For an independent initiative dedicated to experimental and fringe forms of music and art, sustaining over a quarter century is an achievement in itself. Such an anniversary becomes even more profound in light of the many challenges in recent years and the ongoing crises which have called into question and unsettled many, often already false, certitudes – sparing neither music nor nightlife.
Constancy can only be achieved through openness, adaptation, change, and most importantly through support and dialogue with people and communities, local and international. CTM wouldn’t be the same without the countless shared experiences, inputs, and at times also friction, that we’ve experienced with the many voices connected to the festival, be it visitors, artists, partners, or collaborators. We hope to connect with as many faces old and new, remote and in Berlin, as possible this anniversary edition.
The oscillating word »sustain«, which is connected to sound, gives direction to such curiosity. Sustain is not attached to the desire to shatter, but wants to affirm and nourish. It can also refer to the fears, losses, and pains we suffer – we can sense what we are going through. At the same time, sustain points to what is available to us to face such pain: it speaks of the empathy and determination that allows us to overcome difficult times, and of the nourishment that not only sustains us, but allows us to grow.
With its 25th edition, CTM Festival asks what if »sustain« were a sound? What would it be like? What music would emerge from it? Perhaps it would be music that not only offers refuge or escape, but also music that reminds us of our desire and our possibility to turn towards brighter horizons – even through dark or unsettling aurals. CTM 2024 will resonate through a mixture of sensitive and thoughtful, disturbing and arresting, wackadoo and euphoric sounds by artists who are appearing at the festival for the first time as well as by returning collaborators.
A notable spotlight on artists from Ireland shines throughout this edition, weaving collective sounds and stories from the country thanks to the Zeitgeist Irland 24 initiative by Culture Ireland and the Embassy of Ireland in Germany. Zeitgeist Irland 24 aims to showcase Irish talent to German audiences throughout 2024. The presence of Irish artists also serves a thread of connection to CTM’s sister festival transmediale, who is also throwing a spotlight on projects and artists from the island.
A next round of programme information will be released in December.
First Acts
We launch our 2024 programming with artists:
- Aïsha Devi (INT)
- Anna von Hausswolff (SE)
- Backxwash (ZM/CA)
- Ben Frost feat. Greg Kubacki & Tarik Barri(INT)
- Divide & Dissolve (AU)
- DJ Fuckoff (NZ/DE)
- DJ Mell G & Poly Chain (DE/UA)
- E-Saggila (IQ/CA)
- El Kontessa (EG)
- Föllakzoid (INT)
- HiTech (US)
- Infinity Division (CA/DE)
- Jana (EG)
- Kim Ann Foxman (US)
- Malengo (DE)
- Manuka Honey b2b Safety Trance (INT)
- Monolake (DE)
- Nikki Nair (US)
- NZE NZE (FR)
- ojoo (MA/BE)
- Osmium (Hildur Guðnadóttir, Rully Shabara, Sam Slater, James Ginzburg) (INT)
- Pisitakun (TH/DE) – »The Three Sound of Revolution« with Ariel William Orah (ID/DE), C Bong Sae (KR), fatalism (GR/TH), Teya Logos (PH), Wanton Witch (INT)
- Sarj (US/DE)
- Skrillex b2b Jyoty (INT)
- Soulsick (Elvin Brandhi & DJ Scotch Egg) (INT)
- Spekki Webu (NL)
- Yas Meen Selectress (EG)
An Irish Focus throughout the programme featuring:
- Julia Louise Knifefist (IE)
- Moundabout (IE)
- GASH Collective (IE) club night with Baptist Goth, Americhord, ELLLL, ALYXIS, Lolz, Eliza b2b Maeve O’Neill, presented with transmediale
- One Leg One Eye (IE)
- Or:la (IE/UK)
- Shampain (IE)
A multisensory installation presented with transmediale:
- »Oceanic Refractions« by Mere Nailatikau, AM Kanngieser, KMRU, Laisiasa Dave Lavaki, Tumeli Tuqota (INT)
The Research Networking Day 2024 programme with short talks by:
- Aadita Chaudhury (York University, CA / Goldsmiths University of London, UK)
- Ada Ada Ada (IT-University of Copenhagen, DK)
- Aline Zara (University of Toronto, CA)
- Jaka Škapin (Luminelle, UK)
- Julianne Chua (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, DE)
- Maria Giaever Lopez (independent researcher, UK/ES)
- Mariana Dias (HMKW Berlin, DE)
- Matthias Jung (University of Agder, NO)
- Ragnhild May (Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts/University of Copenhagen, DK)
Articles selected from the CTM Magazine open call by:
- Anandit Sachdev (IN)
- David Farrow (US)
- Masha Kashyna (UA)
- oxi peng (CN/DE)
- Sai Versailles & Sean Bautista (PH)
- Ulya Soley & Yelta Köm (TR/DE)
And CTM Radio Lab winners Concepción Huerta & Fe Sexta and User Syndrome (LB/UK).
CTM 2024 First Half
Performances and Club Acts
A series of concerts at Betonhalle on the festival’s first weekend will feature new projects from celebrated artists and instrumentalists who will present new works and projects that masterfully explore sonic thresholds and textures.
With multiple albums released on labels including Touch and Southern Lord; tours and concerts with Sunn O))), Swans and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds among others; and her own experimental label Pomperipossa Records, Anna von Hausswolffwill bring her music to life together with a 6-piece band, cascading hypnotic and mantra-like moods that oscillate to thunderous drama, dissonance and cacophony. Her longform compositions show a mastery of captivating dynamics, droning gothic symphonies, and an immense power that leads listeners into an epic, dark ecstasy. Von Hausswolff will premiere material from her new, unreleased album at CTM.
Artist and Composer Ben Frost will appear in support of his first solo album since 2017’s groundbreaking The Centre Cannot Hold. Over the last years the composer’s prolific output has focused on creating cinematographic scores, penning music for Netflix's acclaimed Dark and 1899, composing an opera, or shaping sound for installations with Richard Mosse among other. Frost’s compositions are always created with an acute awareness of the listener and their comfort thresholds, exploiting every extreme of pitch and volume. In a new live collaboration with Greg Kubacki of U.S. math/metalcore band Car Bomb and celebrated audiovisual artist Tarik Barri, Frost continues to expand his visceral approach to sonic and cinematic experimentalism.
Osmium is a new project from the minds of Oscar-winning composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, Grammy-winning producerSam Slater, Subtext boss James Ginzburg, and pioneering Indonesian vocalist Rully Shabara, of Senyawa. The four musicians assemble here to create surprising and hypnotic music using specially built instruments, finding a balance between the mechanical and the organic. As Shabara picks up on feedback sounds from the mechanised elements of the instruments to create new rhythms with his extended vocals, the »robots« themselves continue playing whether or not the instrumentalists add their own personal chaos. Heavy on percussion, and spectral timbres, the project explores how organic sounds blend into the sound of machines, and vice versa.
A combination of song, playful improvisations, and storytelling, Moundabout is a new »pholk« project based in Ireland by Paddy Shine, of psychedelic powerhouse GNOD, and Phil Masterson, of cult groups Los Langeros, Damp Howl, and Bisect. A couple of years ago the duo set out to explore a new form of psychedelic Irish folk music where the listener is invited to see folk as a continuum and eternal vibrancy that predates classical antiquity and Irish civilisation itself. Getting lost in liminal zones, at thresholds, where boundaries merge, with their second album An Cnoc Mór (Sacred Bones, 2023), the pair seek to push even further out than ever before where folk meets free psych music.
Radialsystem will be host to a series of experimental concerts, hybrid performances, and new commissions throughout the festival days. Next to two performances commissioned in the framework of CTM’s yearly Radio Lab (see further below), the series includes One Leg One Eye, the new solo project of Ian Lynch, founding member of the experimental folk group Lankum. With a sound rooted in the raw aesthetics of second wave black metal rather than contemporary folk, the project combines drones of distorted uilleann pipes, field recordings, tape loops, analogue synth, voice, and further instrumentation to shape minimalist and transportative pieces that resonate with an immersive sadness. The distinct and sometimes harrowing atmospheres conjured throughout his debut album, …And Take The Black Worm With Me are an exploration of internal and external spaces rooted in his hometown of Dublin. Lynch appears with the project for the very first time featuring guest visuals from acclaimed Berlin director Lukas Feigelfeld.
The festivals’ club programme opens with a night at Berghain with a distinctly hypnotic and psychedelic drive. In a nod back to the very first set for the very first »club transmediale« edition in 1999, we have invited Monolake to kick-off the festival’s club series and to celebrate our 25th anniversary. Alias of the curious and inventive artist and Ableton (also from 1999) co-creator Robert Henke, Monolake is cherished for a singular sonic universe in between club and advanced listening. Henke will tease out the potentials of Berghain’s new sound system in an immersive live set where fractal beat crystals and infinite warped drones evoke a next step in his unique musical continuum.
Appearing in support of their latest album V (2023, Sacred Bones), Föllakzoid show that sometimes the most minimal framework is the strongest container for transcendence. The band’s minimalistic drum, guitar, and synth journey immerses itself deep into mind and body and pulls us straight to the dance floor.
Manuka Honey b2b Safety Trance take a next step in their new hybrid/live collaboration, »Desenterrada del fuego,« a sonic ritual exploring sounds from the Latinx diaspora and beyond. Animated by the complex alchemy of the dancefloor, Manuka Honey’s spirited selections blend with the sounds of Safety Trance aka Cardopusher, the Venezuelan producer and Arca collaborator rooted in the breakcore/rave scene, who has been gravitating toward a more industrial type of sound.
Lysergic gatekeeper Spekki Webbu has honed his psychedelic mental DJ sets through his involvement in the gabber and tekno movement in the Netherlands. Whether appearing to DJ or play live, the Mirror Zone boss cultivates a trademark sound that can be described as bewitching, persistent, and ritualistic.
Panorama Bar will be programmed in dialogue with Skrillex who will also appear in a special b2b DJset with Homegrown founder Jyoty, the popular RinseFM host known for high-energy baile funk and garage infused sets. Full lineup in the next announcement.
Thai multidisciplinary artist Pisitakun will take over Berghain Säule to present his long-term artistic project »The Three Sound of Revolution.« A long-time figure in Thailand’s anti-monarchy demonstrations, Pisitakun has been researching the sounds of protest in his native home and connecting to other movements worldwide. This evening aims to dig into the liberating and unifying potentials when soundtracks for protests and parties combine. Bright protest banners and imagery will envelop performances by a range of artists that are collaborating with Pisitakun on a release that compiles personal takes on protests in their own localities: Bedouin Records head fatalism, Manila-based Teya Logoswho flips between hard dance edits and its local version budots, C Bong Sae who journeys through Asian hard dance, and the transgressive collision of rave blasts, kinetic HD hardstyle, and euphoria from Wanton Witch. All topped off with a participatory protest karaoke session led by Pisitakun with Ariel William Orah.
CTM will visit OXI for the first time this edition, and while the two-floor programme is yet to be announced, we’re excited to announce two first acts in that lineup. Dublin-based Julia Louise Knifefistcreates dense, noise influenced dance tracks with sharp vocals and destructive 808s to thrash to. A true all-rounder with a deep knowledge of the Irish music scene and beyond, Galway-based Shampain co-founded VSN collective and G-Town Records as he continues to sail through uplifting dance sounds worldwide all while propelling his local scene.
CTM 2024 Second Half
Performances and Club Acts
Heading into the second half of the festival, concerts and club nights continue at Berghain.
The duoDivide and Dissolve have been bringing their Indigenous identities to the forefront of all they do, calling for dismantling hegemonic power structures and to work towards a future of Black and Indigenous liberation. The dense and overwhelmingly heavy doom metal of their most recent album Systemic (2023) is interwoven with beautiful orchestral passages, creating a structure with rooms to breathe and reset before plunging into the next landscape of sludgy guitar and pounding percussion. As they oscillate between beauty and suffering, Divide and Dissolve aim to examine the systems that intrinsically bind us and call for a new path that facilitates life for everyone.
Exploring themes of queerness, identity, and faith through horrorcore and indelicate industrial metal, the rapper Backxwash’s vicious poetic productions are portals to a cathartic healing process in which she grants herself permission to be angry. She’ll arrive at CTM following a trilogy of auto-biographical albums where with each release she travelled further back in time, reliving and experiencing the anger and despair that she had not granted herself at the time, only to emerge unfailingly stronger.
Appearing in a never before seen hybrid live set is DJ Fuckoff, who delights in buoyant, dancefloor-friendly rhythms, broken patterns, and sugary vocals. Her sonic collection reflects an unapologetic and fun attitude, with a knowing wink.
Genre-hopping Atlanta-based producer Nikki Nair brings his gritty and scuzzy sounds into somatic, textured, and dynamic DJ sets that braid acidic electro, broken rhythms, ghettotech, jungle, experimental disco, and bass music with dexterous ease.
Appearing as the duo Soulsick, Elvin BrandhiandDJ Scotch Egg will join forces in a fierce flurry of improvised vocals and hardcore. Brandhi never shies from being abrasive, letting a stream of consciousness take over to the tune of frenetic, computerized beats intent on scorching your speakers. Berlin-based Japanese screwball producer Shigeru Ishihara aka Dj Scotch Egg (WaqWaq Kingdom, Scotch Rolex) has been active for over two decades ever since rising to breakcore (and Gameboy gabber) fame after co-founding Brighton’s Wrong Music with Shitmat, Roger Species, and others.
The sounds of Lobster Theremin and Never Sleep affiliate Infinity Division move through the world of dance music with blistering speed, fusing elements of industrial and electro, with a penchant for melancholic trance-infused melody, through a distinctly punk lens.
With releases on Northern Electronics, Opal Tapes, and PAN,E-Saggila’s scorched rhythms and affinity for the extremes is as conceptually critical as it is stylistically present.
GASH Collective is a source of innovation on the more uncompromising strands of Irish underground music while focusing on supporting female, trans, queer, non-binary, and other underrepresented people in music production through parties, workshops and other collaborations. A CTM x transmediale club night at Berghain Säule shines light on some of the initiative’s key figures, opening with Baptist Goth, who appears live as a fusion of an emo trap idol and a Catholic saint, after which Americhord will drive up the bpm with a dive into deep techno and electronica. ALYXIS deepens the groove with a dark and bassy live AV set that might include interjections from a reassuring chatbot voice and housey pop edits. DJ sets from the collective’s co-founders ELLLL and Lolzspan abstract experimentalism, fragmented rhythms, and bass-heavy club bangers, while GASH collective regulars and avid record collectors Eliza and Maeve O’Neillwill close with a wide-ranging set drawing on electro, ebm, techno, and acid.
Our Refuge Worldwide x CTM partnership will continue this edition, again bringing daily radio shows with festival artists over much of CTM festival week at Refuge’s studio. This year a dedicated dance floor will be showcased at Panorama Bar with Refuge residents Sarj and Malengo at the helm. Joining them will be Detroit ghettotech torchbearers HiTech, the rapidly rising member of Cairo’s leftfield community Special Project named Jana, and SHAPE+ supported artist ojoo, a selector with a head spinning knack for combining genres and tempos across the gamut into an irresistible vibe.
Gaining attention via Hotflush releases that bridge UK bass subtleties with breakbeat and techno, Céad label head Or:la’s genre-spanning selections have garnered her a BBC Radio One show and a busy schedule on the global club circuit. Stemming from the Northern Irish city of Derry, since 2021 she has been running the La Potion club night in London, focusing on showcasing queer creatives.
Closing out the sonic mayhem of four straight days of Berghain, will be former Hercules and Love Affair collaborator Kim Ann Foxman, whose classic takes on dance music synthesise the best elements of raw house, propulsive 303 material, emotive techno, and the occasional hint of trance into an irresistibly ravey experience.
First names for our Saturday club night at RSO.Berlin are also confirmed. A b2b duo that have a ton of fun behind the decks, DJ MELL G & Poly Chain thrive in the expressive and danceable worlds of electro, cutting through classic selections as much as techno-inspired strains of the genre.
Harnessing sequenced machines, digital samplers, and a plethora of multi-effects, the SHAPE+ supported trio NZE NZE build tales of dystopian fact and speculative fiction, interweaving traditional Central African warrior songs with clamorous mechanised post-punk noise and ritual rhythms into a disorienting experience.
Cairo’s soundscapes are deconstructed, blended with influences from different music genres, and turned into maximalist sonic tornadoes in El Kontessa’s productions. A staple of the city’s music scene since 2018 and appearing at CTM in support of her debut album, the artist packs her blistering tracks with as many sounds as possible, creating a whirlwind dance floor experience.
Drawing from her Egyptian upbringing and a decade in New York, Yas Meen Selectress roams the sound worlds of North African and Middle Eastern electronic music, plus rhythmic bass vibes resonating in NYC’s diasporic club scene.
The festival’s second weekend will feature three evening programmes at Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platztheatre, including festival favourite Aïsha Devi whowill return to CTM in support of new album Death is Home on Houndstooth, her first LP since 2018 and what the artist has voiced is her most personal work yet. Harnessing timeless frequencies, Devi channels crystalline HD bass motifs and weightless vocals in a sonic manifesto towards healing and forging a path for an alternate, more hospitable reality beyond the human condition. Devi will close out the festival in a world premiere live performance with engrossing scenography.
Installation: »Oceanic Refractions«
»Oceanic Refractions« is an immersive installation featuring testimonies of Fijian, i-Kiribati and Papua New Guinean elders on kinship, self-determination and care in the face of global ecocide. Along with reflections from these teachers, artists, fisherpeople, grandparents and chiefs, we hear field recordings of the reefs of Fiji, the oceans and mangroves of Kiribati, and the shorelines of Papua New Guinea’s Duke of York Islands. Through hyper-detailed soundscape compositions, combined with 360 videography, kinetic seating, and olfactory effects, »Oceanic Refractions« creates an unforgettable sensorial experience. Moved by listening and silence, the installation offers audiences rare insights into the environmental relations sustaining Oceania’s many worlds.
The result of several years of research and talanoa (dialogue) with Indigenous leaders, scholars, artists and advocates from Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Islands and Nauru, the work is led and produced by artists AM Kanngieser (Australia/Germany) and Mere Nailatikau (Fiji) and who combine their expertise in climate research, education and arts (Kanngieser) and Pacific communication and international relations (Nailatikau), as I they work with sound artist KMRU(Kenya/Germany), filmmakers Laisiasa Dave Lavaki (Fiji) and Tumeli Tuqota (Fiji), olfactory designer Smell Art (Australia), design and fabrication studio Space Forms (Ireland) and projection specialist Frame Works (Ireland).
The themes addressed by the installation will be further explored through talks and lectures at both CTM Festival and transmediale, as well as through specially commissioned texts featured via the festival magazines. »Oceanic Refractions« is co-produced by CTM Festival and transmediale with funding by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds (German Capital Culture Fonds), Creative Australia and with support from the European Commission.
Research Networking Day
The Research Networking Day will assemble nine students, scholars, and artists/researchers from a variety of fields who will present research touching on CTM's »Sustain« festival theme. The session will take place Sunday 4 February 2024 free of charge.
This year’s speakers were selected from over 200 applicants to our open call, and will touch on topics of AI-voice explorations, the body in music practice, and sounds & locality. We are excited to hear from: Aadita Chaudhury, Ada Ada Ada, Aline Zara, Jaka Škapin, Julianne Chua, Maria Giaever Lopez, Mariana Dias, Matthias Jung, and Ragnhild May.
RND 2024 is presented this year in collaboration with Berlin University of the Arts (UdK), the Institute Art Gender Nature at the Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW, the C:POP. Transdisciplinary Research Center for Popular Music Cultures and Creative Economies of the Paderborn University, and the Berlin-based network and project space Trust.
On 25 Years of CTM Festival
It’s encouraging to note that over the years, the understanding of the relevance of experimental music and club cultures has grown, as has public support for it. The fact that CTM can continue to look to the future in its 25th year is also thanks to an environment in which government and funding bodies see vibrant experimental and critical art practises as a vital constituent of an open society. This must also include the many independent initiatives beyond large institutions. We are therefore delighted that the Berlin Senate for Culture has secured funding for the festival for another four years.
CTM has always been in flux and will have to continue to change in contact with ongoing cultural, technological, and social changes. This year's festival theme »sustain« therefore also points to the festival's constant struggle to negotiate its form and relevance between reliability and new perspectives, between the appreciation of what already exists and new frequencies. In many respects, CTM is different today than it was at its beginnings in 1999 – as are the music and art forms to which it gave and gives space. And yet there is a core to our self-conception that has remained constant over all these years: an openness and curiosity that consciously and resolutely locates itself between the cracks, and, even after 25 years, does not stop searching for new connections, mutations, and dialogues beyond established relationships.
CTM’s 25th anniversary is furthermore a time to reflect on 25 years of collaboration alongside sister festival transmediale, festival for art and digital culture. The first festival edition took place in 1999 as »club transmediale« at the now long demolished club Maria am Ostbahnhof, when CTM’s founders saw a gap adjacent to transmediale, and sought to fill it with a series of experimental club nights that intertwined sonic experiments and underground dance culture with contemporary media art. Titled 10 Tage an der Schnittstelle von Klang / bewegtem Bild (10 days at the intersection of sound / moving image), this first edition gradually expanded and took the shape of the international platform that is CTM Festival today. Over the years, the sister festivals have produced and co-commissioned works and presented collaborative concerts and events, and this year is no exception. Our collaboration will take place in three parts, with the multi-sensory installation »Oceanic Refractions,« a collaborative night at Berghain Säule with GASH collective, and with the Vorspiel programme run by independent Berlin art initiatives.
We invite you to read a short history of the festival and browse the CTM Festival edition archive from 1999 to 2023, complete with full artist listings, links to selected recordings, plus recent and archival images of performances, spaces, and club vibes then and now.
Festival Passes and Accreditation
Festival passes are on sale now in limited quantities. Festival goers can choose between the CTM Pass, which grants access to most of the festival’s events, or the Connect Pass which offers additional access to transmediale festival programming. New this year, we are also offering Weekend Passes for each CTM Festival weekend respectively.
Tickets to the concerts at silent green Betonhalle will be available in the next days. Tickets to further events will be steadily released as of December.
The press accreditationapplication period is now open until 10 January 2024. Journalists can apply to cover CTM or transmediale respectively, or for a combined accreditation to both festivals.