Preview - the week ahead (28th Jan - 3rd Feb)

Sugarhigh got it so right on the weekend when they wrote: “So long, January. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Nothing personal, but your departure means the light at the end of the dark, dreary, windswept, frigid tunnel is just that much closer [...]” Here is our CTM-heavy preview.

Monday
Matmos at HAU1: Eveyone loves Matmos, right? These experimental music fiends just get the masses to follow them. There is talk of the presentation of new material tonight, too. Yum!
Tropa Macaca, White Vogue and Thomas Zunk at Madame Claude: Talking of experimental music. It’s another Experimental Monday at Madame Claude tonight. With many folks attending CTM events, you may even be able to fit into Madame’s concert den. Norman recommends this gig and he knows his stuff. Boy, does he! So if you want to talk the talk show up at Madame Claude’s tonight.

 

Tuesday
Myrninerest at HAU1: This is so hard to explain if you are not familiar with but it is basically poetry. Dark, gruesome poetry, melancholic at times. Though there is of course an important musical element to this, it blurrs beautifully the lines between art forms, with the records’ artwork being pieces of art, too. A perfect CTM act as such.

Wednesday
Pantha du Prince & The Bell Laboratory at HAU1: Interestingly, we have previewed this exact combination of artistic effort before, back in September 2011, when Pantha Du Prince was curating an art exhibition in Berlin. Now, the art-com-music genius and his friends are performing at beautiful HAU1 for CTM and that sounds like a match made in heaven.

Thursday
Instrumentarium II (Boris Hegenbarth and Felix Kubin) at HKW: “Instrumentarium is a performance series for musicians in separate rooms orchestrated by Berlin sound artist Boris Hegenbart in collaboration with various guest musicians”, says ctm. This time, Hegenbarth invited Hamburg based electronic musician Felix Kubin. Kubin has been around for like 20 years and by now he could easily be seen as one of Germany’s most well-known artists in several fields of electronic music, theater, performances and radio plays. He combines intelligent content with moments of dadaistic humour and his live shows usually turn out to be amazing parties. Don’t miss this!

Friday
Nicoffeine at Antje Ökesund: If you want to see something loud and noise rocky instead of all this artsy ctm stuff, Nicoffeine may be your thing. Read our last review and pay them a visit.
Sal Mineo at HAU1: Sal Mineo is a new project of Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart and Eugene S. Robertson, the singer for Oxbow. I have no idea how they sound like but I guess you could be expecting something experimental and vocal/words based. Judging from the two people involved, this just can’t be bad!

Saturday
Gatekeeper and Demdike Stare at HKW: Gatekeeper, a New York based duo, present their newest record Exo this evening. They play electronic music that doesn’t sound unlike stuff from Zombie Zombie or Geoff Barrow’s newest project Drokk, think of analog synth sounds and krautrock references. Their newest record however sound a tad more contemporary and ctm describes it as a “play on late 90s club and commercial music.” Demdike Stare sound a bit more ambient but still in the vein of electronic music.



Sunday
SunnO))) at Astra: The god of experimental drone is making an appearance in Berlin, after years of absence. This gets a few people's blood pumping and unless you have a ticket already, there is a good chance you will miss out on this.
The Ruby Suns at Kantine am Berghain: I am just going to make up a genre here for you: Silly Folk. It’s ok, you can credit me officially on this. Folk music with Mariachi influences and plenty of multivocal singing and clapping. Now I know I am not selling this but I am actually rather fond of these New Zealanders and it’s a nice break from CTM.