Photo: Bob Sweeney

The list of participants and artists adding to the CTM 2022 Part 2 festival programme are:

  • alys [BR/DE]
  • Anjeline de Dios [PH]
  • BAE BAE [US]
  • Corin [AU]
  • DORMANTYOUTH [ZA]
  • Faiza Ahmad Khan [IN]
  • Grand River [INT]
  • KOKOKO! [INT]
  • Louisahh [FR]
  • Marianna Lis [PL]
  • Marina Herlop [ES]
  • Moor Mother [US]
  • Morgan Sully [INT]
  • Pussykrew [INT]
  • Refuge Worldwide feat ELLLL, NM DJ, Richard Akingbehin, Two Thou [INT]
  • Ruò Tán [CN/FR]
  • Sandria Komalasari [ID]
  • Susan Schuppli [CA/UK]
  • Shzr Ee Tan [SG/UK]
  • Space Afrika [UK]
  • Stefanie Egedy [BR/DE]
  • Via App [US]
  • William Russell [AU/DE]
  • Ximena Alarcón [CO/UK]

Stand with Ukraine Fundraiser Concert

Before CTM begins, we hope you will also join us at the Stand with Ukraine Fundraiser Concert, which features a live performance of Hildur Gudnadottir’s multi-award winning soundtrack to HBO’s »Chernobyl« series, together with Sam Slater and Chris Watson. All proceeds will go to organisations that provide humanitarian and medical help to Ukraine: Ukraine-based Help Ukraine Center, Ukraine-Hilfe Berlin e.V. and Ukraiński Dom w Warszawie / Fundacja Nasz Wybór. Four tiers of ticketing, from 30 to 100 Euros, allow audiences to support how they can. It is also possible to donate without attending.

CTM 2022 Music Programme Expands

Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz and CTM 2022 are excited to bring together three artists who weave intimate and powerful narratives through broad-ranging and fresh approaches to composition. The hypnotic compositions of Catalan artist Marina Herlop are a winding exploration of the human voice and electronics. Classically trained in piano, Herlop has finessed her vocal and instrumental compositions over the years with fragmentary processes, dexterous layering, and uncanny rhythms of spectral effect. Herlop will be performing with her four-piece band, in support of her debut album coming out May 2022 on PAN. With their slow-stepping, spacious urban dubscapes, Space Afrika conjure images of the rust and disintegrating architecture of Northwest England in a sonic framework of stripped-down dub techno, sealed in a time capsule and sent back from the near future. Their genre-spanning compositions combine dreamlike ambient tapestries and echo-laden deep beats that form the bed for sensations of movement and redemption. Critically acclaimed ever since confronting audiences with Fetish Bones, a debut album of discordant productions and lyrical journeys into multigenerational racial trauma and female pain, Moor Mother returns to Berlin in support of Black Encyclopedia of the Air, a release which the artist claims she wanted to make »more accessible, and to get to ears that don’t really know me or have been afraid of me« (Pitchfork). Titled Encyclopedia because of »so many collaborators,« the album continues with themes of intergenerational trauma and collective responsibility, but in different musical tones as Ayewa searches for new, unifying ways to protest.

KOKOKO! will be performing an early concert at RSO club. KOKOKO! – literally »Knock Knock Knock« – is the sound of the new generation and scene in Kinshasa that are knocking on the door of change. The band is part of a wider political and cultural youth movement in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, that aims to reinvent themselves in contrast to an older generation, and find freedom of expression through new social and artistic practices. Originally born from a creative collision of four musicians from the Ngwaka neighbourhood (Dido Oweke, Boms Bomolo, Love Lokombe, Makara Bianko) that were looking towards an idea of a future »techno,« and French electronic producer Débruit, the band has recently restructured into a trio that heralds a more electronic and abrasive sound and the promise to showcase »an even less documented side of the Kinshasa music scene.« Tickets to their show include the RSO club night happening afterwards.

A few more club acts round out the Part 2 programmes at RSO. A rising figure in her city's music community, Los Angeles native and multimedia artist BAE BAE is driven by a love for genre-spanning club beats, eclectic electronic rhythms, and the communal joy of a good party. Monthly radio shows on NTS and Dublab, uplifting mixes focused on Black femme voices, and shapeshifting productions, bootlegs, remixes, and edits showcase her sharp and ever-evolving sonic vision.

Contributing to the freewheeling energy of RSO’s ROBUS floor, Louisahh brings punk, hard techno and electro in her ferocious rave-oriented sets. Channelling darker moods into personal transformative potential, the uncompromising and outspoken DJ/producer co-runs RAAR records with Maelstrom aiming to bring »techno for punks and punks for techno.«

Berlin-based Brazilian producer alys is a true innovator of musical storytelling with an added touch of humour. Making clever use of vinyl sampling inside Ableton, electronic drums and field recordings, alys’ constantly unfurling, pivoting style reflects the theme of her radio show on Mutant Radio, »short attention span«. Her 2019 EP percussive thoughts paved the way from rhythmic, atmospheric productions into her experimental, free jazz and electronic EP is it all simulation improvisation?, released in 2021.

Corin Ileto aka CORIN is a Filipina-Australian electronic producer, composer and performer working in the fields of performance art, sound design, theatre and club spaces. Whether it’s on a theater stage or a dancefloor, the sonic alchemy of this producer, composer and performer is an aural exploration of non-human entity translated through a baroque blend of IDM, EBM, tranced-out grime and pearly dew-drops of lush ambience. At Berghain, CORIN will be presenting an audio-visual performance of upcoming material, where industrial textures morph and mutate through space like sentinels, each sound coming into its own being.

DORMANTYOUTH is the blending alias of Johannesburg-based non-binary architect, Thelma Ndebele, known for their BPM-chasing mixes that incorporate Chicago footwork, UK drill, techno, South African rap, Jersey club, Baltimore club and electronica. The resident DJ at Pussy Party and Vogue Nights »Jozi« returns to CTM after her virtual performance at our online 2021 edition.

Refuge Worldwide take over the lounge floor at Schwuz with B2B2B2B sets by Richard Akingbehin, ELLLL, NM DJ and Two Thou. The programme offers a curation of upcoming voices from Berlin and abroad, ranging from experimental sounds and selections to amorphous dance music productions. Refuge will also host a number of CTM performing artists on air during the festival week. Hör Berlin offers another opportunity to tune-in to CTM 2022 remotely, with a dedicated stream on 28 May featuring Diessa, De Schuurman, Little Snake, BAE BAE, Kasimyn (of Gabber Modus Operandi), and Turkana.

Finally, Senyawa will also appear a second time at the festival with an intimate acoustic set at Morphine Raum on the afternoon of Saturday 28th of May.

Image courtesy of the artists

Pussykrew AR Project – / ORCL /

»/ orcl /« is a location-based augmented reality experience, for those in search of metamorphosis and connection in the digital realm. QR codes placed across six CTM Festival locations, plus further locations in the city, each trigger a different immersive story featuring an avatar that shares a piece of wisdom of rave, rage, and wonder. The ever-morphing project is created by Pussykrew, an duo of award-winning directors and immersive media artists that explore spaces in between digital and physical realms, blending fluid identities and futuristic landscapes through experimentation with 3D, real-time performance, photogrammetry, and VR sculpting.

In »/ orcl /,« AI-powered avatars arise from deep crevices of the city through mystical portals to queer their urban surroundings, inviting you to listen to their messages from the in-between to reclaim your energy. Virtual deities, mutants, and shapeshifting beings traverse familiar spaces and encourage us to reimagine our roles in this ecosystem. Their messages are accompanied by sound scores specially crafted by local musicians Born in Flamez, Perera Elsewhere, and Ziúr. By bridging virtual and material realms, »/ orcl /« provides a spark for imagining and constructing alternative futures, celebrating human / non-human forces, in an interactive ritual. 

New CTM 2022 Discourse Confirmations

Several additions fill-out our Discourse talk series, which from 25–28 May will focus on multiple threads related to the festival theme, »Contact.«

Senyawa’s Alkisah is an experiment in decentralised music distribution; giving their music freely to those all over the globe who wanted to be involved, Senyawa enabled new modes of creativity and collaboration to emerge through recorded audio. Representatives from the newly-formed Alkisah network, Marianna Lis, Morgan Sully, Ruotan, and Sandria Komalasari will illustrate the ongoing initiative’s pursuits, critically considering what it means to act as a decentralised artistic network. Also exploring topics of music & sociality, Shzr Ee Tan and Anjeline De Dios, who spoke online in our winter Discourse programme, will come together in Berlin to explore the sonic lives of migrant workers in Southeast Asia, sourcing both historic and current experiences. Providing original music, Via App will join previously-announced speaker Geoffrey Mak in a lecture performance. While club music is often thought of as an escape from reality, »The Psychotic Method« will examine how club music can be a way of making deeper contact with an embodied reality on the dance floor through a practice of meditation.

Joining the thematic module »Contact with the More-than-human World,« sound artist-researcher and »Deep Listening« certified tutor Ximena Alarcón will invite the audience to listen to and reflect on her search for sonic migrations, the resonances left in-between our known divisions when we tune in and meet others across distant locations. Artist-researcher Susan Schuppli and award-winning filmmaker and researcher Faiza Ahmad Khan will introduce their project »Listening to Ice« that was carried out at Drang Drung Glacier in the Zanskar region of the Himalayas. It was also set out to measure, monitor, and record the material transformations of the glacier as well as engage with local mountain communities directly impacted by climate change and glacial recession.

Call for Participants: Black Swan & Kontinuum

Winner of the 2022 Kontinuum call for generative artworks, Jonathan Chaim Reus, will host a second workshop related to his yearlong stream »In Search of Good Ancestors / Ahnen in Arbeit.« The workshop will be hosted together with experimental publishing collective Varia and artist/researcher Eleni Ikoniadou, and aims to experiment with artistic approaches to reading and voicing together, in order to develop contributions to the machine learning models of the artificial broadcaster in Reus’ work – who is learning to speak through listening to human and non-human voice recordings. The workshop is free with pre-registration, first-come-first-served.

CTM and previously announced Black Swan have now launched the open call for this year’s edition of Rethinking Music Ecosystems. This participatory experiment with the extended music community employs decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) infrastructure and thought in a bid to realise new ways of creating work, and assembles resources pledged by a number of silent stakeholders. The open call has a deadline of May 9; for more information on the experiment, check out our Prototyping Sonic Institutions discussion from CTM Part 1.

MusicMakers Hacklab Fellows Announced

What does it mean to get closer again? After a fully virtual year in 2021, this year’s MusicMakers Hacklab takes a step back into in-person collaboration, with a focus on Berlin-based practitioners. During an intense week of collaboration, selected fellows Cecilia Nercasseau Gibson (Cecilia Pez), Cedric Douhaire, Dan Su, Danai Nyandoroh, Francisca Marques, Jacky Kommers (JacqNoise), Judith Konitzer, Karolina Bartczak, Kateryna Khalanska, Kei Watanabe, Kyrylo Shum, Lara Alarcón, Simon Berz, Tanat Teeradakorn, and Verónica Mota will explore and create new musical performance ideas, tools, and techniques, which will be premiered live at the Hacklab Finale on CTM’s closing Sunday. The 2022 Hacklab is led by Ariel William Orah and Peter Kirn.

Partner Event: Todays Art & MONOM Studios Present Grand River, Stefanie Egedy & Monom Studio Experiments

On Saturday 28 May, TodaysArt and Monom Studios are proud to present a fresh program featuring the artist and composer Aimée Portioli Foley, aka Grand River, who will perform her intimate composition »Tuning the Wind« live, spatialised and mixed in 4DSOUND. Nature and music have become one; there is no distinction between a synthesiser and an element of nature, between a sound wave and a gust of wind. In the last two years, many more people have reconnected with nature and have embraced it as a place of respite from an unceasingly self-mechanising global landscape. In attempting a representation of the wind in human form, »Tuning The Wind« expresses our relationship, experience, and dialogue with the natural environment.

Ahead of the concert, Stefanie Egedy will enchant Monom's bar with a low-frequency »Sub-Bass« sound bath, exploring the potential contained in sound waves and subwoofers to invigorate the nervous system and the body.

During the day, Monom Studios will premiere an interactive experiment, a portal into an alternate perspective. »Human / Nature / Machine« was originally conceived by William Russell as a live performance using the piano as an instrument to control the dynamics of natural phenomena. A duet between human and nature, this symphonic exploration now takes shape as an immersive installation mixed together through the 4DSOUND system. For this special edition of the project, the audience will be invited to interact with various materials and objects, connecting their bodies to the 4DSOUND machine. Expect special musical guests over the course of the day, who will infuse the environments with melody, harmony, and rhythm.

Tickets and Passes

Festival passes as well as tickets to all CTM 2022 Part 2 events are on sale. The hybrid Discourse talk series will be streamed free of charge via CTM’s YouTube channel.

Proof of vaccination/recovery, or rapid tests are no longer required for event entry. Masks are likewise not required. Access rules are subject to change, in compliance with any changes to government policies regarding Covid-19. We will regularly update event access rules as needed.