7th Nov
Athens
live/
Nika Son
Freddie Murphy
Nikos Veliotis
3 NOV 24
The Wire
Feature in The Wire Magazine
July 2024
Text by Louise Gray
Photo by Helena Wittmann
and on The Wire online: a scene from Finnish filmmaker and visual artist Mika Taanila’s new film Failed Emptiness, featuring a score by composer Nika Son. Watch here
12 SEP 24
NEXT TIME
Golden Pudel Club
live/
Sutja Gutiérrez
djs/
Ratkat & Nika Son
ASLOPE
Nika Son
LP
V I S
Aslope is Nika Son’s second album after her debut in 2020 (To Eeyore on Entr’acte) and brings together various compositions from the past three years.
Even though the album doesn’t address a consistent theme throughout, it is the night and its capability to shift our perception and memory, that link the pieces together.
Some of the tracks are extracted from multi-sound installations, sound video works or radio pieces created in recent years and reworked into autonomous pieces.
For the label V I S it’s her second release, after the EP Tennø with the project C (now called Cwelle, together with the musician F#X) in 2016.
Label: V I S
Release date: 7th June 2024
Mastering: Kris Jakob (Tonal Bias)
Cover artwork and Layout : Oliver Pitt
Distributed by: Boomkat & Morr Music
°°°
Boomkat review:
(…)
Constructed out of the kind ephemeral building blocks conjured in liminal space, Nika Son (Golden Pudel Club, Entr’acte) collages moonlit organ vamps, stifled voices and disembodied, robotic poems on this deliriously slippery album. Heaving from smeary abstraction to penetrable drama, featherlight rhythms are cut short by uncanny voices: „stop, turning, a page,“ like some rogue navigation assistant, slicing into ticking clocks and xerox noise.
(…)
It’s music that defies simple categorisation; Son doesn’t tie herself to any identifiable mode of expression, and there are no knowing nods to early electronic innovators either. Rather, she follow her own nose, drawing us into an elusive personal space. On ‚It’s just a cucumber‘, environmental recordings are edited just enough to enhance the illusion, before voices curl and decompress into rousing bass womps and unmetered rhythms prickle around punkish shouts. The use of voice is omnipresent throughout, even when not there, they appear on the periphery: on ‚La nuit tombe‘, they’re muffled behind echoing footsteps and creepy synth wails, on ‚Gelbes Feld‘, incomprehensible chatter envelopes cricket chirps and b-movie arpeggios.
Many artists have tried to map out the dreamworld using sound, but Nika Son takes us to a place that genuinely feels in-between worlds, capturing those moments before vivid memories slip away from the mind’s eye forever.
read whole review here
23 JUN 24
SCATTER, NO TURN
GAK – Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst Bremen
11.05.–04.08.2024
Nika Son
In her first institutional solo exhibition, artist and musician Nika Son explores insomnia and the tension between exhaustion, restlessness and desire. In rooms that are completely darkened, apart from isolated light and visual elements, she examines multisensory perception and forms of manipulation that evoke states of heightened sensitivity in the face of excessive stimuli.
Nika Son works between concrete music and concrete poetry with the sounds and images she records and observes in spaces of interpersonal communication. There will be a fifty-minute live performance at the opening. The resulting sound and image composition will initiate an echo, an interplay between proximity and distance. The participants in the opening performance are Nika Son herself, the voice artist and dancer Michael Breithaupt, and the cellist Magdalena Ceple. After the performance, individual fragments of the recorded live sounds and noises will be incorporated into the installation as sonic traces. Further echoes will be created in the space, constantly forming new sound collages through loops at staggered intervals.
During the exhibition period, Nika Son invites other artists to make interventions in the form of music and lecture performances in order to create new constellations within the installation using their own language, to respond to the existing exhibition with sound and images, and to potentially modify and expand it. The selection of invited artists reflects the central idea of exchange and the simultaneous search for traces in Son’s own practice.
→ Fri, 10.05.2024, 19 h ←
Exhibition opening
& Live Performance (40 min)
with Nika Son, Michi Breithaupt, Magdalena Ceple
Sat, 25.05.2024, 18:30 / 20:30 / 22:30 h
Nika Son & Lätitia Norkeit: Zwischen Schritte
Performance in three acts on the occasion of Lange Nacht der Museen Bremen 2024
Thu, 06.06.2024 20 h
PHEW (live/JP)
Thu, 11.07.2024 20 h
Mark Vernon (live/UK)
Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst
Teerhof 21, D 28199 Bremen
DRIFT
******* RELEASE *******
Nika Son
LP
Futura Resistenza
Drawing from her compositions for Helena Wittmann’s film DRIFT (2017), Nika Son creates a sonic journey across the Atlantic Ocean. Following a weekend at the North Sea, one of Wittmann’s two protagonists embarks on a journey across the Atlantic from the Caribbean to the Azores, during which unpredictable waves and deep sleep foster a transformative experience.
Capturing the essence of this cinematic encounter through sound, Nika Son’s compositions allow the water itself to become a storyteller, immersing listeners in the resonating body of the boat and plunging them into the profound depth of the ever-shifting ocean.
Whether illuminated by daylight or veiled by night, the nature of this material world emerges through an exploration of the ocean as a distinct and tangible space, inviting contemplation of its transformative power. The line between reality and imagination blurs, and the waves echo the emotions of the voyage.
released April 22, 2024 on Futura Resistenza
All tracks are composed, recorded and mixed by Nika Son during 2017-2018
D5 and N5 are excerpts of the video-sound installation Wildness Of Waves by Helena Wittmann & Nika Son
All other tracks are excerpts of the original soundtrack of the film DRIFT by Helena Wittmann
Mastered by Kris Jakob (Tonal Bias)
Text by Theresa George
Lay-out by Jeroen Wille
5 MAY 24
Brussels
Thrilled to be part of this fantastic line-up and program.
I will perform a 8-channel sound and video piece on Sunday 5th May / 17pm.
It’s a work that i had started to develop last year during my time at the Q-O2 residency.
Scatter is a multi-channel sound performance with video, objects, and light. In her work, Nika Son observes the realms of sleeplessness (insomnia), flickering between fatigue, restlessness and yearning. The piece explores how our senses adapt in differing states, probing the distinctions between hearing and truly listening. In a world of constant stimuli and information, the artist plays with shifts in perception, memory, coincidence, and the varying sense of time, while blurring the distinction between what is audible and what is actually visible. Tones, noises, rhythms as well as voices, languages and ways of speaking interact with surrounding darkness and forced incidences of light.
11 APR 24
NEXT TIME
live/
a solo project by an Osaka-based musician Yuko Kureyama, was initiated in 2015 after playing guitar for years in an all-female band called ‘water fai’ from 2002 to 2015. Alongside, Yuko also is part of the synth noise duo Turtle Yama.
Now she returns to TAL with the album HEART FRESH, her first ever full length release under her KOPY moniker. All tracks of the album were recorded in Tokyo in June 2023 at the famous live house Ochiai Soup. For the recordings of the ten tracks, Ochiai Soup was swiftly converted into a recording studio as the intimate atmosphere of the club and its perfect room acoustics gave KOPY the chance to record her music like in a live situation.
djs/
DJ KOHLRABI
Cross-genre and inclusive, free of trends – yes, that’s DJ Kohlrabi. Just like Kohlrabi, who is also known as Oberrübe, an unearthly selection of music – exotic butterfly punk & social vocals, a DJ who masters birthday parties as well as weddings or the small Sunday rave in the club.
and Next Timies
RATKAT & NIKA SON
27 JAN 24
FAILED EMPTINESS
by Mika Taanila
is premiering at the 51st International Film Festival Rotterdam – IFFR in the program strand ”Harbour”.
Failed Emptiness is an existential thriller that describes the familiar experience of emptiness when responsibilities end.
With Ariane Tretow
director and editor: Mika Taanila
screenplay: Harry Salmenniemi
cinematography: Jussi Eerola
music and sound design: Nika Son
additional music: Klara Lewis
graphic design: Patrik Söderlund.
2024 | 66 min | b/w | DCP | 1:1,33, original title: Epäonnistunut tyhjyys.
25 NOV 23
live/
Els Vandeweyer & Gebrüder Teichmann & Moritz Baumgärtner
Adam Golebiewski & Nika Son
dj/
Raspe
Gebrüder Teichmann are equally well known on the club scene as they are in new music. Together with drummer Moritz Baumgärtner they will improvise live on stage with multiinstrumentalist Marja Burchard who is known as band leader of the group Embryo. The musicians from Berlin and Munich are continuing the collaboration that began at the 2022 Jazzexess Festival.
⚠ Marja Burchard unfortunately won’t be able to perform due to illness. The wonderful Els Vandeweyer will stand in on vibraphone.
Marja Burchard (Rhodes, Vibraphone, Voice)
Gebrüder Teichmann (Live Electronics, Sampling)
Moritz Baumgärtner (Drums)
The second improvisation will be fabricated by the Hamburg artist Nika Son and the Polish composer and musicologist Adam Golebiewski. Their drums and electronics constellate for the first time on this evening.
Nika Son (Live Electronics)
Adam Golebiewski (Drums)
Raspe will present a selection of records creating a wonky, stoical and noisy sound from different spheres.
BEEK / Marschnerstr. 21 / Hamburg
Photos: Charlie Spiegelfeld
24 NOV 23
24 November 23 – 20 Uhr
live/
SO SNER
NIKA SON
off church
Düsseldorf
Photo: Schiko
11 NOV 23
Universal Exports w/ Nina and Nika Son @ Kiosk Radio 11.11.2023, Brussels
Thank youu Yves de Mey for the invite!
10 NOV 23
10.11.2023
FUTURA RESISTENZA label presents
Roger3000 (be) + Ugne&maria (be)
+ Nina (de) + Nika Son (de)
Futura Resistenza operates somewhere on the edges of performance, music and the visual arts. Interdisciplinary at its core, for Futura Resistenza, a concert is never just a concert and a record reaches far beyond what meets the ear. The label invites musicians and artists with direct personal connections within its community, as well as people who they simply admire and want to see published or on stage. For this special occasion, they have invited two Brussels-based live acts from the label: musician and painter Roger 3000 and electronic duo ugne&maria, experimenting with the violin, synthesisers and sampling techniques. While DJs Nina & Nika Son, known for their sophisticated selections at among others Hamburg’s Golden Pudel Club, will lead you into the night.
Atelier 210
Brussels
13 OCT 23
urban string – Imperfect Echoes
Carte Blanche
13th October 2023 – 20h
Resonanzraum
it’s been nearly a decade now since Ensemble Resonanz asked me the first time to play at their urban string series.
manyyy great memories!!
now it’s the first time i was invited for a carte blanche and to score a piece for four strings to perform with me.
a very exciting challenge! and bringing me further back to drawing…..
i called the evening
Imperfect Echoes, inspired by a piece by Beatriz Ferreyra
Pieces by:
Beatriz Ferreyra: Echos
Alvin Lucier: Disappearances
J.S. Bach: Andante un poco, Sonate für Violine, Nr. 2 BWV1015
Iannis Xenakis: Rebonds A
Nika Son: Gespenst
Malika Kishino: Lamento
Igor Strawinsky: Double Canon
Iannis Xenakis: Rebonds B
Nika Son: Imperfect Memories
4 OCT 23
NEXT TIME 💥
w/ DAS KINN live
DAS KINN oscillates between the poles. Clear cut and shape-shifting.
Between relaxation and tension, Post Punk and Kraut, Electronics and Art Rock, between Minor and Major, hiccups and singing.
Das Kinn rants against the imposition of impermanence.
Behind the curtain of DAS KINN hides Toben Piel.
Located between the spheres of sound and mediums of expressions for years: as part of the music-performance duo Les Trucs, as co-operator of the tape label MMODEMM, as organizer of electronic music formats in Frankfurt a/M and with works for theatre and radio.
His upcoming EP, ‘Die Kanten’, was released on 22 September 2023 on the German labels Mangel and ICHI ICHI.
Djs/ Ratkat & Nika Son
Doors 20 Uhr !
3 Oct 23
live
NO CUE
BROSHUDA
dj
CHAGO
our third live performance with NO CUE
very much looking forward to scramble again with Tintin Patrone, G E K, Maximillian Glass and RVDS !
we will bring some fresh Tapes !
don’t be late. doors at 19h
first concert at 19:30h
28 SEP 23
Der Geheime Salon mit Sote & Nika Son
at Alte Oper Mangelsdorff-Foyer
Frankfurt
28.09.2023, 9.30 pm
In September, Der Geheime Salon starts the new season with a special edition at Alte Oper Frankfurt. On two evenings, you can listen to international artists of experimental electronic music in the wood-paneled Mangelsdorff foyer.
The sound artist Sote has been an institution of the Iranian music underground for years. We are very pleased to bring him to Frankfurt for a concert for the first time. His compositions are sound journeys through electro-acoustic realms, sound design walls, microtonal motifs and polyrhythmic sequences. Releases on quality labels like Warp or Opal Tapes speak for themselves. Hamburg artist, musician and Golden Pudel resident Nika Son will operate the turntables before and after the concert.
26 SEP 23
Upstream Concert Series for New Music and Performance
#3 – DETRITUS
Upstream’s September edition combines artists from Australia and the UK with Hamburg-based artist Nika Son for an evening dedicated to the idea of DETRITUS. We are taken from homemade instruments made from discarded materials (Alexandra Spence) to the creative potential of hypnotic and scattered states induced by insomnia (Son) to a chaotic affirmation of detritus as fertile ground for pushing music into new spaces (Yes Indeed).
± Alexandra Spence
± Nika Son
± Yes Indeed
± Micheal Brailey – DJ
MS Stubnitz
Hamburg
27 SEP 23
Conrad Schnitzler “Sometimes it turns into music”
Book presentation
w/ Nika Son & Stefan Schneider
Talk, films, live sets.
at arkaoda Berlin
Since the early 1970s, Conrad Schnitzler (*1937 Düsseldorf – 2011 Dallgow) has been internationally revered as a pioneer of electronic music and a radical boundary-crosser in the use of sounds and images. Initially as a founding member of KLUSTER and as an employee of the early Tangerine Dream, in the following decades he developed a comprehensive and confusing body of work between Berlin, Düsseldorf and New York, which has not yet been fully developed to this day but continues to inspire artists all over the world . The Hamburg musician Nika Son dedicated a 2-day festival called Eruption to Conrad Schnitzler in 2018, which sought a diverse approach to Schnitzler. In 2022, Stefan Schneider co-curated an exhibition at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf that focused on Schnitzler’s audio-visual work. The publication “Conrad Schnitzler—“Sometimes it degenerates into music” (Walther Koenig bookstore) has now been published, which summarizes the results of a two-year research into Conrad Schnitzler’s intermedia work of the 1970s and 1980s.
In a conversation, Nika Son and Stefan Schneider present their different perspectives on Schnitzler’s work and how they deal with it.
This is followed by two live sets in which both present their current musical work.
Q-O2 Residency
Scatter I
During the residency at Q-O2 Nika Son experiments on a new composition for a multi-channel sound piece in interaction with light and moving image.
For the presentation she’s following the thoughts and questions surrounding various states of mind in the wake of insomnia, the desperate striving for sleep and the longing to stay awake in a world of constant consumption and processing. How does our auditory sense shift at the brink of each state? Which senses take over when and why? When do we hear and when do we listen? What happens to the perception of time and its loss? Which overtones are produced? What rhythm do our thoughts set? What influence do surrounding noises and changes in light have on our hearing? When does the perception of space alter and what echoes are generated?
As it’s a work in progress, you will see and hear an intermediate state composed for differing speakers, video, flash lights and a fan.
at Q-O2
Brussels
Radiophrenia
commissioned radio productions
Becky Šik & Nika Son “TONFALL – Remember, I must use the stairs“
Saturday, 2nd September, 12pm – 12.30pm + Sunday, 3rd September, 6 – 6.30pm
Two strangers matched together, their practices intertwine
A blank page
Growing from there
An open cupboard buzzes and humms
Sending snippets in stolen moments
The circle drops, opening a wide and generous hole
SlippageTalking, passing, exchanging, reasoning, corresponding, joking, transposing
Systems cycle in loops
Accents, language, tones, intonations, cues, pitch, syllables
Prompts
The megalithic Ouroboros fun machine that is Barbie
Touching an elephant
Circles, water, falling sound
Escalators, circular systems, sleep, not sleep
Words that don’t exist
Gleichgewicht
Walking with dizzy spells in saturation
Reflecting, twisting, alternating, translating, modulating, jumping from
On the edges – a Hallwall
Again the elephant, transponder, closed water, eyes
What does it mean to be open and what slips away?
Souffleuse, Echoschwelle, Tonfall
X1, mnemonic, delay
Asking, loops, deathbed
What’s wrong with my eyes, oscillating, brown noise
Pulse
What is an orbit sound
Missing the radiator, voices, vertigo
I could spell it fownetikally/ foʊˈnet̬.ɪ.kəl.i
Meter eater
Mi devas uzi la ŝtuparon
This piece was developed during a week long residency at CCA funded by the Goethe-Institut Glasgow in collaboration with Radiophrenia.
15 JUL 23
Mutant Radio
photo by: Öncü Gültekin
now on soundcloud
with pieces of most of the invited artists and others that are in my ear now and then and always
thank you so much for all the music !
Tot Onyx – Ishi Rhythm
Muqata’a – Quboor Mamila
Mazen Kerbaj – i always dreamt to be a guitar player / Just the three of us
Dali Guru & The Polyphonic Swarm – Lolutuuum
Roberto Musci – Shadow Player
France Sauvage – Brex me down
Thomas Lehn & Marcus Schmickler – Gelb
DJ Die Soon – Jon Stewart and Colonel Sanders with dog / Rantworth
PLF – Pop(e) Lost Faith
Phew – New World
Lolina – Chance
Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson & Andy Heck Boyd – Mr Trampoline Man
Kinzua – Domestic affair
Nihiloxica – 190819
Inkasso – Familiendrama
Manja Ristic & Mark Vernon – Pjesma mora / Upao u raj
Hainbach – Tremors
Jennifer Walshe – Guillaume de Machaut_ Messe de Notre Dame, Agnus Dei
Saint Abdullah – Pluto’s porn
Nihiloxica – 160819
Pouya Ehsaei – #8
Dali Muru & Polyphonic Swarm – Bath Philosopher
eRikm – Lux Payllettes
Mika Levi & Oliver Coates – county h / say good bye to everyone
16 JUN 23
Klassentreffen
Ein Festival mit Performances, Lectures, Filmen und Musik zum Ende der Klasse Michaela Melián (2010 bis 2023)
Meine live performance:
am 16.06. um 21 Uhr
zusammen mit meiner Videoarbeit
Imperfect Memories II
Programm:
15./16. Juni 2023, 14-22 Uhr, Aula HFBK Hamburg
Mit Beiträgen von:
Bilge Aksaç, Clara Alisch, Charlotte Arnhold, Jacopo Asam, Eda Aslan, Kristina Batzel, Björn Beneditz, Silvia Berger, Nika Breithaupt, Felix Boekamp, Sarah Bohn, Johanna Bruckner, Oliver Bulas, Sarah Drath, Agnes Eeg-Olofsson, Janis Fisch, Jakob Flöss, Junya Fujita, Manuel Funk, Juri Gaensdorfer, Nina Gohl, Lorenz Goldstein, Anna Gröger, Sevda Güler, Dörte Habighorst, Manuel Haffner, Lennart Häusser, Mona Harry, Elen Harutyunyan, Abe Hendriks, Jessica Herden, Tom Holert, Alexander Iliashenko, Benjamin Janzen, Franziska Kabisch, Jori Kehn, Leonid Kharlamov, Jihie Kim, Till Knapp, Frank Koenen, Nikita Kotliar, Johannes Kuhn, Eve Larue, Paulina Laskowski, Philomena Lauprecht, Sophia Leitenmayer, Flora Lenzmann, Yi Li, Xinyi Li, Charlotte Livine, Hanne Loreck, Fabien Lübke, Laura Mahnke, Takeo Marquardt, Ruth May, Dominik Mayer, Simeon Melchior, Stefan Mildenberger, Toni Mosebach, André Mulzer, Seungheon Nam, Elisa Nessler, Julia Nordholz, Jacobus North, Monika Orpik, Josie Overton, Alice Peragine, Jana Pfort, Felix Raeithel, Judith Rau, Signe Raunkjær Holm, Camilla Reisser, Jonna Roeper, Kervin Saint Pere, Pia Scheiner, Nicolaas Schmidt, Anja Steidinger, Nora Sternfeld, Maren Stocklöw, Julia Stolba, Nora Strömer, Zuza Spyczak von Brzezinska, Aleksandra Stadnik, Dominik Styk, Natalia Tikhonova, Samo Tomšič, Radoš Vujaklija, Janne Wagner, Leonie Wahler, Moritz Walker, Badrieh Wanli, Katharina Wild, Shuchang Xie, Martha Zonouzi
https://www.hfbk-hamburg.de/sound-und-performancefestival-klassentreffen/
HFBK
Hochschule für bildende Künste
Lerchenfeld 2, 22081 Hamburg
14 JUN 23
Poster: Thomas Baldischwyler <3
Im Rahmen von
blurred edges
im Golden Pudel
NO CUE
live
Das Projekt NO CUE formierte sich im Januar 2022 während einer Residency von Nika Son im ausland in Berlin. Sie lud die Musiker:innen Tintin Patrone, RVDS, Maximilian Glass und G E K ein, um einen gemeinsamen Konzertabend zu gestalten. Dabei entstanden rotierend-schwebende Soundessays mit unterschiedlichstem Instrumentarium.
Der Pudel wird ein quadrophonischer Puls.
Demnächst erscheint NO CUE auf Tape !
(mehr Infos bald!)
Aber am 14.06. schon
Pre-Sale Release Tape Party !
Djs: F#X, RVDS, Nika Son
18-21 MAY 23
18th – 21st MAY 2023
At long last: live! After two years of torpefying collective compliance, Hamburg’s experimental festival for pop, art and rotation has reawakened to the light of the day. Spotlight for our first post-Covid edition is “scope of movement”, in its broadest sense. For the Break Through in Play Room we are celebrating pop and art between centrifugal force, gambling disorder and alternating current.
Now in its fourth edition, PAPIRIPAR – Hamburg’s festival for recalcitrant trend waves interference for interval alarms during somnambulist periods of inaction – has fully recalibrated the colour and music scales. This time, the palette of acts set to tantalise eyes and ears ranges all the way from larger-than-life, breathing sound machines (Victoria Shen & Ivana Dama) and Dadaist monologues in clothing-free space (Sigtruyggur Berg Sigmarsson), afro-futurist syncopated industrial rhythms (Nihiloxica), otherworldly pop complexe (Lolina) and digitally deconstructed sound poetry (Jennifer Walshe & Thomas Lehn) to electro-acoustic concerts in the raw sound funnel of a Hamburg courtyard (Mazen Kerbaj & JD Zazie). There will also be a workshop on how to build a spectre detector (Tara Pattenden).
Curated by Felix Kubin, Nika Son and Florian Bräunlich, PAPIRIPAR once again executes mesmerising and delirious back flips and adulterous flings with and between the fiercely patrolled disciplines of art, music and performance in order to set off aesthetic electrical sparks capable of jump-starting our slumbering cultural bohemia.
E X H I B I T I O N
Victoria Shen + Ivana Dama
W O R K S H O P S
Tara Pattenden
C O N C E R T S / P E R F O R M A N C E S
Dali Muru & The Polyphonic Swarm
Nihiloxica
Companion Species (Jennifer Walshe & Thomas Lehn)
Mazen Kerbaj
JD Zazie
Lolina
PLF
Evicshen
France Sauvage
Phantom Chips
Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson
Cilia
Kris Kuldkepp
D J s
Nosedrip
pq
Internet Offline
Semi-Nice & Elazer
Libyscher Wald
1 MAY 23
Anticipating PAPIRIPAR festival from 18th – 21st May. . . .For those who are too impatient can gather already on 1 May at the festival teaser PAPIRIPAR LABOR at Golden Pudel Club, where the Japanese no-wave legend PHEW, flanked by DJ DIE SOON and the artist Tanita Olbrich, will invoke an iridescent black sun.
PAPIRIPAR LABOR
1st May 23 / 20 h
Live/ PHEW
In the late 1970s, Hiromi Moritani flew from Japan to Great Britain in pursuit of subcultural insight. She wanted to experience the Sex Pistols at the ground zero of their greatest veracity. Fired up by this journey, she formed the short-lived punk band Aunt Sally. After disbanding it she called herself Phew and again found herself in the right place at the right time: she recorded her first LP with musicians from CAN and DAF in Conny Plank’s studio on an old farm in the Rhineland. After this came further collaborations with the likes of Ryuichi Sakamoto and the Einstürzende Neubauten. Phew’s many tentacled globalist approach has continued to this day in her ongoing mission to forge an authentic synthesis of vocals and experimental electronic music.
Both in interviews and in her distinctive singing style, her words are plain-spoken. The intentionally half-sung lyrics serve as a thread that connects all of her works. The persistency with which over many years she has pursued her devotion to a single idea while fostering curiosity for all other ideas makes younger generations appear alarmingly unmindful of sustainability. Prior to the reissue of her aforementioned debut LP „Our Likeness„, London-based label Mute released Phew’s latest solo album „A New Decade“ in 2021. This record gathers recordings made during the past pandemic in her flat in the Tokyo suburb of Kawasaki. „Personally, I can no longer see a future that goes beyond the present,“ she said about the paradigm shift hinted at in the title. So there should be no doubt that Phew’s Hamburg performance will be another enlightning permutation of space and time!
Live/ DJ DIE SOON
In 1997 Daniel Dumile aka MF DOOM entered the hip hop scene in a mask inspired by the Marvel evil genius Doctor Doom. Since then, following Dumile’s initiative, increasing numbers of protagonists in this genre have also donned camouflage. Why exactly Berlin’s German rap scene took such a fancy to this cultural stunt remains a puzzle. That the Japanese musician Daisuke Imamura, who happens to live there too, has something to do with hip hop cannot be denied. Using the sampler SP-404, a stock favourite of many traditional beats producers, he compiles rhythms on which increasing numbers of international rappers have laid their verses. But his sound design is more reminiscent of European industrial music from the early 1980s and when he obscures his face as DJ DIE SOON it feels more like being beamed into a psychedelic reinvention of Japanese Noh mask theatre rather than into some US American superhero comic. He also creates an artistic universe with his drawings, which he infuses with elements of Japanese culture. His live concerts, albums, exhibitions and publications thus merge to form an original and complex total work of art recurrently fired up with shock effects.
Exhibition/ Tanita Olbrich
At it’s beginning, video art was a very costly endeavour. Early works by American artist Dan Graham, such as „Time Delay Room“ and „Present Continuous Past(s),“ both from 1974, resembled high-tech simulations of a dystopian future. In the 1990s, digital multiplexing was developed, allowing for the simultaneous recording of multiple cameras, as well as time-lapse and motion tracking. This saved time and money and led to an increased use of video surveillance. The capture of public and private spaces led to extensive social discussions, which resulted in changes in laws, especially in European countries, at the beginning of the current millennium. More recently, CCTV technology has been improved and monetized through a shift towards the „Internet of Things.“ The distinguished Berlin filmmaker Tanita Olbrich belongs to a current generation of artists who deal with contemporary issues of surveillance and pop-cultural self-documentation. With the installation of the home security camera system Ring in Hamburg’s Pudel Club for one evening, she creates a depiction of a space in which the current problems of private surveillance technologies are reflected semi-publicly.
Before, between and after
PAPIRIPARIS DJ’s
Felix Kubin, Nika Son, Fleurop
Texts: Thomas Baldischwyler
Poster: Alex Solman
22 APR 23
live/
Stacks
D.I.P.
exhibit/
Tintin Patrone
Jil Lahr & Gesa Troch
Sarah Draht
Djs/
Speckman
Nika Son
Curated by Phuong-Dan
Kampnagel – Internationales Zentrum für schönere Künste
9 APR 23
18 Jahre Sissi & Die Chinesische Wäscherei
w/
Gush (featuring Steven Warwick (fka Heatsick) and Iván Brito (aka Vanya)),
Clemens Schittko (XS-Verlag, Moloko Print, Ritter Verlag),
Nika Son (Golden Pudel Club, Entr‘acte)
DJ Shlucht (Spam, Stenze Quo)
15 MAR 23
NEXT TIME
w/
live
Pouya Ehsaei is a British-Iranian musician, sound designer, producer and curator currently residing in London.
He is the leader of the band Ariwo and the figure behind the electronic and live music club night Parasang.
Pouya Ehsaei started his musical career in the late 90s, at the underground scene of his hometown Tehran. His music is heavily influenced by his Iranian heritage and his experiences with the traditional music of his country, as well as his passion for experimental and electronic music.
His practice involves experimenting with different compositional and sound synthesis techniques to create a sonic passage through hypnotic soundscapes, industrial beats, intricate sound miniatures, epic soundscapes, fractal polymeric rhythms and pulsating hard hitting sub frequencies.
https://zabtesote.bandcamp.com/album/rocrast
Next Time dj alltimers:
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18 FEB 23
11 FEB 23
2 FEB 23
NEXT TIME
w/
LENA WILLIKENS >> wird nachgeholt !
Born and raised in Germany, Willikens first honed her unique approach to playing records during a long residency at Düsseldorf’s beloved Salon des Amateurs. These days, however, she’s based in Amsterdam, where her transportative impulses have been plugged into a variety of outlets with a global reach. On the radio, she pilots the monthly Lightning Conductor program on NTS. On record, she recently curated the fifth installment of Dekmantel’s acclaimed Selectors compilation series, and she’s also been tapped to remix the likes of Lena Platonos, S U R V I V E, rRoxymore, Simian Mobile Disco and Ana Helder, amongst others. On stage, Willikens works with artist Sarah Szczesny on Phantom Kino Ballett, an immersive audio-visual performance art project that defies routine explanation.
aaaand Ratkat & Nika Son
at
21 JAN 23
Festival 2023
Nika Son & Helena Wittmann
Cae la Noche (2021)
performative Video-Sound Installation
Nika Son 6-channel-sound
Helena Wittmann 2-channel-video
Foto: Jann Wilke
18 JAN 23
daadgalerie Berlin
Performance / Talk / Screening
18.01.2023 / 19:00 – 21:00
Curated by Burak Çevik
Guests:
Helena Wittmann
Nika Son
Theresa George
Below the radar
8 DEC 22
NEXT TIME
at
Golden Pudel Club
w/
(L.I.E.S/Suction Records/Nation/…)
A vinyl and cassette collector since his teenage years, Beau Wanzer has forged a musical culture around more or less obscure industrial projects. Influenced by the European EBM of the 80s, he released his first record on L.I.E.S., followed by a number of techno releases with punk overtones, testifying to his love for live music and analogue machines. He also collaborated with Traxx on Mutant Beat Dance, with Maoupa Mazzochetti on De-Bons-en-Pierre and with two friends on Corporate Park.
+ Nina
11 OCT 22
Akustische Bänderdehnung w/ Nika Son
A radio show created by wonderful Toben Piel aka FM Aether aka Das Kinn, broadcasted on dublab Radio.
Now on their mixcloud archive website…next to many more great tape music flaneurs.
Toben invited me in august to wander around Hamburg while talking, climbing and listening to tapes from my wild cassette shelf.
very happy and honoured to being asked to contribute to this very special, entertaining and intimite way of creating a radio mix.
with great music on tape from my bag, with lovely homies: qp (aka Pose Dia), F#X, Cosmic Cars
and Human Heads, Das Ding, Pakasteet, Ubek, …Georgian chorals
Akustische Bänderdehnung explores the winding wonders and hissy oddities of the tape universe on a monthly basis.
An audible journey through mixes, features and interviews by Frankfurts own Toben Piel aka FM Aether.
13 OCT 22
NEXT TIME
NO BRA live
No Bra is an electronic dance and industrial solo act formed in the UK in 2003 and based in NYC since 2010.
No Bra’s confrontational and gender ambiguous performances deal with sexual fantasy, morality and performance of social rules among other things, undermining a level of comfort expected in consuming pop culture by women and marginalized groups in particular.
No Bra had an underground hit with the song “Munchausen”, has released 3 full length albums, several singles and compilations and is featured on tracks by Arca and Mykki Blanco. She has collaborated with the Raincoats, Wolfgang Tillmans, Slava Mogutin, Abdu Ali, Bruce LaBruce among others, and written and performed original songs for the Vivienne Westwood FW ’20 show in Paris. She has performed at the Tate Gallery, the Hayward Gallery, the Centre Pompidou, the ICA London, Artists’ Space NYC, MoMa, Performa NYC, Sonic Acts, numerous gig venues and clubs, as well as opening for acts like the Gossip, Patrick Wolf and Yves Tumor.
Djs/
2 OCT 22
AB HERBST
w/
Eyül Deniz, Cid Hohner, Nika Son, Baernd Anders, Gazza, Semi Nice, Elazer, DJ AOL
Schaltzentrale
10 SEPT 22
presents
Alexandra Phillips (NL), Mark Vernon (UK), Julia Reidy & Morten Joh (DE), Nika Son (DE), Das Ding (NL)
After curating multiple concerts in Roodkapje, Futura Resistenza is hosting a very special label night! Expect an evening full of groundbreaking performances and concerts.
Futura Resistenza is a label and platform from Brussels and Rotterdam, that operates somewhere on the border between performance, music and visual arts. Roodkapje invited the label to program a series of concerts in our venue. Throughout this year they’ve invited musicians and artists who already have a connection with the label, as well as people who they simply admire and wanted to see perform.
DJ – Lucija Gregov 20:00 – 02:00
LIVE Alexandra Phillips 20:30
LIVE Mark Vernon 21:00
LIVE Julia Reidy & Morten Joh 22:00
LIVE Nika Son 23:00
LIVE Das Ding 00:00
Roodkapje, Rotterdam
08 SEPT 22
MARK VERNON (Gagarin/Ultra Eczema/Entr’acte/Kye/….)
will perform a live soundtrack to an extended cut of the film ‚Tape Letters from the Waiting Room’ directed by Steven McInerney, also released as an LP on the Psyché Tropes label last year. An existential drama exploring the universal themes of death and rebirth ‚Tape Letters from the Waiting Room‘ is an experiment in film archaeology and magnetic memory as it navigates past life experiences. Shifting in succession from the mundane to the metaphysical, the film is composed of extant 16mm found footage from the past century and features an original soundtrack by MARK VERNON culled from his collection of domestic tape recordings, audio letters, found sounds and other lost voices.
Mark Vernon is a Glasgow based sound artist who works with found tapes and acousmatic presence. His oeuvre explores themes of magnetic memory, audio archaeology, voyeurism and nostalgia.
Trailer Film: https://www.psyche-tropes.com/
playing records before and after:
Felix Kubin & Nika Son
25 AUG 22
18 AUG 22
SOUNDCUTE presents:
YVES DE MEY – live
MARK VERNON – live
NIKA SON – live
QUAI ALLON // Entr’acte label – dj
at Café Central – Brussels
12 AUG 22
Exhibition CONRAD SCHNITZLER
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
Manchmal artet es in Musik aus
The aim of the project Conrad Schnitzler: “Sometimes it gets out of hand and turns into music”, which includes an exhibition and a festival program, is to reassess the extensive work of Conrad Schnitzler (*1937 in Düsseldorf, †2011 in Berlin).
In the exhibition, the audiovisual works of the sculptor, musician, composer, as well as video, performance, and conceptual artist will be brought together and made tangible. The festival program invites Schnitzler’s contemporaries and successors to intervene in spaces at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and to contextualize and reflect on his work through discussions, installations, performances, screenings, and concerts.
To this day, Schnitzler is revered around the world as a pioneer of electronic music, even though he did not seek to make music himself and strictly rejected the commercial sale of his works. A lively international network developed around him, which propagated and realized the free circulation, reproduction, and performance of his audio and visual works. Schnitzler’s artistic legacy will now be institutionally recognized for the first time together with the artistic community around him.
Participating artists: Conrad Schnitzler, Noemi Büchi, Cengiz Mengüç, Ken Montgomery, Ulrike Rosenbach, Wolfgang Seidel, Nika Son, Tolouse Low Trax, Keiko Yamamoto, and many others
The exhibition is curated by Stefan Schneider (artist, musician) and Linnea Semmerling (Inter Media Art Institute) with Gregor Jansen and Alicia Holthausen (both Kunsthalle Düsseldorf).
12th August
concerts by
Tolouse Low Trax
Nika Son
Noemi Büchi
7 AUG 22
WORLD PREMIERE
of
HUMAN FLOWERS OF FLESH by Helena Wittmann
at
LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL
starring ANGELIKI PAPOULIA, VLADIMIR VULEVIC, FERHAT MOUHALI, GUSTAVO DE MATTOS JAHN, MAURO SOARES, STEFFEN DANEK, INGO MARTENS, NINA VILLANOVA and DENIS LAVANT
script & direction & camera HELENA WITTMANN
music and sound design NIKA SON
assistant director LUISE DONSCHEN
Production and costume design ANNA OSTBY
Dramaturgical advice BIRGIT GLOMBITZA
Camera assistants TIM LIEBE & GUSTAVO DE MATTOS JAHN
Underwater images KEVIN SEMPE
Microscopic images VILIUS MACHIULSKIS
Sound NIKA BREITHAUPT
Color grading and mastering TIM LIEBE
Title design HANZER LICCINI
Casting Marseille and production management JULIE AGUTTES
Production FRANK SCHEUFFELE, KARSTEN KRAUSE & JULIA CÖLLEN (Fünferfilm, Germany)
Coproduction CHRISTOPHE BOUFFIL, FRED PREMEL, JULIE AGUTTES (Tita Productions, France)
28 JUL 22
NEXT TIME
djs: Ratkat & Nika Son
Inkasso (Ósare! / Kashual Plastik)
Turbulent synths ooze and oscillate, roaming like searchlight beacons across darkened shores. The experimental and idiosyncratic sound of duo Inkasso explores the feeling of being cast adrift in disorientating, mechanical worlds. In the studio, the pair jam with drills, string instruments, field recordings and everyday objects to create a hypnotic cacophony. Hear the penny drop on ‚Asso,’ chains rattle on ‘Träume aus Draht;’ the junglist murk of ‘Tag der Imker,’ and the sharp, crystalline beat of ‘Punkervirtel.’ Inkasso invites you to get lost in the uncanny spaces between dub, drone and techno; static introspection and the primal desire to dance.
ML (Kashual Plastik)
Everything makes me dream…
Everything makes me dream…
Id comes to life achromatic, briefly thoroughly illuminated by light. Instantly colors leak from above and slowly darkness covers the spreadsheet with all that many allegorical, symbolic, mystic shades. Noble, good, useful, mean, unnecessary, common, and beautiful. Mélancolies du voyage, floating in an ocean of mixed ratios.
Golden Pudel