Riga’s Skaņu Mežs festival for adventurous music and related arts is having its lucky 13th edition on October 2, 9 and 10. After announcing such acts as Squarepusher, James Holden and Paal Nilssen-Love, the festival is now announcing its full three-day-long program of concerts and workshops.
The first concert evening of the festival will take place at the Palladium concert hall on October 2, and it will be largely devoted to rhythmic music and experiments within this field. Performances by Warp Records’ classic Squarepusher and Diagonal Records’ Powell, producer of dirty-sounding, abrasive and sometimes confusing techno, will be complimented with a string of acts from the newly formed SHAPE platform for innovative music and audiovisual art. These acts include: trance music deconstructionist Lorenzo Senni, Hungarian computer music composer Gabor Lazar, Latvian experimental techno project N1L, Portugal’s afro-house star DJ Nigga Fox and Pasajera Oscura – a collaborative project of Chra and Irradiation.
The festival will then continue on the next weekend – it will change the venue to music hall “Daile”, a former movie house, now transformed into a concert venue. Unlike the first evening of the festival, these last two will be stylistically quite diverse, ranging from contemporary composition and free improvisation to noise rock and avant-pop within one evening.
As part of the festival, a commissioned installation by Norwegian artist Jana Winderen will be exhibited at the National Library of Latvia.
Information: www.skanumezs.lv, tickets – www.ticketservice.lv
This edition of the festival also includes activities from the project „Experimental music lighthouses: Riga – Tromsø”, a collaboration with the Norwegian festival Insomnia. The project benefits from a 99 000 € grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants.
Skaņu Mežs is a member of the SHAPE (Sound, Heterogenous Art and Performance in Europe) platform for innovative music and audiovisual art.
Skaņu Mežs’2014 is supported by EU programme “Creative Europe”, Riga City Council, Latvian State Endowment for Arts (VKKF), Trust for Mutual Understanding, Austian Embassy in Riga, iRobot, Red Bull Music Academy, Kolonna hotel group and Valmiermuiža beer.
Media partners: TVNET, Delfi, Latvian National Radio, Rīgas Laiks, Mūzikas Saule, VETO Magazine, Ir, Bobe.me, Ore.lt, skaties.lv, Kultūras Diena, Studija and Boom.FM.
Full list of artists:
October 2.
Squarepusher
Powell
Lorenzo Senni
Gábor Lázár
DJ Nigga Fox
N1L
https://soundcloud.com/n_1_l/n1l-unreleased-on-lee-gambles-nts-radio-london-show-july-2014
Pasajera Oscura
October 9.
Frederic Rzewski
Peter Brötzmann, Jason Adasiewicz, John Edwards, Steve Noble
Rrose
Zs
Christoph Heemann
Ame Zek
LEMUR
Stine Janvin Motland
October 10.
James Holden (Live)
Susanna
John Butcher & Paal Nilssen-Love
Jakob Ullmann
Christian Wolfarth
Hild Sofie Tafjord
Voldemārs Johansons featuring Frode Gjerstad & Rolf-Erik Nystrøm
1/2h 1/2w
Jana Winderen
Full list of workshops and lectures
Four workshops and lectures by guests of the Skaņu Mežs festival will be organized at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music.
As part of the SHAPE project:
Free improvisation workshop by upright bass player John Edwards (October 9)
Lecture by composer Jakob Ullmann (October 9)
Lecture by pianist and composer Frederic Rzewski (October 8)
As part of “Experimental music lighthouses”:
Free improvisation workshop with the ensemble LEMUR (October 9)