Nicolás Jaar, Tanya Tagaq,Mark Fell, Doon Kanda, Iona Fortune & NYX, Jennifer Walshe & Memo Akten, Elaine Mitchener & David Toop, Yona (live AI), Xiu Xiuand many more.
Rewire 2019 will continue to highlight forward-thinking artists, those who push boundaries and rewire ideas of what music and performance are today. Alongside the music programme sits a discourse programme that aims to contextualise artistic developments on show throughout the festival weekend. Instrumental Shifts probes rapidly changing technology and the resulting developments on today’s creative landscape while leaving space for speculative ideas on what could come next. With Staging Sound, we observe the translation of musical material into performance, and the pursuit of experiences that extend the sonic into new, collaborative and ever-evolving directions.
More artists as well as an expansive discourse programme of artist talks, workshops and screenings will be announced in the coming months. Festival passes for the reduced price of €75 are available until January 31 at 00.00 CET. Individual day passes, as well as Saturday club tickets and special Sunday performance tickets are now on sale at Tickets.
Few embody Instrumental Shifts more than Ash Koosha. The London-based technologist and electronic musician is known for his unique VR sound sculptures and has recently turned his attention to the world of AI. His latest creation, Yona uses artificial intelligence and CGI to write, sing and perform her own music, while synthesising the ideas of human producers and songwriters and connecting them to a human audience. Taking the stage alongside Ash Koosha, Yona will make her live debut at Rewire 2019.
Like Ash Koosha, Irish vocalist and composer Jennifer Walshe and Turkish artist Memo Akten have created and trained GRANNMA, an AI who can mimic key components of human identity, in this case Walshe’s voice and face. In their live improvisation duet Ultrachunk, Walshe and her AI doppelganger take the stage together, singing, listening and responding to each other in real time as they render the Uncanny Valley in reality.
Having previously announced Nicolás Jaar for Rewire 2019, we can now reveal his individual performances and projects at this year’s festival. Under the title, Nicolás Jaar & Group, the Chilean-American musician and composer will be joined by guest musicians for a live performance of a new work for piano, saxophone and electronics at the Grote Kerk on Sunday, 31 March. Also confirmed for the church on Sunday are Iona Fortune & NYX. The Glasgow-based composer and producer joins forces with the 6-piece electronic drone choir for a sonic exploration of the I Ching, its symbology, inherent energy and cosmological significance.
In addition to his Group performance, Nicolás Jaar will also present a showcase of his New York-based label Other People. Spread across the festival weekend and featuring label affiliates past, present and future. The Other People programme sees Pierre Bastien & Tomagateam up for their new collaboration, soon to be released on the label. will present their live a/v performance, New York-based guitar virtuoso and Zs-member Patrick Higgins performs his new solo work Dossier, while Moscow-based electronic musician vtgnike makes his first ever appearance outside of Russia. The previously announced John Bence completes the showcase.
Where Uganda’s Nyege Nyege Tapes helm the Friday Club Night, Nicolás Jaar leads the charge on Saturday. Following up his recent reissues of both the Against All Logic and Nymphs series, Jaar presents a solo live/dj hybrid show. Joining him with DJ-sets are Berlin-based electronic musician Laurel Halo and Other People and GOST ZVUK affiliate vtgnike, as well as more artists to be announced soon.
Known for his groundbreaking video work for the likes of Björk, FKA Twigs and Arca, Japanese-Canadian visual artist Jesse Kanda recently expanded his artistic practice into the realms of music as Doon Kanda. Debuting with Heart in 2017 and following it with Luna a year later, Kanda explores a hallucinatory sonic palette that is distinctly his own. At Rewire 2019, he ushers us deep into his idiosyncratic, techno-spiritual world, presenting a rare live performance composed of new work as well as material from his Hyperdub EPs.
From his early explorations of minimal club music to the critically-acclaimed experiments in algorithmic systems and computational technology, Mark Fell has carved out a legacy at the frontlines of electronic music innovation that is distinctly his own. Widely recognised for his pioneering contributions to the development of experimental electronic music, the British electronic musician, multidisciplinary artist and producer traverses diverse forms of performative expression. At Rewire 2019, he will present a new commissioned piece for sound, light, kinetic objects and performance.
Presented in collaboration with The Hague’s contemporary music festival Dag in de Branding, Elaine Mitchener & David Toop will unveil their improvised movement-opera Of Leonardo da Vinci. Led by Mitchener, a London-born experimental vocalist, movement artist and composer, Of Leonardo da Vinci is a provocative work that explores the universality of death and rebirth through music by David Toop, choreography by Dam van Huynh and film by Barry Lewis.
Tanya Tagaq is a powerful voice from the Canadian Arctic who fuses the ancient traditions of Inuk throat singing with elements of jazz, industrial, metal and electronic music. She will be joined by Jesse Zubot and Jean Martin for an intense live performance that channels her latest album Retribution and forthcoming release Toothsayer. Where Tagaq confronts, Sosena Gebre Eyesus soothes. The Ethiopian musician is one of the most captivating practitioners of Ethiopian Orthodox Hymns. Guided by the buzzing, entrancing strums of her traditional harp, she softly and beautifully sings songs of devotional reflection, recently released as an album by Portland’s Little Axe Records.
Refree is one of the most acclaimed Spanish producers of the last decade and a leading proponent of the so-called ‘new flamenco’ movement. Frequently recording with the movement’s rising stars – Rosalía and Silvia Pérez Cruz – the Barcelona-based guitarist and composer will conjure his new album, La Otra Mitad, into an immersive performance. Navigating across the Mediterranean to Cairo’s thriving avant-garde scene, Egyptian musician and composer Maurice Louca will present Elephantine, his new and most ambitious album to date. A panoramic odyssey through everything from cosmic free jazz and psychedelic rock to Egyptian shaabi and Arabic folk traditions, Louca will be joined by the nine members of the Elephantine Band for what will undoubtedly be a rapturous and transcendental live spectacle.
Bill Orcutt is widely regarded as one of the most influential guitarists in experimental music. A veritable mainstay of free improv, avant-rock and noise music since the late 90s and co-founder of free-punk legends Harry Pussy, Orcutt presents two performances on the Sunday of Rewire 2019. In the first, – a lauded experimental and improv drummer – unleash the frenzy of searing electric guitar, freewheeling drum rolls and crashing cymbals that is their first-ever studio recording, Brace Up!, while in the second, Orcutt takes the stage solo for a performance for guitar and electronics.
Puce Mary is the solo moniker of Danish experimental artist Frederikke Hoffmeier, a formidable force in Copenhagen’s vibrant punk scene. Rooted in industrial noise, sound collage, power electronics and musique concrète, her musical output has been released across five solo albums, including last year’s standout The Drought for PAN, and serves as the foundation for her vigorous, arresting live performances.
Xiu Xiu is the ever-evolving experiment of LA-based multi-instrumentalist Jamie Stewart. Returning to the festival following their critically-acclaimed interpretation of the Twin Peaks soundtrack in 2016, Xiu Xiu head to Rewire 2019 as a trio featuring former Swans percussionist Thor Harris and multi-instrumentalist Jordan Geiger to perform their new album Girl with a Basket of Fruit. Like Stewart, Alex Zhang Hungtai’s musical repertoire has radically shifted with each new moniker and release. Formerly known as Dirty Beaches and Last Lizard, and a member of improv trio Love Theme, he now channels his diverse practice into rapturous ambient compositions built on a foundation of digitally disfigured saxophone.
Extending our exploration of saxophone experimentation into the realms of jazz improvisation are Sámi-Norwegian composer Mette Henriette and Montreal-based experimental musician Jason Sharp. Skirting genre convention, Henriette translates the expressive and deeply emotional worlds of her untitled ECM debut into a live performance for a trio of saxophone, piano and cello. Known for his creative and musical use of extended technique, Jason Sharp channels the unique fusion of technology and the human body of his Constellation Records releases into duo show that combines the deep, droning sounds of his baritone and bass saxophones with customised electronics.
Rwandan-born vocalist and composer Aurélie Lierman presents the Dutch premiere of her new work Sogokuru with the help of The Hague-based contemporary music ensemble But What About. Exploring contemporary forms of animism and how they persist despite the severe oppression that has marked colonial history, the piece merges her own experiences with those of her 108-year-old grandfather – one of the last living traditional Rwandan hunters and doctors.
Friday 29 March
Astrid Sonne presents Cycles of Lost and Found
Bamba Pana & Makaveli
Flohio
Gazelle Twin presents Pastoral
Jessica Sligter presents Polycrisis:Yes!
Jlin & Company Wayne McGregor present Autobiography Edits
Kampire
Lafawndah
Mette Henriette
Mohammad Reza Mortazavi
Otim Alpha
Sinjin Hawke & Zora Jones
Tanya Tagaq
Tashi Wada Group
Tim Hecker & Konoyo Ensemble
Yves Tumor
Saturday 30 March
CURL
Diamanda Dramm
Doon Kanda
Eli Keszler
Elaine Mitchener & David Toop present Of Leonardo Da Vinci
Giant Swan
Henry Vega & Jan-Willem Troost
Jason Sharp
Kelly Moran
Kit Downes & Ensemble Klang
Laurel Halo (dj)
Lotic presents Endless Power
Low
Maurice Louca Elephantine Band
Nicolás Jaar (solo live/dj hybrid)
Puce Mary
vtgnike
William Basinski & Lawrence English
YEK: Mohammad Reza Mortazavi & Burnt Friedman
Sunday 31 March
Alex Zhang Hungtai
Andrea Belfi & Valerio Tricoli
Aurélie Lierman & But What About present Sogokuru
Bill Orcutt (solo electronics)
Bill Orcutt & Chris Corsano
Haron
Iona Fortune & NYX
Ipek Gorgun
Jennifer Walshe & Memo Akten present Ultrachunk
John Bence
Lucrecia Dalt & Alessandra Leone
Mark Fell
Nicolás Jaar Group
Patrick Higgins
Pierre Bastien & Tomaga
Refree
Sosena Gebre Eyesus
Xiu Xiu
Yona (Ash Koosha live AI)
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