The Meakusma Festival 2024 will take place from August 29th to September 1st. We are thrilled to now announce the festival’s full lineup!
Things will start gently on Thursday and come to an elegant close on Sunday. We have secured a lineup of some 140 artists, bands, and installations. So for four days, Eupen will once again breathe the Meakusma Festival, with various locations all over town and around. The festival has always greatly benefitted from the intimate vibe of the city. All venues are within walking distance of each other and there has always been a definite spirit of openness among our audience and participating artists. We could not be happier that, in the past, new collaborations between artists have been set up at the festival for example. This easy-going mode of communication and introduction has always been one of our biggest goals. Coming over to Eupen for the festival has always meant being completely absorbed by it.
Let’s quickly dig into some of the lineup. We are excited to have booked legendary artist, musician, composer, sound designer, and recordist Trevor Mathison, a founding member of the Black Audio Film Collective, as well as one of the people behind the idiosyncratic dub techno outfit Hallucinator. He is a true tape loop pioneer, producing astonishing sound works that draw upon dub, but that are equally reminiscent of early 80s industrial music. Singer and oud player Kamilya Jubran and trumpeter and electronic musician Werner Hasler will perform together, having collaborated since 2002. Their work brings together disparate cultural and artistic roots. DJ Josey Rebelle seamlessly traverses genres with fearless energy. Focusing on selection, passion, and authenticity, she transports the dancefloor to realms previously unheard of. Susu Laroche’s sound is dark and harrowing. She uses her voice and sets it off against her dabke rhythms influence and her extremely textural sound design. Honour produce a dense fog of pop and underground references that is as inescapable as it is enticing. Their music sweeps through tongue-in-cheek Wild West bravado and psychedelic, overdriven club rap, bifurcating into crumbly DIY noise and vaporous euphoric soul.
Lea Bertucci, together with Echo Collective, will be performing Bertucci’s work live, the first time they ever work together. Her music describes relationships between acoustic phenomena and biological resonance. Giulio Erasmus & The End of the Worm now play as a quintet, swirling into unintelligible mutterings, songs, and collapsing collages, all made with the idea of keeping things simple. It is post-punk p-funk, pre-post dub. It is a kind of proto-music that delves into post-punk's past and confronts it with new ideas of abstraction, space, and effectiveness. The legendary German band Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle make music about music, moving through post-punk, folk, the abstraction of post-rock and electronic music, etc. Myriam Van Imschoot and Hyoid will be performing Van Imschoot’s new polyphonies, a meditative, machinic, messianic, mimetic, and mesmerizing piece. Lamin Fofana, Labour, and Katatonic Silentio will take over one room of the main Alter Schlachthof venue on the first day of the festival. They will all play solo, but will also all perform together for the first time.
Multi-instrumentalist, producer, composer, and educator Dave De Rose will appear at the festival with the Plants Heal project (together with keyboardist, producer, and curator Dan Nicholls) and with Rave At Your Fictional Borders (with Marius Mathiszik and Jonathan Robert Scott), a band that infuses ambient, noise and kraut-rock with avant-garde sensibilities. Legendary dance and electronic music producer Portable will present the sonic exploration that is his African Ambient project. The Ensemble Nist-Nah, headed by drummer and percussionist Will Guthrie, will open the festival on Thursday, outside in the Loten Park if the weather allows, if not at the Alter Schlachthof. Composer of contemporary and electronic music Marcus Schmickler works at the interface of computer music and ensemble composition, performance, and science. Together with the Z-Ensemble, he will be performing his mesmerizing Glockenbuch piece.
Jazz and avant-garde jazz musicians Alexander Hawkins and Angelika Niescier are both technically skilled instrumentalists with sparkling temperaments, enormous drive, and a deep interest in experimentation. Electronic musician and sound artist Jessica Ekomane, together with experimental multidisciplinary artist Afrorack conjure up a kind of hybrid sound art that is improvised, pulsating, and focused on unpredictability. Composer and sound artist Kirk Barley produces textural, organic work under his own name and as Church Andrews, together with drummer Matt Davies, delves into semi-mechanical musical ecosystems that click and whirr with subtle, shifting focus. Merope’s unique atmospheric aesthetic weaves together elements of electronic, ambient, indie, and traditional music into a soundscape that is at once local and universal. Musician, producer, and composer Ben Babbitt makes experimental ambient music using synthesizers as well as live instruments. He will play a solo set as well as collaborate with writer, journalist, and editor Steph Kretowicz, going on a sonic trip through the atemporal influence of trauma and experience on a life, at a point where personal and cultural histories collide.
Collaborations come in the shape of various showcases by collectives and labels such as 5 Gate Temple, Hands In The Dark, Dispari, Futura Resistenza, ReiheM, and Common Time.
John T. Gast’s 5 Gate Temple showcase features Sons of Simeon, DO U WANT TO MOVE BACK TO LDN, and Gast himself, a head-first dive into sound, dissonance, and musical mystery. Hands In The Dark goes with live performances by Razen, the surreal and epic listening adventure Läuten der Seele, a DJ set by the Hands In The Dark collective, and a live appearance of Melos Kalpa - the four-piece ensemble based in London and comprised of Marta Salogni, David Morris, Jem Doulton, and Agathe Max. Salogni is one of the most in-demand engineers, producers, and mixers in current experimental pop and beyond. Melos Kalpa exists at the intersection between improvisation, minimalism, chance, and intention.
The Dispari showcase features a DJ set by Phuong-Dan and a half live performance, half installation situation by artists Tintin Patrone & Angela Anzi. Brooklyn duo Salenta + Topu, the Brussels-based Ugné & Maria, and Liew Niyomkarn participate in the showcase of the Futura Resistenza label. ReiheM from Cologne returns to the festival, presenting live performances by Rashad Becker and Áine O’Dwyer. Common Time, the website run by Matt McDermott and Justin Tripp, highlights new and exciting music. At the festival, they present live performances by Lutto Lento and Trevor Mathison.
Installations have always been an important part of the festival. This year there will be the Sähkö-related Museum of Sound, an initiative created by Tommi Grönlund and Rikke Lundgreen while preparing the exhibition Mika Vainio 50Hz. Based on Vainio’s habit of inviting friends to his home to jointly listen to music, the Museum of Sound will for the festival be set up in a beautiful private house in Nispert, close to Eupen, a mere 10-minute walk from the Galerie Vorn und Oben.
The Klangturm sound tower, a project originally developed in Hamburg, will be built up in the Saint Nikolaus church in Eupen for the duration of the festival. The bells of the church will be switched off and replaced by the music of the Klangturm installation, indicating time and space in a different way, all over town. The list of participating artists can be found on the festival website. Using 36 remixes of older Die Tödliche Doris pieces that suddenly become younger, produced and authorized by Frans Ambient in close collaboration with author, musician, artist and Die Tödliche Doris member Wolfgang Müller, this installation is like a labyrinthic tape loop, a reflection on the work of legendary performance art collective and band Die Tödliche Doris that since 1980 has continuously shifted shape. Acclaimed electronic musician Maxime Denuc has developed a new organ installation that will be premiered at the festival.
We cannot go into full detail on every artist that will perform at the festival. The festival website offers more detailed information!
FULL LINEUP
Trevor Mathison, Kamilya Jubran & Werner Hasler, Honour, Marcus Schmickler & Z-Ensemble, Melos Kalpa, Topu + Salenta, Josey Rebelle, Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle, Tom Boogizm, Alexander Hawkins & Angelika Niescier, Portable, Lea Bertucci w/ Echo Collective, Rashad Becker, Läuten der Seele, Jessica Ekomane & Afrorack, Ensemble Nist-Nah, upsammy, Merope, Rave At Your Fictional Border, John T Gast, Lutto Lento, Lord Tusk, Myriam Van Imschoot & Hyoid, Jules Reidy, Lamin Fofana, Church Andrews & Matt Davies, Carrier, Michael J Blood, Áine O’Dwyer, Nídia, les certitudes (Léo Dupleix, Juliette Adam, Judith Hamann), Maxime Denuc, Ciccio & 2mo, Accident du Travail, Alexander Hawkins, Giulio Erasmus & The end of the worm, Tutu Ta, Thomas Lehn, Susu Laroche, Plants Heal, Razen, Megan Clune, Gaia Tones, Sun Dog, Etienne Nillesen, The killing Popes, Sons of Simeon, Dijit, Parasite Jazz, Pliiant, Billy Roisz, Jérôme Noetinger, Nina Ryser, Kirk Barley, Elijah Minnelli, Ben Babbitt, Manuel Troller, Pub, Nosedrip, Sans Âge, Anais Tuerlinckx & Andrea Ermke, Amma Ateria, TinTin Patrone & Angela Anzi, Hiele & Ben Bertrand, Ojoo Gyal & Ossia, Zwerm & Bad van Marie & Walpurgis, Clarice Jensen, Maoupa Mazzocchetti, Devon Rexi, Radio Hito, DO U WANT TO MOVE BACK TO LDN, Lupini, Liew Niyomkarn, Poor Isa, Jeugdbrand, Accidental Meeting Dj’s, Arthur, Nono Gigsta, Dan Nicholls, Ugné & Maria, Otto Willberg, Nuno Loureiro, Lawrence, John Swing, Labour, Katatonic Silentio, TBZ, Jürgen Vonbank & Șerb, Alias Error, Tommi Grönlund, Angel Rocket, NikNak, Le Motel, A’Bear, Pruillip, ICNISP, Oï les Ox, Phuong-Dan, Marruska Ensemble, Margaux Gazur, Even Tuell & Midnightopera, Ard Bit, Steph Kretowicz & Ben Babbitt, Ravenna, Lukas de Clerck, Nils Vermeulen, Yes Indeed, Mankiyan, ML, Adrián de Alfonso, Braun Jaschkewitz, Inês Malheiro, Saeko Killy, Thea HD, DJ Peacock, Mich L., Gert-Jan Prins, Ugnė Uma, T.V.S.T., Lorenzo Fortino, Nina, Vittoria Totale, Hill Men, Angie Schaeffer, Hands In the Dark, Ant Hampton, Peenoise, Sensu, Nixie, Simon Halsberghe, 54Kolaktiv, Monita Wagma, Hugo Freegow, Amer.Lab, Julian Weber, Grazon & Caspro, Stīnny, Slite, Ced, Klangturm, Museum Of Sound, Die Tödliche Doris - Installation