Moving between intensity and tenderness, folklore and distortion, Hugging create boundary-pushing heavy music that refuses to sit still. The four-piece blend experimental metal with unexpected textures, cultural references, and influences as diverse as language, food, and—of course—hugs. The result: a sound that is both fierce and deeply human.
Get ready for a different kind of embrace.
https://www.instagram.com/hu66in6/
photo credit: Oyèmi Hessou
Embryo is a unique international music collective from Munich that combines Kraut Rock Jazz, free improvisation, European and non-European rhythms and sounds like no other. Embryo has been around since 1969, spanning generations, genres and borders. They have played with Mal Waldron, Okay Temiz, Fela Kuti, Charlie Mariano and many others. Marja Burchard, daughter of founder Christian Burchard, took over the band she grew up with in 2015. Since then, Embryo has continued to thrive with her, always searching for new sounds, rhythms and ideas from those who think differently.
Marja Burchard: vibraphone, vocals, organ, santur; Johannes Schleiermacher: saxophone, synthesizer, flute; Maasl Maier: bass, flute; Jakob Thun: drums
www.embryo.de
www.facebook.de/embryo2000
photo credit: Paul Günter
Monita Wagma is a radio broadcaster & DJ. She hosts “Cup of Tea” monthly on 674.FM (Cologne), inviting guests to share their favourite records — and every other month she’s on air with “Maenad Transmission” live from Studio Néau (Eupen, Belgium). Her sets are shaped by interdisciplinary work and a love for music as a living archive: genres blur, contexts shift, and sound becomes a document of the present.
Friday evening she’ll open the dancefloor — dreamy records to ease into the night and the festival.
https://soundcloud.com/monitamusic
https://www.instagram.com/monitawagma/
photo credit: courtesy of the arist
KOU is the music project of Apolline Schöser and Thomas Coquelet,
since 2020, they're exploring song compositions :
- making concrete music into lullabies,
- playing fluffy guitars with the strings of a rope walker
- drowning jazz and non-jazz voices
- humming flutes with purring synths
- smoking piano stokes
- steeling giallo's cries to make them dance in almost groovy rhythms…
At a time of great deconstruction, one has the feeling of witnessing the birth of the music of a world after.
https://aguirrerecords.bandcamp.com/album/kou
https://koumusik.wordpress.com/
photo credit: courtesy of the artists
Founded in 2020, Copenhagen Clarinet Choir is a new music ensemble that takes an egalitarian approach in the way it assembles its players; interdependent parts find an overall shape as organically as a living entity. Much like a choir, the individual voices of the six homogenous instruments are synergized, creating a warm, pulsating body of sound. The result is a profound timbral symbiosis, sculpted by the nuances of the clarinet. .
Carolyn Goodwin, Maria Dybbroe, Henriette Groth, Anders Banke, Jonas Engel, Francesco Bigoni
https://copenhagenclarinetchoir.bandcamp.com/
photo credit: Malthe Ivarsson
Bunte Luft Trio is an improvisation group from Hamburg that focuses on the sonic interactions of Đàn Bầu, baritone saxophone and modular synthesizer. All three instruments have their roots in completely different genres. The musicians use this peculiarity as a springboard to create their characteristic sound. Tam Thi Pham, Jana De Troyer and Jan Wegmann bring their own artistic backgrounds to the table and move through different atmospheres, taking the audience on a journey through interplanetary deserts and microscopic forests.
Jana De Troyer: baritone saxophone;
Tam Thi Pham: Đàn Bầu;
Jan Wegmann: modular synthesiser
https://bunteluft.bandcamp.com/
photo credit: Anas Aboura
Physical Listening Club is a joint music and performance project by Frauke Aulbert and Hanna Eimermacher. In an experimental live installation, they combine beat-based electronic music, voice, loop station, the Zeraphone instrument developed by Eimermacher, as well as light and choreography to create a physically intense listening experience.
The focus is on the development of an experimental sound practice in which rhythm, repetition and physical presence are used as compositional tools. The performance explores listening as an active, dynamic process and deliberately shifts the boundaries of classical concert formats between new music, performance and club aesthetics.
The project will be developed in several phases in 2026, funded by the Musikfond Foundation, and will celebrate its premiere at the Avantgarde Festival.
Frauke Aulbert, Hanna Eimermacher: Vocals, Zeraphone und
Electronics
https://www.stimmkuenstlerin.de/
https://soundcloud.com/hannaeimermacher
photo credit: Bülent Akgün
The base of this unique setup is an over 100 years old pump organ. More than 25 microphones are placed within the instrument which pick up the different registers as well as some mechanical parts such as the air pump and its coil. These signals go into a conventional mixing desk which feeds several serial and parallel effect pedals.
Further mechanic modifications allow to use the right kneelever as a CV expression pedal to change assigned effect parameters in real time. All sound manipulations are created live within this setup - no further means needed. Being an electro-acoustic cyborg the instrument has a wide range of sounds from authentic harmonium over enhanced space organ sounds up to abstract sounddesign and pure noise. The instrument and its music intertwine these different aesthetics and sound qualities in mutual and organic ways creating a unique world of sound.
photo credit: Roy