// 30 January – 5 February 2012
// Various venues, Berlin
With an extensive program of concerts, discourses and an exhibition space,
CTM.12 – Festival for Adventurous Music and Related Arts is appropriating the festival theme
SPECTRAL to explore the current reemergence of all things ghostly and dark in experimental music, avant-pop, and art – and to speculate about its possible causes and inherent potentials.
The thirteenth edition of the Festival will be held from
30 January to 5 February 2012. As always, CTM runs parallel to and in cooperation with Berlin’s festival for art and digital culture,
transmediale, which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2012.
In addition to a comprehensive music program at
HAU, Berghain, Passionskirche, Gretchen, Kater Holzig, .HBC and
Horst Krzbrg, a discourse series developed in collaboration with the philosopher, psycho-historian and author
Andreas L. Hofbauer will address the festival’s theme by pursuing questions concerning art, theory, and music.
Ghosts Off the Shelf is an exhibit created by the curator, art critic, and architect
Thibaut de Ruyter at the
Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien, and explores the artistic use of the exponentially growing capacities of technical archives and their “inherent ghosts”. The exhibit opens on 27 January as part of
Vorspiel, a comprehensive partner program within which a number of independent Berlin art, music, and media spaces will present their activities.
transmediale and CTM will once again present exciting collaborative projects at the
Haus der Kulturen der Welt.
See the full
program listing.
SOME CTM.12 HIGHLIGHTS
30 years of Touch
Eleh (US) / Jana Winderen (NO) / Hildur Gudnadottir (IS) / Charles Matthews (UK) / Marcus Davidson (UK) / The Eternal Chord (US)
Celebrate 30 years of one of experimental music’s most forward-thinking imprint! The night ends with a group improvisation under the banner Organology.
A revisitation of the Zodiak Free Arts Lab
Works by
Conrad Schnitzler (DE),
Wolfgang Seidel (DE) and his Free Arts Lab project /
Qluster (Hans-Joachim Roedelius + Onnen Bock (DE) / Borngräber & Strüver (DE), Köhn (BE)
Nurturing open experimentation between music, art, and performance in the late 1960s, the Zodiak Free Arts Lab provided one of the crucial focal points for the musical awakening of artists and bands such as Kluster, Ash-Ra Temple, Tangerine Dream, Human Being, and more. The multi-day program will begin by highlighting several of the Zodiak’s key figures and includes Wolfgang Seidel performing Conrad Schnitzler’s “Cassette Concert”, as well as Schnitzler’s rarely presented automated performance on disklavier, the “Piano Works”.
Later on in the week, other contemporary artists with a similar experimental rigour will transform the HAU 2 venue into a special listening environment:
Grouper & Jefre Cantu Ledesma (US) present Circular Veil – EU premiere /
Catherine Christer Hennix and the Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage (US) / Pre-Cert Home Entertainment (UK) presents Applehead, Slant Azimuth, &
Anworth Kirk
Mouse on Mars album launch
Mouse on Mars (DE) /
Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop (DE) /
Sølyst (DE) /
DJ Elephant Power (BE)
Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma of Mouse On Mars have spent the past two decades creating some of the most inventive and beguiling electronic compositions to bridge the worlds of electronic and rock music. Reinvigorated after a long pause, the duo will premiere their long-anticipated 11th album,
Parastrophics, which will be released on Modeselektor’s
Monkeytown Records label in late February.
World premiere of Mohn
Wolfgang Voigt (aka GAS, Mike Inc.) &
Jörg Burger (aka. The Modernist) present their new A/V collaboration of dark, slow-motion techno that combines variants of ambient music, bass drum and a lot of plasticizer to embark on a quest for the sublime.
CTM @ Not Equal (Berghain)
Ben Frost with
Borgar Magnason (contra bass) and
Shahzad Ismaily (drums, synth) (IS/US) /
Roly Porter with videos by
MFO (UK/DE) – world premiere /
Ancient Methods (DE) /
G.H. (UK) – German premiere /
Opium Hum (DE)
Collaborating on the program for what is only the second night of Berghain’s new
Not Equal series, CTM concocts a program straddling the fine line between dedicated listening music, physical sound experiments, and dance.
Sendai (Peter van Hoesen + Yves de Mey) (BE) – world premiere A/V set
Sendai (BE) /
Kangding Ray (DE) /
Mark Fell (UK) /
Byetone (DE, DJ set)
The new collaboration between Belgian techno mainstays Peter van Hoesen and Yves de Mey, is slated to release their first album in February 2012 on van Hoesen's Time to Express label. See it first at CTM!
Homage to Éliane Radigue (FR)
With
Éliane Radigue (FR) /
Charles Curtis (US) /
Carol Robinson (US) /
Bruno Martinez (FR)
Active for over 40 years, Radigue is considered by many a pioneer in electronic music, using synthesizer and tape to create pieces of long duration and deep contemplation. The celebrated virtuosos Charles Curtis (cello), Carol Robinson (basset horn) and Bruno Martinez (basset horn) will be performing Radigue’s first instrumental work, “Naldjorlak”, written between 2005 and 2008, specifically for this trio. Flushing out this showcase are an artist talk with Éliane Radigue herself, as well as a very special presentation of her piece “PSI 847” (1972/73) from its original tape recording.
Tri Angle showcase
Balam Acab (US) – EU premiere /
Holy Other (UK) /
oOoOO (US) /
Kuedo (UK) /
Puzzle (INT)
Is it witch house, or drag, or chillwave, or something else? Discover the chilling, gothic sounds of a young US label that has been making headlines since it emerged in 2010.
Tim Hecker performs Organ Concert
For his performance Tim Hecker (CA) will use his recent concept album,
Ravedeath, 1972, as a starting point for explorations where he specially mics the church organ at the Passionskirche in order to overlay the instrument’s natural sounds with digital real-time processing.
