Lost Girls (feat. Jenny Hval) (NO) / L'Rain (US) / Lafawndah (UK) / Omni Selassi (CH)

20:00 Omni Selassi
21:15 Lafawndah
22:30 L’Rain
23:45 Lost Girls (feat. Jenny Hval)
01:00 Maria Sternhagel Vollman (DJ Set)
02:30 Studio Mondial (DJ Set)
05:00 Curfew

Carried by invisible bodies

Artist and writer Jenny Hval and multi-instrumentalist Håvard Volden are Lost Girls – a collaboration that has been going on for more than ten years now and was captured this year on their first LP «Menneskekollektivet».
The music flickers somewhere between club-like beat sequences and improvised guitar textures; between spoken word and melodic vocals; between abstract and harmonic synthesizer loops; between pop and experimental electronic music. Voice and guitar appear on an equal footing – wandering, wondering, meandering. Sharing the space. Hval’s vocals are often more tools for an instrumental, performative expression than carriers of meaning.

«In the beginning, there is sound» is what we hear, in an elegant and, as it were, slightly dystopian style, even before the music begins on the title track. Sound as a disembodied existence, detached from meanings and forms of consciousness. As the piece expands, Hval then transforms into a more tangible Disco Diva.

Lost Girls’ sound universe perhaps reflects an ending party, the music already silenced; the only thing that remains is a collective inner monologue of forgetting. Of forgetting about the finiteness of the night; when the sun rises, people turn to stone, melt into water or are in the middle of a metamorphosis that means more than coming back down to earth.

Embodying change as a sonic energy

Brooklyn-born and based multi-instrumentalist Taja Cheek, aka L’Rain, wanders the neural pathways of our times with «Fatigue», her 2021 released album. Fatigue as both a subjective psychological state and a collective experience of times of ongoing violence and oppression of black people, as well as the related and beyond structural problems of our systems that fundamentally exclude those most in need of help.

Through a constant blending of genres, the musician creates an untouched space where elements of gospel, jazz or neo-soul meet an experimental, at times psychedelic sound aesthetic. «Fatigue» thus breaks with possible expectations attached to black music or to the music of black musicians and strives for a balance achieved through the blurring of binaries. Away from the either/or to the flexible both.

«What have you done to change?» a voice asks at the end of the first track on «Fatigue». It is both an invitation and a call to change – not just on an individual level but as a collective process. L’Rain’s desire to reflect and feel together drives the sonic energy of the album.

Going off-world completely

Lafawndah from London sheds her previous artistic identity on her current album «The Fifth Season» and paints a surrealistic, theatrical soundscape. Inspired by writer N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy as well as interpretations of Kae Tempest’s (You, at the End) and Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s (Don’t Despair) lyrics, Lafawndah dissolves as a subject in her music, seeming intangible and amorphous. And yet her presence is felt more strongly than ever in this sonic embodiment.

The compositions on «The Fifth Season» unfold through highly idiosyncratic song structures, ranging from fascinating to nerve-wracking. The formal as well as psychological tension of the album is omnipresent. It is characterised by Lafawndah’s voice, which fluidly ranges from a soft whisper to a solemn head-voice and fuses with orchestral sound carpets to form an unusual mixture of transcendental R&B, pop, chamber orchestra as well as ritualised club music.

The live performance of «The Fifth Season» takes the energy and surreal atmosphere to a surrealistic sound theatre beyond compare.

That crazy train, always moving

Biel-based Rea Dubach (Associated Artist 2020/2021) and her two musical companions, Lukas Rutzen and Mirko Schwab, have been moving in a highly innovative sound cosmos for years. The trio meanders somewhere between Kraut, noise, experimental jazz and psychedelic punk – sometimes enchanted, sometimes metal hard, often twisted, yet always mysterious and surprising. Finally, they ignite themselves, immerse themselves in spirit, the carpet is on fire and smoke fills all space, with the sky as a roof. Their live performances are a pulsating trip, driven by two drums, always peppered with playful sound elements and permeated by Rea’s mystical and beautiful voice.

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