Search: Black Country New Road

Relive Ndox Electrique live at Le Guess Who?, the first international performance of the genre-blurring musical ensemble that originated in Senegal, and whose music is inspired by an ancient ritual of the spirit-world originating from Senegal’s n’döep ceremonies.  About How does one put Ndox Electrique into mere...

Presented by Le Guess Who? & Springhaver This heart-warming road movie, directed by Philippe Godeau, follows the titular protagonist, the 13-year-old Senegalese Yao, in his quest to meet his hero...

At the tail-end of 2022, your new favorite supergroup was born. Inside Lisbon’s famed Lux  Frágil club, dance music label PRÍNCIPE-adjacent shooting stars DJ Nigga Fox, DJ Dan...

The First 5 Years Dive into our Five Years publication with pictures, reports and all the details about the first five editions of the festival.

Istanbul's psychedelic trio Lalalar has released their new song 'Mecnun'dan Beter Haldeyim'. The track was inspired by the mid-eastern tale Layla and Majnun, which is a dead-end love story that dates back to ancient times.  The song's title can be roughly translated as “I am in a situation way worse than Majnun” and...

London's Dry Cleaning's debut LP is filled to the brim with unheard-of snark, courtesy of vocalist Florence Shaw's quick-witted lyrics. Last year’s 'New Long Leg' follows their acclaimed 2019 EP...

Inspired by Afropessimist thought and the work of economist Jacques Attali, alternative hip-hop artist Quinton Barnes became interested in noise and its function within the context of Black music. He...

Johanna Constantine presents "Rise"&Kembra Pfahler and the Girls of Karen Black present "Fuck Island" Founded by New York-based artists Kembra Pfahler, Johanna Constantine and Anohni, Future Femi...

Having dismantled the idea of a drum's sound for over a decade, New York-based composer Eli Keszler released his ninth solo album ‘Stadium’ on 2 October via Shelter Press. The inspiration for the album came from his recent move from Brooklyn to Manhattan and reflects the feeling of disorientation in overwhelmingly overcrowded...

H. Hawkline's goofball pop has the special ability to make the mundane sound quirky. Last June, he released his new album 'I Romanticize', which has been nominated for this years Welsh Music Prize. No...

Earth Girl Helen Brown Center For Planetary Intelligence Band (or E.G.H.B.C.P.F.I.B) is an inclusive, expansive, non-discriminatory communicative platform with a primary objective of directing and energy and capital toward organizations and causes committed to longevity, peace, popular intelligence, responsib...

In partnership with Space21Hardi Kurda, a sound artist and curator of Kurdistan-Iraq’s first experimental festival, Space21, takes us on a listening journey to the city of Slemani and its cultural and art activities. Here, the view of the mountains and nature mix with the urban sonic environment. The sound of power generator noises...

Musical selections and a conversation with Edward GeorgeArtist and filmmaker Edward George explores how Caribbean consciousness—sonified through the music of dub—gives the housing estate o...

Black creative music often becomes a powerful act of resistance and activism, and that’s certainly true for Asher Gamedze’s music. Through rolling drums and poetic reflections, the virtuos...

COSMOS: Behind the Scenes in China We discuss LGW Embassy: China with Ivan Zhang two days before the Chinese New Year: a talk about BIE Music’s COSMOS collaboration and the diversity found in local music scenes across China; how going back to basics can also be a way forward; and how China is not the cloistered cultural island many...

Three veterans from the Dutch hardcore scene bring you an intense and melodic form of post-hardcorepunk in the vein of Wipers, Black Flag and Bad Brains. With two full-length albums under their belt,...

Violence, beauty and wisdom abound in this crackling portrait of four Black trans women in New York and Atlanta—on their raw reality of earning money through sex work, their place in the Black c...

In her home country of Zimbabwe, music icon Stella Chiweshe is endearingly called The Queen of Mbira, becoming the first female artist to gain widespread recognition for a strictly male-dominated disc...

Ahmed Fakroun is a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, raï singer (based on a form of Algerian folk music from the 20's) and pioneer in modern Arabic music. As a kid, Fakroun already developed a f...

Although Psychic Ills started as a bedroom recording project fifteen years ago, this New York-based band has been in constant evolution ever since. Never one to shy away from experiment, their music i...

The enigmatic seven-piece band Black Country, New Road have released their long anticipated debut album 'For the first time'. It was recorded with Andy Savours (My Bloody Valentine) and is released via Ninja Tune. In anticipation of the album release, The Quietus spoke to four of the members about what really...

In partnership with Coquetel MolotovRecife’s Coquetel Molotov teamed up with music producer Benke Ferraz (Boogarins) and launched a musical incubator for artists outside Pernambuco’s capit...

Once upon a time, W.I.T.C.H. ruled Zambia. In the seventies, the band responsible for pioneering ‘zamrock’ often needed police to control the crowds riled up by lead singer Jagari (whose n...

Lewsberg, hailed as "Rotterdam’s answer to The Velvet Underground" by NME, performed live on the opening night of Le Guess Who? 2022. We now share the track 'The Corner' from that performance (taken from their 2021 album 'In Your Hands') just as the band are about to go on an international tour which will bring them to Germany, USA,...

Deena Abdelwahed draws as much from clubbing as she does from the avant-garde scene. Since the release of her debut LP Khonnar, the DJ and producer has been showered with praise for the fine-drawn ways in which her work paints the diversity of Arabic music.  On 8 September, Abdelwahed will release her new album Jbal Rrsas, which she...

COSMOS x Touching Bass announce their 2024 Embassy in London, UK Touching Bass is a London-based musical movement founded by Errol and Alex Rita, comprised of a community-come-club night, record label, staple NTS Radio show, concert series and curatorial studio.  Since its inception, Touching Bass has steadily established itself as...

Rightfully celebrated for ‘Three Phase’, his 2020 LP that presented a powerful new take on the country’s Mahraganat/Shaabi sound, Cairo-based electronic booth magician 3Phaz has inch...

Rightfully celebrated for ‘Three Phase’, his 2020 LP that presented a powerful new take on the country’s Mahraganat/Shaabi sound, Cairo-based electronic booth magician 3Phaz has inch...

Latin American music traditions Gaita and Cumbia likely would not have thrived through time without the toil of Latin GRAMMY-winning Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto, who have continuously been pushing the...

When Cinna Peyghamy started exploring the relationship between the Persian goblet drum and modular synths, he quickly realized how much his new hybrid setup mirrored his identity. As the French-born s...

Presented by Le Guess Who? & Springhaver Part film, part baptism, in Black Mother director Khalik Allah brings us on a spiritual journey through Jamaica. Soaking up its bustling metropolises and...

Facts & Figures Browse through our Facts & Figures magazine, in which we offer you an insight into the impact and results of LGW ON/OFF, with data from both events, photos, and quotes from media.   Press Archive Our archive includes press previews, reports and interviews for ON/OFF. Have a look at all published articles...

Fiftieth anniversaries call for spectacular celebrations, and that is just what Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble are embarking on this year. To commemorate half a century of conti...

Studying percussions and clarinet since very young, at age of 10 Tomoki Sanders was gifted a saxophone by their father Pharoah. Since then, tenor sax became Tomoki’s primary instrument, making t...

‘Every Thought Flies (Time is the Teacher)’ is a short documentary coinciding with the archival release of Italian pianist, composer and performer Tiziano Popoli’s ‘Burn The Ni...

South London's Wu-Lu, spearheaded by musician/vocalist Miles Romans-Hopcraft, performed live at Le Guess Who? 2024 as part of Bo Ningen's curated program for the festival. Below, you can watch the group perform the tracks Ten & Blame from the album LOGGERHEAD, released via Warp Records. “Powered by artistic freedom and sens...

Ahead of Le Guess Who? 2021, Turkey's Bant Mag. hosted a Zoom chat between irreverent saxophonist and LGW21 curator Matana Roberts and LGW18 curator and musician/activist Moor Mother. During their conversation, the artists talk about new ways to reinvent and produce music during the pandemic, the music industry and Black Lives...

Damon Locks' Black Monument Ensemble performed live at Le Guess Who? 2021. Curated by Matana Roberts for the festival, it marked the group's European live premiere. Now can now relive the performance with this video of the ensemble performing 'The Body Is Electric' from their latest & acclaimed album 'NOW'.  AboutThe past and...

Youthful, energetic and ambitious, that’s what Moon and her band are all about. As soon as she hits the stage, you want to follow her on her road to adulthood. In a genre that is mostly dominate...

Under supervision of surrealist filmmaker and spiritual guru Alejandro Jodorowsky, King Khan and Game of Thrones-designer Michael Eaton created ‘The Black Power Tarot’. The cards are depic...

Still the crudest, strangest and loudest band from Atlanta. On their eighth LP, the cheekily titled 'Satan's Graffiti or God's Art?', the band unrolled an 18-song epic revelling in Wall Of Sound grand...

The past and the future wage a perpetual dialogue with one another and Damon Locks’ Black Monument Ensemble could be considered a testament to that very notion. What started as Damon Locks proce...

Chasing Reels presents; in collaboration with Leiden International Film Festival; dir. Ethan Hawke The film ‘Blaze’ is about the unsung songwriting legend Blaze Foley, a relatively obscur...

Centraal Museum presents Black Chords is an installation by the French ‘post-conceptual’ artist Saâdane Afif, which consists of thirteen electric guitars and the same number of ampl...

For their upcoming tour, Rotterdam-based band Lewsberg has put together a unique, extremely limited cassette tape 'Sweets', featuring two new indie pop gems. To accompany the catchy 'Sweets' song, Lewsberg also pieced together a sweet, captivating DIY video that's assured to lift you up.  While the track 'The Playground' offers list...

Gonjasufi has just released his new remix album 'Mandela Effect', and gathers an impressive list of collaborators for the album. The album was released on Warp and features a.o. Le Guess Who? artists...

In early 2015, free jazz collective Irreversible Entanglements first came together to perform at the Musicians Against Police Brutality event in New York. Drawn from the instrumentalists’ indivi...

Earlier this year, Manchester figurehead Jane Weaver released 'Modern Kosmology': a thrilling mix of dream pop, avant-folk and psychedelic music. Now, just six month later, she shares her new EP 'The...

Presented by Le Guess Who? & BAK - basis voor actuele kunst Le Guess Who? and Jeanne van Heeswijk connected the Chicago-based pianist, clarinetist and composer Angel Bat Dawid with visual artist,...

If you could paint the world black, rediscover it with a flashlight illuminating every single detail and turn each finding into an obsession while gliding across the murk, then you might stumble into...

Sons of Kemet’s latest record, ‘Black to the Future’, was released in May – mostly recorded after the murder of George Floyd. For The Guardian’s Kitty Empire, the album f...

Dreamcrusher began on Kansas-born, New York City-based Luwayne's Glass Myspace page in 2003. Nineteen years, forty releases (including this February's ‘Dreamcrusher Plays the Hits: (LIVE 2​-​2​-...

The Master Musicians of Jajouka, led by Bachir Attar, performed live at the opening night of Le Guess Who? 2022 as part of the Hidden Musics project following the release of their new album 'Dancing Under The Moon', released earlier in 2022 via Glitterbeat Records. You can listen to and relive the full performance below.  About B...

‘An immaculately frayed conception of dubwise dream-pop’, wrote Boomkat about ‘Untitled’, YL Hooi’s standout 2019 debut. Valya Ying-Li Hooi’s project, whose first L...

Made of Joe Andrews and Tom Halstead (of Raime and Blackest Ever Black), as well as percussionist visionary Valentina Magaletti (of Tomaga, Vanishing Twin, and Holy Tongue, also performing at this yea...

Chicago trio FACS makes pensive art rock under the guise of the thought that impermanence prevails. Via their music, which feels at once heavy and delicate, they continuously provide the listener with...

‘An immaculately frayed conception of dubwise dream-pop’, wrote Boomkat about ‘Untitled’, YL Hooi’s standout 2019 debut. Valya Ying-Li Hooi’s project, whose first L...

Watch our concert film of Kim Gordon performing live at Le Guess Who? 2024, curated by Crystallmess, following the release of her latest, acclaimed album The Collective via Matador Records.  "The album's daring beats and improvised guitar are marks of a lifelong radical still at the peak of her powers.” – The New Yorker...

Beyond just music, Mimosa, the new project by Mbé, Leyblack Beats and Luiz Felipe Lucas, is an in-depth socio-cultural manifesto in which the three artists analyze, with an archeological eye, t...

This Sierra Leone-born artist’s approach is threefold; Lamin Fofana is as much a DJ and music producer as he is a philosopher of sorts. His work’s socio-cultural depth cannot be understate...

Since 2022, New York vocalist Yaya Bey has graduated from promising R&B talent to a full-fledged supersonic star. This year’s ‘Ten Fold’ album picks up where her impactful debut,...

Singer-songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist keiyaA synthesizes her jazz training, R&B sensibilities, and hip-hop upbringing to create new soul sounds inundated with her powerful, sultry...

Aldous Harding offers us some more isnight into het new album 'Party' to be released in May via 4AD. Watch her new video for 'Imagining My Man' via the link below. Harding is curated by Perfume Geniu...

Mark Kozelek releases his new Sun kil Moon record: a double album called 'Common As Light And Love Are Red Valleys Of Blood'. Stream it in full below; "a Stream-of-Consciousness Epic," as Rolling Ston...

"Why make a list of the greatest albums made by women? To start a new conversation, and to rewrite history." NPR Music just published a list of '150 Greatest Albums Made By Women': a beautiful select...

"Now, on its fourth album, the band is moving toward an idiom that’s more flexible and contrasty yet just as gripping: Protomartyr’s own post-post-punk. Its expanded vocabulary includes re...

Diving headfirst into genres like shoegaze, post-rock, noise and black metal, Bliss Signal unleashes a claustrophobic blast of furious energy. The project marks the collaboration between two experimen...

Group Listening is a joint project by UK-musicians Stephen Black and Paul Jones. Black and Jones met at music college before their respective paths strayed. Reconnecting years later after various ende...

Three veterans from the Dutch hardcore scene bring you an intense and melodic form of post-hardcorepunk in the vein of the Wipers, Black Flag and Bad Brains.Drie veteranen van de Nederlandse hardcore-...

Jerusalem In My Heart, the project of Lebanon-born and Montréal-based artist Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, announces its new album. Entitled 'Daqa'iq Tudaiq', the record will appear on 5 Octo...

You can only mix so many flavors of Kool-Aid before its colors start to smear. Hereby lies the inspiration behind vocalist Pink Siifu and producer Ahwlee (pronounced “Ali”)’s group n...

From 10-13 November, Le Guess Who? returns to Utrecht for its 15th Anniversary Edition. We now proudly reveal the full 2022 line-up, with new additions joining the likes of Abdullah Ibrahim, Low, Lole Montoya, Nia Archives, as well as festival curators Animal Collective, clipping., and CURL. General program Joining Le Guess Who?&rsquo...

One of the founding members of Lankum, Ian Lynch has found another captivating way to channel Irish history and musical traditions, merging them with the powerful aesthetics of black metal, noise and...

Having fled from the fundamentalists in their home country of Sudan, the original members of psychedelic group The Scorpios established themselves in London during the 80s. Once there, they built a gr...

Singing in their native language of Portuguese, Boogarins’ music will let you reevaluate the turbulent life of today. On their latest EP ‘Lá Vem a Morte’, the Brazilian psych...

In the mid-1960s, Art Ensemble of Chicago sprung from the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Ever since, they have been celebrated as one of the most remarkable free jazz movements to arise from Chicago’s already rich jazz heritage. Moving far beyond jazz, avant-garde and performance art, the ensemble...

Labeled as one of the greatest songwriter of his time by New York Times, California-based artist Cass McCombs is a creator of sublime, hazy pop songs, taking you deep down into realms of experimental soul, twisted psychedelia, and mesmerizing rock. Just before his performance at Le Guess Who?, McCombs now announces his new album 'Tip...

Through a blend of tradition and modernity, Egyptian producer YUNIS is distilling and reinventing his country’s folklore – finding inspiration in Sufism, the Egyptian wedding and the conce...

blondewednesday's omnivorous ears are never turned off. She traded her home country Portugal for Rotterdam to revel in the open space between the club microcosm and experimental music. Part of Pantrop...

There is a thread binding London and Johannesburg, of which internationally-acclaimed ensemble The Brother Moves On is part. Founded by artist Nkululeko Mthembu and his brother Siyabonga Mthembu, the...

COSMOS: Behind the Scenes in Khartoum, Sudan We discuss LGW Embassy: Khartoum, Sudan with Hassan Kamil: a talk about portraying another image of the continent, the country, and the city; how music in Khartoum grew to be ‘a form of resistance’; and how it is home to a rich array of meaningful, beautiful, and unique sounds; dif...

Sarathy Korwar performed live at Le Guess Who? 2022 on the night preceding the release of his new album 'KALAK'. You can now relive the full performance below, which includes tracks from that album, as well as 'Coolie', performed live together with Alabaster dePlume.  AboutBorn in the US, Sarathy Korwar grew up in Ahmedabad and Ch...

Jaafar Touffar is a prominent Arabic Hip Hop artist from Lebanon. He has created a unique sound mixing Rap with Ataba (a traditional Arabic musical form) and Folkloric music that couldn't be studied i...

Le Guess Who? presents 'The Big Playback', a podcast about all things music. For the occasion of Le Guess Who’s 15th Edition, we pay tribute to DJ Fitz- the man, the legend, the only artist to have been on every single lineup.  In this final episode of the series (revisit the first part here), we follow Fitz to Berlin and beyo...

In partnership with Hassan Kamil & AndariyamagKnown for its strong rhythms, melancholy lyrics, and bittersweet taste, the Sudanese music scene is more active than ever. This Embassy features a sel...

In partnership with Hassan Kamil & AndariyamagKnown for its strong rhythms, melancholy lyrics, and bittersweet taste, the Sudanese music scene is more active than ever. This Embassy features a sel...

Buenaventura is located in Colombia's southern Pacific Coast. The city is not only located in one of the most impactful economic regions in the country, but also hosts one of Colombia’s most imp...

Since its founding in 1975, Venezuela’s System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras called “El Sistema”, has used music education as a vehicle for social change. It cultivates an...

Over the past few years, the alternative music scene in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, has been plummeting amid the country’s economic collapse – and the COVID-19 pandemic has just added...

*Update: Personal Trainer have released their debut album 'Big Love Blanket' in full, listen below: Big Love Blanket by Personal Trainer Just a week before Le Guess Who? 2022, Personal Trainer will release their debut album 'Big Love Blanket'. It's as euphoric, energetic and colorful as the band itself is, and to whet your appetite, the...

Born Yallah Gudencia Mbidde in Kenya and raised in Uganda, MC Yallah is a seasoned industry veteran, having first stepped onto the hip-hop scene in 1999. Her expressive and poetic rhymes, which came i...

New York City rapper MIKE releases new single ‘Red Jacket 6’, which he produced with DJ Blackpower, Tony Seltzer and RedLee. It is his first material since the release of last year's 'Beware Of The Monkey'. The new single arrives ahead of MIKE’s Young World festival. In July, the freely accessible festival returns t...

Following a mutually respectful relationship, initially held in Instagram DMs and reciprocal admiration for each other’s work, we should be thankful for the invitation sent by Kevin Richard Martin (The Bug) to Joseph Kamaru (KMRU) to collaborate on a new album. Today, the results of that collaboration are released in the form o...

Ana Frango Elétrico has been hailed as an indie wunderkind and "the most effervescent and innovative voice to surge up from Brazil’s new wave". Their 2019 album, Little Electric Chicken Heart, garnered plural accolades and even a Latin Grammy nomination; now, they releases their third and most confident album to date: Me Cham...

Many creatively inclined Indians are moving to Goa, united by a desire to find out if the reasons are personal or reflective of a broader shift in what it means to make things in this country. ...

Many creatively inclined Indians are moving to Goa, united by a desire to find out if the reasons are personal or reflective of a broader shift in what it means to make things in this country. ...

By blending melody and noise, London-based Mexican violinist, composer, and improviser Gibrana Cervantes has bewitched audiences in her home country and furthermore. Thanks to her metal background, Ce...

Born to Congolese artists in Paris, ‘Afropean’ (Europeans of African descent) hybrid artist Natisa Exocé Kasongo’s work focuses on Afro-Cosmicism, always. Walking in the foots...

South Korean musician and performance artist bela arrange the collision of worlds; traditional sonics withstanding the test of wild modern age Korea and grimy metal bars come together in 2024’s...

Nobody can tell the story of Kankawa Nagarra better than the artist, educator, and activist herself. Born on the traditional lands of the Gooniyandi and Walmatjarri peoples of north-western Australia,...

Le Guess Who? 2025 guest curator Tianzhuo Chen invites two influential figures of the Chinese music scene to perform and improvise together on stage. Groundbreaking guitarist Li Jianhong is a pioneer...

Can samba carry a message of redemption? With his celebratory albums Curyman and Curyman II, Rogê seeks to spread joy, “so that we don’t give in to sadness, to laziness, to a lack of...

His impressive body of work includes stints as "dub poet", political orator, recording artist and author/journalist. His 1978 reggae album ‘Dread Beat an' Blood’ is a statement akin to Gil...

Swiss-American musician Manuel Gagneux funnels the spells of black metal into howls of Tom Waits-esque juke joint blues. Suffice to say, results are nothing short of spectacular. Debut album ‘De...

In her enigmatic avant-pop excursions, Jenny Hval breaks free from rigid concepts of sex, mortality, biology and pop culture. Her concept album ‘Blood Bitch’ occupies a fractured but heroi...

Zeal & Ardor just released their debut album 'Devil is Fine'; stream it in full below. "‘Devil Is Fine’ offers a dazzling array of elements somehow working in cohesion, be it hallowed...

Last month, Liars announced their new album 'TFCF', to be released in August via Mute. After first single 'Cred Woes', the band now shares two new tracks from the album: 'Coins in My Caged Fist'...

After an eight-year album hiatus, Seattle-based musician Jesy Fortino (who also formed Mirrorring together with Grouper’s Liz Harris) returns with the electronic soundscape-based album 'Lau...

Centraal Museum presents Utrecht artist Robbie Cornelissen creates films, drawings and installations and was one of the main curators of the Centraal Museum exhibition De Line Up. Cornelissen is know...

Electronic explorer James Holden presented his new performance ‘James Holden and The Animal Spirits’ live at Le Guess Who? 2017, featuring two tracks from his new album; a record that enhances Holden’s past in trance music with his love for Moroccan Gnawa music. Audio recorded by Marc Broer at Le Guess Who? 2017 on Sa...

Music derived from Rastafarian sound system culture has known many incarnations over time, but Jah Shaka remains true to its spiritual roots and essence. He arrived as teenager from Jamaica in London...

The sprawling universe that is the great Acid Mothers Temple was formed in 1995 by Kawabata Makoto. This fabled Japanese collective always held a deep dedication and devotion to improvised music. From...

On Thursday, 8 November (the opening night of Le Guess Who? 2018), French experimental orchestra ONCEIM will perform twice in Utrecht’s iconic Dom church; a collaboration between Le Guess Who? a...

Tokyo-based group Kikagaku Moyo forges heavy-improv psychedelia, including elements of German Krautrock, classic Indian raga and acid folk. Kikagaku Moyo - Japanese for "geometric patterns" - finds a...

Joshua Inyang and Joshua Reid are not just from Manchester themselves; so is their music. Space Afrika's latest record on Dais Records, ‘Honest Labour’, is their defining statement to date...

Psychedelic/krautrock mystics and LGW19 curators Moon Duo have risen up as one of the most intoxicating live acts of this decade. Now, the group announce their new album 'Stars Are The Light', to be released by Sacred Bones on 27 September and produced by Sonic Boom.  The Oregon band’s trademark sound is as much acqu...

Music as Spectral Infrastructure Writer, researcher and musician Edward George’s radio show The Strangeness of Dub combines critical theory, social history, a cross-genre musical selection, and...

In Eavesdrop with Christine Kakaire, the Berlin-based writer, editor, teacher and speaker invites artists performing at this year’s Le Guess Who? for live interviews, discussing the inspirations...

Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, better known as Jerusalem In My Heart, has been nurturing the craft of contemporary Middle Eastern music for over a decade. In 2017, he was one of the guest curators for Le Guess...

Nia Archives, one of the most talked-about newcomers to the jungle scene, is busy crafting every introverted extrovert's dream soundtrack. After teaching herself how to produce at sixteen, the prodigi...

After a new line-up announcement with 46 artists added to the program of Le Guess Who? 2021, we have updated our official festival playlist. You can stream the playlist via Spotify, Deezer and Apple Music. You can also support the artist directly by buying their music on Bandcamp via Buy Music Club. The playlist features a.o. B...

Beatriz Ferreyra is an 84-year-old composer and sound artist from Argentina, currently living in Hameau de Hodeng, France. Recently dubbed a "giant of musique concrète" by Pitchfork, Ferreyra has now released her new album 'Canto+' via Room40, the follow-up to last year's 'Echos+'. The album collects five pieces...

London-based Mexican violinist, composer, and improviser Gibrana Cervantes performed live at Le Guess Who? 2024, as part of the program curated by Mabe Fratti. You can listen to the full performance below, featuring two unreleased tracks: ‘Blur of Memories’ and ‘Verdad vs. Error’, as well as ‘Moving Through...

Following the release of their track 'An Episode' last month, UK post-punk outfit Italia 90 now share new song 'Road To Hell' from their upcoming EP 'Italia 90 III', to be released on Friday, 15 November. 'Road To Hell' shines more light on the brutalist tendencies of the "EP III" package: galloping bass and manic guitar li...

Ever since they started working together in the mid-eighties, Czech artists Irena & Vojtěch Havlovi have traveled far and wide, crossing continents, cultures and mediums with styles of European classical music ranging from the Renaissance to contemporary. In the process, the duo made fans which include Sufjan Stevens, The National's...

South Carolina-based artist Khari is a multifaceted creator. Making music as Contour is only one of his many artistic exploits, among which he includes film scoring (Half-Day, One Magenta Afternoon),...

San Agustín is a south-central Caracas, Venezuela, district that began to form in the late 1800s. People from Margarita Island and the Venezuelan Andes, but especially from the Black areas of V...

Alejandra Cárdenas, or Ale Hop, and Laura Robles grew up houses apart in Lima, Peru, without ever meeting each other; now, the two musicians, currently based in Berlin, are presenting ‘Ag...

*Update: the full 'Group Theory: Black Music' album is out now: Ever since his debut album 'Project Elo' in 2014, Tumi Mogorosi has built a reputation of being one of the most captivating young creatives in the South African scene, collaborating with Shabaka & the Ancestors along the way.  This July, the Johannesburg-bas...

Following the release of her acclaimed album 'Front Row Seat To Earth', multi-instrumentalist and singer Natalie Mering aka Weyes Blood now reveals her new single, featuring two cover songs: Soft...

With her music, San Francisco composer, healer, and medium Pauline Anna Strom (best known under the pseudonym Trans-Millenia Consort) mapped an inner world of imagined pasts, possible futures, and alt...

Already at an early age, Lole Montoya decided that she wanted to dedicate her life to singing. But not only did she indeed become a singer, she also redefined the flamenco genre by bringing in new influences, genres and poetry. Her skill has been displayed across a long repertoire, which includes her work as part of the renowned duo Lole...

On ‘when the poems do what they do’, aja monet’s 2023 breakout album, the surrealist blues poet, like all the best of them, is unblinkingly honest, vulnerable, and open, but at the s...

Three years after her last Le Guess Who? showcase, Brooklyn-based, Pakistani singer and composer, Arooj Aftab returned to the festival in 2024 both as a curator and performer. "Aftab’s voice and her band’s musicianship are breathtaking on their own, but there’s an intimacy, a warmth, an un-self-seriousness that makes th...

Drones are a powerful force, capable of whisking our thinking mind far, far, away. Austin-based octet Water Damage yields the same power whenever they pick up their instruments. Veterans from other pr...

Tommy Hayes, or LustSickPuppy, is a curator of chaos. The Brooklyn artist’s music can be everything from punk to gabber; a gorgeous mesh of glitter and blood. Vogue describes their music as &lsq...

This Friday, Detroit's Protomartyr will release their new album 'Relatives in Descent'. Following first songs 'A Private Understanding' and 'My Children', the band now share third song, entitled 'Don'...

In the nineties, electronic music was flowering out of every crevice in Detroit. Theo Parrish has taken it upon himself to continue sowing the city’s seeds. The producer, DJ, and sound engineer...

Enigmatic would be one word to append to this mysterious British contemporary producer and singer-songwriter. As a Black, Caribbean-British musician, Florence Sinclair’s music is like a flower w...

On the same day as his Nick León b2b, LA-based abstract electronic music icon Kelman Duran is linking up with multi-faceted artist Franziska Aigner, AKA FRANKIE. There is a lot of crossover in...

As one-half of power duo Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson, Brian’s fingerprints are still all over music today - from Common to Kendrick Lamar to Tupac and more. Almost 50 years later, the Am...

I.L.L.N.O.L.E.D.G.E. is an acronym for: Intuitive, Limitless, Liberal-minded, New-fangled, Original, Luminous, Educative, Dedicated, Genuine, Elevators. The duo, consisting of brothers Steve Hartley a...

S*an D. Henry-Smith is a poet, photographer, performer and collaborative practitioner, engaging the legacy of Black diasporic experimentalisms.This performance is part of the program curated by Raziya...

Tayo Rapoport and Rohan Ayinde present their debut collaborative project, titled iwoyi: within the echo (2024). This innovative film investigates the radical potential of Black British music in e...

Music is a powerful tool for the oppressed, but few have flexed their artistry for change as vigorously as Divide and Dissolve. The Melbourne doom duo - Takiaya Reed (saxophone, guitar, live effects)...

Percussionist and composer Tumi Mogorosi is in the vanguard of the South African creative music scene’s burgeoning outernational dimension. He took the drummer’s chair in multiple boundary...

Le Guess Who? 2025 guest curator Ziúr brings together unique super-duo Attila Csihar & Iggor Cavalera. On drums is the co-founder of legendary Brazilian band Sepultura, whose groundbreaking...

Pianist, sound artist and multi-instrumentalist Dirar Kalash works across a wide range of musical and sonic practices, moving between composed and improvised forms of free jazz and avant-garde. His wo...

Le Guess Who? 2025 guest curator Asher Gamedze invites a Cape Town-based critical sound collective committed to dangerous thinking and sonic vandalism. DEAD SYMBOLS situates its practice at the inters...

In partnership with B-62Egyptian artists Khaled and YUNIS take us on a tour through the music scene of Cairo. Through meetings, conversations and live performances with different artists, we’ll get to know the most important features of the music scene and get a grasp where it is heading.This Embassy presents musicians such as VII,...

*Update: Horse Lords have released their new album 'Comradely Objects' in full - listen below: Something special happened this year while we were working on this year's program: our guest curators Animal Collective and clipping. both had Baltimore experimental rock quartet Horse Lords on their wishlist to perform at the festival. Needl...

Maltash is a Lebanese experimental musician currently based in Brussels, Belgium. He mostly works in the realm of deconstructed metal, industrial, as well as the tradition of tarab, and reshapes them...

There is a good reason why names such as John Zorn, Matana Roberts, and Fred Frith have rushed to play with Ava Mendoza, as the Brooklyn guitarist, vocalist, and composer has built a reputation as one...

Two years ago, Lost Girls, made up of daring Norwegian duo Jenny Hval and Håvard Volden turned heads with their sensual debut LP ‘Menneskekollektivet’. Now, they are returning with &...

You could describe Eucademix (Yuka Honda) as an electronics instrumentalist, composer, and producer, but mostly, she enjoys calling herself a "decomposer". The artist just released her new EP Farm Psychedelia II. the follow-up to an EP that was released earlier this year, in a further creative burst of "Sensory Music" - again, in her on w...

Kiwi musician Aldous Harding stops you dead in your tracks with her remarkable dark folk hymns. A magnetic stage presence, Harding taps into different moods and characters, often in the very same song...

Oft-sampled though never imitated, Italian composer Gigi Masin’s deft ambient collages first entered our consciousness in the 1970s. Masin finally earned recognition with his 1986 LP ‘Wind...

Following the release of her EP 'Lagata' last year, London producer Klein now shares 'Tommy', her first release for Hyperdub. Listen in full below and read Tiny Mix Tapes' review here.  "Klein d...

Lebanese legend Abdel Karim Shaar performed live at Le Guess Who? 2017 for his 2nd show outside his home country, curated by Jerusalem In My Heart. We've captured the full performance on video, which...

Few musicians are as versatile, risk-taking and compulsively explorative as Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe. This nomadic musician redefined math and noise rock with 90 Day Men and helped spearhead druidic dr...

In cooperation with Gaudeamus AEAEA is the new duo from composers and performers Patrick Higgins and Nicolas Jaar. Utilizing instrumental performance and live digital resampling, the aim of the group...

Mega Bog instills a wonderful and somewhat disorienting kind of confusion on her stunning latest LP ‘Dolphine’, conjuring a nautical journey of seventies folk, soft rock, new age and psych...

In cooperation with Gaudeamus Ivan Vukosavljević’s brand new work arms Ensemble Klang with an array of deconstructed electric guitars, the ensemble reborn as prepared/tabletop/eBow guitarists....

Enter the dark, mythical world of minimalist composer and acclaimed lute-player Jozef van Wissem. Accompanied by his baroque instrument, Van Wissem creates highly distinctive sonic soundscapes by blen...

Juan Juan taught his girlfriend to play the drums to his own songs, which draw on the music of Devendra Banhart and The Velvet Underground. His debut album ‘New Mexico’, recorded on a four...

After a blistering summer full of food and worries in the French Ardennes, singer-songwriter Ootes is ready to share his new repertoire. Originally English songs became Dutch, but the main characters...

East Side Radio is an online radio platform streaming from Lisbon’s East Side, Portugal. It’s designed to be a hub connecting widely recognized domestic and international talent. This COSM...

In the flamenco world, Frente Abierto is presenting new possibilities; by welcoming genres as diverse as metal and ambient into their realm, the music they play takes on a whole new form. Their sound...

Thrilling experimental pop artist Lido Pimienta spent the past few years studying European classical music to embark on a new ambitious journey. Shifting far from her previous electro pop sound, she r...

Julie Byrne's lucid and enchanting folk songs speak immensely to the imagination, providing visions of the stars of the high desert, the fatigue of change, the wild flowers of the California coast, as...

Pharoah Sanders isn't just one of the biggest jazz icons to ever set foot on a stage. In many ways, he transcends jazz music's conventions like few others. His employment of the tenor sax is unequaled...

Maybe it’s because of their location changes throughout the years (New York – Berlin – Los Angeles), but like the best method actors, Liars take up an entirely new set of tricks and...

Declared a ‘cult hero’ by The Guardian, Perfume Genius has invited Canadian songwriter and actress Mary Margaret O’Hara to Utrecht for a very rare live performance. The undisciplinar...

The ever-versatile Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe is a soul that keeps creating, with each undertaking achieving new depths, textures and vocabularies. Now, Lowe releases his new 12" called 'Levitation Praxi...

Fhloston Paradigm is one of the many groundbreaking excursions of renowned Philly producer, musician and DJ King Britt. His new album has just been released, entitled 'After...', and featuring collabo...

Brazilian singer-songwriter Rodrigo Amarante is most famous for writing and performing ‘Tuyo’, the theme song for the Netflix hit series ‘Narcos’. Just don't pin his work down...

Greg Fox started as drummer for the black metal band Liturgy, but ended up making free jazz with Milford Graves. In between, there were involvements in classical music and new age, collaborations with...

Six years after the release of his last album, avant-pop maestro John Maus finally returns. He now announces his new album 'Screen Memories', to be released 17 October via Ribbon. A first taste is giv...

Tokyo-based group Kikagaku Moyo forges heavy-improv psychedelia, including elements of German Krautrock, classic Indian raga and acid folk. Kikagaku Moyo - Japanese for "geometric patterns" - finds a...

Thurston Moore shares his new album 'Rock N Roll Consiousness'. His current group features an all-star cast: Debbie Googe (My Bloody Valentine) on bass, James Sedwards (This Is Not This Heat) as...

Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s 1970 album, reissued by Super-Sonic Jazz this year, is a lush folk-jazz album in the vein of peers such as Tim Buckley and Joni Mitchell. After a twenty year absence, th...

Using the drums as his main outlet, Greg Fox is a multi-instrumentalist, interdisciplinary artist, and teacher based in New York. Attaching sensors to his acoustic drum kit, Fox triggers sequenced syn...

Co-founder of celebrated poly pop duo Cibo Matto and collaborative partner of influential acts as Gorillaz and The Beastie Boys, Miho Hatori is a rare and inimitable talent from New York City. As prol...

Moving Furniture-founder Sietse van Erve aka Orphax is performing as part of our 12-Hour Drone during Le Guess Who? 2017 on Sunday, 12 November. Now, he shares his new album 'Somniātōrēs', the follow-...

Whether it’s a stage, a computer screen or a page from a book: Jenny Hval’s multi-disciplinary work aims to break beyond these confining zones to form a deeper connection with her audience...

The Bandcamp-bio for Petbrick deadpans that it’s just ‘Iggor Cavalera (Sepultura) and Wayne Adams making horrible noises that melt your face’. But press play and you’ll find th...

Lightning Bolt’s floor shows are the stuff of myth and legend, unleashing a hailstorm of noise that would leave every venue smoldering in dust and vapors for weeks. Two decades after their accla...

The multitalented British-Ghanaian Kojey Radical dropped a new, smooth-as-silk hip hop tune named ‘Water’. This soulful track also features Atlantic vocalist Mahalia and the grime-meets-ja...

Dive deep into the mystical trails and the long, weary road that made Vashti Bunyan's career even more mythical. After a hiatus lasting over thirty years, her musical career finally got back on t...

Loving is an experimental pop collaboration between musicians David Parry, Lucas Henderson and Jesse Henderson. Latest release ‘If l am only my thoughts’ marks a newfound appreciation for...

Deerhoof is one of those fantastic beasts the world has been lucky to find, an anomaly of a band that can twist any crunch of noise into saccharine hook-heavy pop euphoria. Their wide-eyed trial-and-e...

Collaboratorium The cartoon physics of Brooklyn experimental outfit Zs, the Lovecraftian doom tandem Ex Eye with Colin Stetson, the blast beat barrages of Liturgy; Greg Fox has an uncanny knack for t...

Rapper and producer Pink Siifu’s mercurial talent for intersecting styles and culture can be compared to the manifestation of a tropical storm: an unchecked force of nature that hoovers up every...

Brigid Dawson may have become known as a centerpiece for Thee Oh Sees, in which her whimsical harmonies gave the band’s psychedelic rock new meaning. Now, she takes her keyboard and vocals elsew...

London cellist, composer and producer Oliver Coates has released his new album 'Shelley's On Zenn-La' via RVNG Intl. The inspiration for the album was a legendary nightclub in the city of Stoke-on-Tre...

Mount Eerie has released his new live album '(after)', which was recorded in full at Le Guess Who? 2017. The performance was curated by Perfume Genius for the festival, and took place at the Jaco...

After an absence of 4 years, Neneh Cherry made a phenomenal comeback by with the single 'Kong' earlier this year. Following up with two more breathing tracks, she now releases her fifth solo album 'Broken Politics'. Produced by Four Tet, Neneh Cherry expands her ever-widening sonic palette on a political-charged record that...

Shoko Igarashi, born in Yamagata prefecture, Japan, took her talent for the saxophone and flute all over the world, from New York to Brussels. Shoko has dabbled in a variety of musical genres, includi...

Joey van der Kaaij and his neighbor Nuno Monteiro began experimenting recording together in a studio in a student building in de Bijlmer, Amsterdam. That collaboration has transformed into Ayman Maas...

The performative character of the work of painter Koen Delaere can be compared to experiencing a live music performance or to making music in which meaning evolves while listening and playing. A spont...

“With the able steer of festival curators Jenny Hval, Moon Duo, Fatoumata Diawara, and Iris Van Herpen, this year’s boundary-crossing festival Le Guess Who?? welcomed visitors from over 60 countries and proved that even in times of political divide, music and art can bring us together into a more hopeful future.” - The...

The Bug (Kevin Martin) and Burial (William Bevan) have once again teamed up. Their new two-track EP 'Dive/ Rain' was released under the moniker Flame 2. 'Dive/Rain' is The Bug and Burial's second joint release, following last year's 'Fog/Shrine' (Flame 1). You can listen to 'Dive/ Rain' below. Dive / Rain by Flame 2 "Flame 2 sees the ve...

Along with exploring the festival program, visitors of Le Guess Who? 2019 can also immerse themselves in various activities during the day throughout the city of Utrecht, including the ‘Untitled’ program.  Untitled made its debut as part of Le Guess Who? 2018. We're eager to expand the programming to include more daytime...

Animism is the idea often found in indigenous belief systems that everything possesses a spiritual essence. A pre-colonial tradition connected with Marvin’s Moluccan and Linh’s Vietnamese-...

Swiss self-described ‘sound maker’ Leoni Leoni is a quintessential lullaby sculptor. Between 2019 and 2021, she has released four tapes which have made her a leading figure in the Bern und...

Tampa rap duo They Hate Change performed at Le Guess Who? 2022 as part of the program curated by clipping., following the release of Finally, New; their debut album for Jagjaguwar. Relive the ecstatic performance below with our concert film, featuring two unreleased tracks produced by John Carroll Kirby and Zach Witness: AboutTampa&rsq...

Renowned rai singer Cheikha Rabia & Esraa Warda, a prolific dancer expert in traditional North African dance forms, performed live at Le Guess Who? 2022 as part of the Hidden Musics project. Relive the mesmerizing performance at TivoliVredenburg's Pandora via our concert film below: AboutCheikha Rabia and Esraa Warda both hail from...

As part of Slauson Malone 1's curation at Le Guess Who?, New York City rapper MIKE performed live at the festival with tracks from all across his discography and an emphasis on material from his 2022 album Beware of the Monkey and its follow-up, Burning Desire. Tune in below.  "A magnetic stage presence fused with one of the most...

Lewsberg, hailed as "Rotterdam’s answer to The Velvet Underground" by NME, performed live on the opening night of Le Guess Who? 2022. We now share the track 'The Corner' from that performance (taken from their 2021 album 'In Your Hands') just as the band are about to go on an international tour which will bring them to Germany, USA,...

For U? 2024, we are looking for new and eager (aspiring) curators to highlight their communities and creativity at the festival.

Pan African Music (PAM)'s contributor Nombuso Mathibela had the opportunity to interview Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble about their latest album, 'NOW', which features Erica Rene, Tramaine Parker, Richie Parks, Phillip Armstrong, Eric Tre’von, Monique Golding, and Angel Bat David (clarinet) and Ben LeMar Gay (cornet and me...

Gustaf are New York's 'hardest working…and most reliably fun bands' according to BrooklynVegan. Now the five-piece announce their new album 'Audio Drag For Ego Slobs', out October 1st via Royal Mountain Records. As a result of their magnetic live show, the band caught the attention of a.o. Beck (who had the band open...

In honor of 900 years of Utrecht, the moment the city was born, No Man’s Land and U? are organizing a one-off musical trip through time. Leonard Luka, GINGE (ft. .Multibeat) and STACH x TANO are...

A perennial figure in the New York abstract hip-hop scene, billy woods has been defined by his association with Cannibal Ox's Vordul Mega and as half of both Super Chron Flight Brothers and Armand Ham...

Rotterdam-based four-piece band Rats on Rafts release a new live track and video from 'Excerpts From Chapter 3 DELUXE'. An absorbing mix between choral elements, goosebump-inducing piano sounds and Rats on Rafts’ unique post-punk and modern lo-fi musical vocabulary, the single entitled ‘Second Born Child’ invites listene...

New York composer, sound designer, and producer Randall Dunn’s oeuvre is expansive enough to make it hard to pin down, but, still, all of his works are imbued with a specific density that distin...

* Update: Rival Consoles' new album 'Now Is' is out now; stream it in full below.  Throughout his critically acclaimed fifteen-year career, London-based producer Ryan Lee West aka Rival Consoles has continuously increased his drive to humanize sound. The mesmerizing and emotional sonic explorations that form the four new tracks lead...

In partnership with REProduceA hub of seasoned Indian creatives looking for a new way to be, to reconsider and reassert the India they grew up with and forged: this Embassy aims to present Goa as it e...

Mazaher are a small group of mostly women musicians and singers who play Zãr music: chanting songs and playing hypnotic polyrhythms traditionally used as a purification and exorcism ritual to help pacify and cleanse the human spirit. Zar practitioners have been stigmatized because of this exorcist tradition and the aim of...

In partnership with REProduceA hub of seasoned Indian creatives looking for a new way to be, to reconsider and reassert the India they grew up with and forged: this Embassy aims to present Goa as it e...

Following the release of their debut album 'For the first time' earlier this year, the enigmatic Black Country, New Road now display a new, more intimate side of the band with a stripped back and acoustic version of their single 'Track X', retitled into 'Track X (Guest)'. Listen below.  "This version is where the lyri...

Dutch electronic producer upsammy constantly shapeshifting sound gleefully travels outside of club conventions like a kid skipping class. During Le Guess Who? 2022, she will collaborate with multidisciplinary artist Sjoerd Martens. Meandering through digital and analog interactions, they form an introspective but expansive, ever-morphing...

In 2021, explosive New York City rap duo Armand Hammer (half ELUCID, half billy woods) released ‘Haram’, their collaboration with legendary producer The Alchemist. Two years later, the rec...

By fusing the overtone-drenched minimalism of the early sixties with the punk fury of the Ramones, New York composer, guitarist, trumpet player, and flutist Rhys Chatham has been shifting rock music's...

*Update: Maral has now released her album 'Ground Groove' in full; listen below: Ground Groove by Maral LA-based, Iranian-American DJ and producer, Maral, announces the release of her upcoming album ‘Ground Groove’ and shares one of the tracks entitled ‘Feedback Jam.’ Featuring captivating electric guitar and bas...

KORG Berlin is a transdisciplinary development lab designing new musical instruments. As a team, KORG Berlin operates on the belief that releasing a product always has a societal, economical, and envi...

KORG Berlin is a transdisciplinary development lab designing new musical instruments. As a team, KORG Berlin operates on the belief that releasing a product always has a societal, economical, and envi...

Since 2010, acclaimed composer and multi-instrumentalist Joshua Abrams has been gradually expanding the conceptual underpinnings and musical references of Natural Information Society. As New York Time...

After an unforgettable closing set at Le Guess Who? last year, Paris-based artist and producer/DJ Crystallmess returned to the festival both as a performer and as a curator, presenting her very own program. Crystallmess combines elements of film, music, performance and visual art in her radically interdisciplinary work. In doing so, she...

Le Guess Who? returns 6-9 November to Utrecht, The Netherlands, taking place across different venues in and around the city. We now reveal the guest curators and the initial line-up for the 2025 festival edition. More than ever, the program creates a space where the margins become the center, where the overlooked are elevated and where t...

Coming from Ramallah, Palestine, Al Nather has been making waves in the Arab hip-hop scene both as a producer, DJ and rapper. Raised in Jerusalem, songwriter and rapper Shabjdeed rose to fame in the M...

When Sydney’s Party Dozen (saxophonist Kirsty Tickle and percussionist Jonathan Boulet) settled in Marrickville to record a new album ‘Crime In Australia’, they found the suburb&rsqu...

After featuring on ‘COSMOS Embassy: China’, multifaceted Chinese-American artist Otay:onii is fully taking her practice (which spans music, performance, installation, and film composition)...

Transdisciplinary scholar, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and word-craftswoman, ganavya has been hailed as one of modern music’s ‘most compelling vocalists’ by the Wall Street Jour...

Catching Cultures Orchestra (CCO) is an Utrecht-based organization of committed musicians with diverse cultural backgrounds, in particular newcomers, who create high-quality intercultural musical offe...

‘A fundamental thread through the fabric of London's underground art scene’, wrote Fact Magazine about Cõvco as early as 2022. The British artist and DJ is one of the city's most or...

For more than four decades, Adrian Sherwood has been consistently breaking new ground, and has developed a cult-like following via his experiments in dub, reggae, punk, post-punk and bass music. As th...

The artist formerly known as D-Ribeiro has, over the years, learned to embrace new disciplines. Namely, the otherwise well-known DJ has been deepening his identity as a harpist, composer, and stage pe...

Nothing is more noble, more impactful, and more challenging than trying to make a difference in your immediate surroundings. While the practice of creating space and opportunities for those around you...

Since his teenage years growing up in Portugal, Rafael Toral has felt enticed by the potential of sound. Rising to prominence via his nineties guitar work, the experimental musician set the instrument...

Dianne Verdonk, Michelle Vossen and Roald van Dillewijn present and perform their new interactive installation bromwol. Literally meaning humming wool, they have mainly experimented with carded wool m...

With a collaborative approach that transcends each of its members’ experiences, languages, and backgrounds, GAISTER is an exciting new encounter between soprano vocalist Olivia Salvadori (Tutto...

Japanese-American musician and composer Patrick Shiroishi is best known for the new ways he bends notes out of the saxophone’s mouthpiece, both in a band setting (The Armed, Wild Up, and Upsilon...

“Do you know how to touch everything and be kind about it? To be strong. To keep all the life. A change is gonna come”. The closing words of Lonnie Holley’s latest album, Tonky, echo...

PRAM’s sound is driven by an innovative rhythm section, where the drums pulse with command, while the bass grooves with a deep, experimental edge, exploring everything from krautrock to dub. A d...

Transcendentally beautiful, The Space Lady’s music is once again gracing planet Le Guess Who?. Transmitting messages of peace and harmony, she began her odyssey on the streets of Boston in the l...

Balancing noise experimentation and pop vocal hooks, the music of Alpha Maid sounds like instinct brought to life: raw, urgent and a very necessary expression. As a guitarist, vocalist and producer sh...

As punk and grunge continue to resonate across generations, post-hardcore band Unwound are leaving a mark in every decade they’re touching. Formed in 1991 in the Pacific Northwest, they lit up t...

Driven by an appetite for boundless experimentation, producer and composer Ziúr has always been subverting expectations, corkscrewing through hardcore, metal and punk before veering towards ele...

Amirtha Kidambi’s music is grounded by a deep commitment to social practice. The composer and her ensemble Elder Ones confront and resist systems of oppression with compositions of sonic activis...

Best known for his famous four-part masterwork ‘The Disintegration Loops’, William Basinski has been a vital figurehead in the New York art scene for over three decades. Starting his music...

It’s obvious why Caila Thompson-Hannant chose the moniker Mozart's Sister. Like that ersatz sibling, the Montreal musician has a swift ear for bubbly, uplifting melodies. In hyperkinetic and gle...

The image post-hardcore group Pissed Jeans paint on their violent and earth-scorching new LP ‘Why Love Now’ isn't a pretty one. It's nevertheless a vivid reflection of post-Trump America t...

Electronic explorer James Holden is not only a musician, he’s also a producer, remixer, and the founder of the Border Community label, where he releases the music of equally genre bending electr...

Today, ambient composer Sarah Davachi unveils her new album All My Circles Run. Check it out below. "Like Brian Eno at his solo best, it's the sort of ambience that doesn't flood, that hovers precari...

Lost Horizons is a new collaborative dream-pop project formed by Simon Raymonde of Cocteau Twins and Richard Thomas of instrumental quartet Dif Juz. The duo's upcoming album 'Ojalá', released o...

'No Shape', Perfume Genius' fourth album might be his most impressive and ambitious yet. We're very proud to have Mike Hadreas share his inspirations, interests and befriended artists for a curat...

Paul Clipson is a San Francisco-based experimental filmmaker who often collaborates with sound artists and musicians. His Super 8 and 16mm films aim to bring subconscious visual abstractions to light....

Award-winning Dutch composer, bass clarinet player and saxophonist Joris Roelofs has performed with Han Bennink multiple times since forming an experimental duo together last year. Roelofs has practic...

After releasing two singles 'Horizon' and 'Imagining My Man' (featuring Perfume Genius), Aldous Harding's new album 'Party' is out today via 4AD. Stream it in full below.  Aldous Harding will pe...

Moon Duo’s torrent blotchy psychedelics inventively coalesce with meditative, minimalist pop. Indeed, this is inflammatory music that submerges and manifests within the subconscious like a livin...

Two years ago, Zimbabwe-born, UK-based musician/poet Farai delivered a straight-up banger in ‘The Sinner’ on the Vol. 1 compilation of African diaspora collective NON Worldwide. Consider t...

"Visible Cloaks’ hard-to-classify ambient music is a fascinating mix of organic and synthetic, past and future." - Pitchfork Today, Spencer Doran and Ryan Carlile release their new album a...

Brian Case’s debut solo album ‘Tense Nature’ consists of abstract ambient tracks depicting a dark environment, built around tape loops and repetitive grooves. The Disappears-frontman...

Dutch musician/composer Martijn Comes specializes in new media, sound design and electronic-acoustic compositions. Some of his harmonies sound as if they’re being exhumed from the dregs of harsh...

Indeed, the voice of Suuns has plenty more junk in his trunk. Ben Shemie’s fascination with classical music, radio art, new technologies and the free-form experimentalism of labels like Warp Rec...

The genre-bending Zeal & Ardor share the video for 'Blood In The River', taken from their debut album 'Devil is Fine'. The track was recorded live in the Off The Road Studios. Watch below.&nb...

Detroit's Protomartyr just announced their new album 'Relatives In Descent', to be released September 29th on Domino Records, and co-produced and recorded with Sonny DiPerri (Animal Collecti...

Willis Earl Beal has gone incognito as a new masked superhero persona: Nobody. By leveling everything all the way back to zero, Nobody can continue to captivate with the idiom of his previous guise: a...

Dälek’s signature corroded rap experimentalism bubbled up with masterpiece ‘Filthy Tongue Of Gods And Griots’, released on Mike Patton’s Ipecac label. These veteran agitat...

After the release of 'Paradise Valley' 7" last year, Grouper now shares contemplative new song 'Children'. The track was recorded around the time of the sessions for her latest album, 'Ruins'. "I pus...

12-Hour Drone artist Martijn Comes composition 'Eann' will be performed by Malgosia Fiebig on the Dom church carillon. He wrote it for his son, exploring themes like family, roots, saying go...

Rabit is the moniker of Houston producer, composer, DJ, and record label owner Eric Burton. He combines industrial, hip hop, noise, and sound collage to foster sonic spaces for the exploration of sexu...

The adventurous, innovative Dutch band The Ex have defied categorization ever since their origination in 1979. Born out of the punk explosion, when anything and everything was possible, the band have...

Bosnian accordion master Mario Batkovic shares the video for the first single of his newest, self titeld album. The video for 'Semper' displays the accordionist playing live in a dark, mysterious tunn...

One oath sworn by Hello Skinny – founded by Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner – is to create improv music that doesn’t sound improvisational. Inspired by New York’s late &lsquo...

Oliver Coates is an exceptional cellist, composer and producer from London. Guided by his atypical music tastes, Coates transcends the traditions of classical composition and finds a new definition fo...

Originally formed by Pixies’ Kim Deal and Throwing Muses’ Tanya Donelly, The Breeders are back in rumbling, restless style. Gaining worldwide recognition with their smashing, gummy hit sin...

This year, Black Lips released their 8th album 'Satan’s Graffiti or God’s Art?', and now the band share a brand new video for 'Crystal Night' from the album. The clip tells a tragic love s...

Before Hailu Mergia fled to America in 1981, his group Walias Band was a guiding light in Ethiopia’s thriving nightclub scene. In America, Mergia ended up driving cabs for almost 30 years, but h...

On September 22nd, METZ will release their third studio album 'Strange Peace'. Earlier on, the band already released new songs 'Cellophane' and 'Drained Lake Ahead'. Now, they share 'Mess of Wires fro...

Vera Sola is a New York-based vocalist, poet and multi-instrumentalist. In recent years, she has worked on numerous projects, including performing with folk-rock artist Elvis Perkins and writing sever...

France’s Aquaserge shape their own fantastic musical planet, sprouting out lush prog workouts, weirdo pop and meditative dance grooves. The collective now releases their fifth album 'Laisse &cce...

Moon Duo makes inflammatory music that submerges and manifests within the subconscious like a living rorschach drawing. The psychedelic duo now release their new album 'Occult Architecture Vol. 2...

As former choir-boy suppressing his queer feelings, New York producer and songwriter Josiah White unleashes his true nature in the boundary-breaking project Serpentwithfeet. Creating an elaborating, e...

In a new interview with The Quietus, UK producer Klein discusses being a woman and a producer, and 'Tommy'; her new EP for Hyperdub. Stream a track below, and read the interview here.  "Live sho...

The kind people at The Wire have made an essay from Jerusalem In My Heart's Radwan Ghazi Moumneh available online for free in their archives. In the Epiphany piece, Moumneh writes about the...

For Sevdaliza, rigid concepts of sex, gender, image and ethnicity are as fluid as her employment of musical boundaries. Following the release of het debut LP 'Ison', she now reveals her new track 'Mad...

Fronted by Kenia-born musician Ajay Saggar, King Champion Sounds are an impetuous, eight-headed band from The Netherlands and England. Fronted by the inimitable G.W. Sok (former singer of the iconic D...

When her 1983 album Through The Looking Glass was reissued last year by WRWTFWW/Palto Flats, Japanese composer Midori Takada received a new surge of recognition. Takada has remained very productive th...

(Artwork by Raimund Wong) Playing live following ‘The Inheritors’ was a complete new experience for James Holden; improvising with live drums, sax and synths opened a new world for Holden...

Raised in North Carolina as the daughter of two devout Jehovah’s Witnesses, Kelsey Lu moved to New York at the age of 18 to study cello. Her debut EP ‘Church’ - which gained acclaim...

As Olan Mill, UK sound artist Alex Smalley’s work holds a sublime measure between the realms of modern neo-classical composition and ambience, with tender and elegant clusters of sound. His late...

Hailing from Jogjakarta, Senyawa pushes traditional Indonesian music and experimental music far, far beyond their accustomed boundaries, resulting in a thrilling blend of their cultural heritage, avan...

Following the release of first two tracks 'Pass Through The Fire' and 'Each Moment Like the First', electronic explorer James Holden now shares the video for the title track of his new album 'The Anim...

With a career that dates back to the 80s, Soichi Terada has long been a bastion of soothing house music in Japan. Thanks in part to Hunee, who provided a showcase of Terada’s work via the Rush H...

So what do inventive New York-based sound wizard Sarah Hennies and avant-folk/electronic artist Jessica Sligter have in common? Well, they’re both reality-augmenters: Hennies can use any space t...

When performing in San Diego last June, Black Lips also visited Signature Sound to perform some tracks from their latest album 'Satan's Graffiti or God's Art?' in session for FTW New Music....

Denmark's Den Sorte Skole create magical, musical storytelling across time and space. For Le Guess Who? 2017, the duo have put together a special mixtape with artists performing at the festival. Liste...

Across decades, Neneh Cherry traversed and transcended every known faction of the music world; from bona fide pop stardom to the peripheries of punk rock, club music and jazz. Even more recently, Cher...

Based in both New York City and Berlin, Delia Gonzalez is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work spreads over a wide variety of disciplines, including composing, choreography, sculpting/painting and p...

Dutch multi-instrumentalist and psych pop traveler Jacco Gardner will be heading back to Le Guess Who? this year, where he premieres the ‘Somnium’ experience. This will also be the live de...

Formed in 1997, Endless Boogie is an American rock band who are living up to their own band name. They’re well known for their seemingly infinite, minimalist jams, onstage as well as on record....

Le Guess Who? & de Volkskrant bring you video portraits of artists performing at Le Guess Who? 2017. Jerusalem In My Heart is the main project of Lebanon-born, Montreal-based artist and producer...

He reimagines classical composers like Bach with modern-day instrumentation. He interrogates the role of individuality in the digital world. He tackles the cataclysms of climate change. Indeed, music...

Psychedelic/krautrock mystics Moon Duo have risen up, understatedly, as one of the most intoxicating live acts of this decade. The Oregon band’s trademark sound is as much acquainted with minima...

Conrad Tao first touched a piano as a one-year-old toddler, and by the age of eight, he already performed Mozart’s Concerto No. 12. So, becoming one of the most exciting new faces in classical m...

Embracing music from both bygone and current eras, Miranda Cuckson is regarded as one of the most acclaimed performers of classical and modern music. The New York Times called Cuckson “a prodigi...

Indeed, as adroit players of the harp and the violin respectively, Marilu Donovan and Adam Markiewicz’s joint project LEYA inspired some emphatically gorgeous music. With the help of fellow expe...

Bulgarian women's choir Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares performed music from their new album 'BooCheeMish' live at Le Guess Who? 2017, in Utrecht's iconic Dom church (dating back to the 13th centu...

French sound sculptor Félicia Atkinson once curiously speculated that “music always existed, even before humans appeared." She might be onto something: under her spell, a seemingly random...

Vilde Tuv has been dubbed as Norway’s finest one-woman orchestra. With just voice, bass drum and guitar at her disposal, Tuv’s songs can swell from raw minimalism to celestial beauty on th...

During Le Guess Who? 2017 in Utrecht, The Netherlands, Canadian singer-songwriter Mary Margaret O’Hara gave a very rare live appearance, curated by Perfume Genius for the festival. We are extremely proud to share the video and audio recordings of the performance, with the video premiered by The Wire. Declared a ‘cult hero&r...

In the late 80’s, Doug Hream Blunt moonlighted music with a job at a care home in San Francisco. As a relative late bloomer at age 35, he started writing songs after attending a How To Start A B...

Drone-based music often wields the power to blur that stark hierarchy between audience and stage, to level everyone in the room as both participant and listener. Korean duo TENGGER are no exception to...

For a band whose name translates to “Trees, Grass and Stone”, obviously, these lionized Swedish innovators have upheld their utopian ideals both in ethos and sound since the early 70&rsquo...

Mélissa Laveaux’s most recent album ‘Radyo Siwèl’ reclaims the Ottawa-born, Paris-based songwriter’s Haitian roots with a collection of native folk spirituals. Th...

Oiseaux Tempête’s cross-cultural, multi-genre improv rock has a tendency to unfold in places of turmoil, recording records in Greece, Turkey and Lebanon in the past. The core duo of Fr&eac...

Minyo Crusaders breathe new life into traditional Japanese folk songs (‘minyo’) by merging them with Latin, African and Caribbean rhythms and flourishes of exotica. By doing so, the 10-pie...

Equally adept at noisy, feedback-laden jams as spaced-out, repetitive voyages, Mythic Sunship's self-styled "anaconda rock" has been described as one of the most riveting movements of the European psy...

Whether it’s the early, more electronic-driven beginnings or excavating field recordings at an abandoned settlement in the Arctic Circle, these Danish pop adventurers express boundless enthusias...

In March 2018, Shabaka Hutchings and his comrades of Sons of Kemet released their new LP ‘Your Queen Is A Reptile’ on the prestigious Impulse! label, known for jazz greats like John Coltra...

Hosted by FACT Belgrade-based DJ Vladimir Ivkovic sees his chosen profession as a deeper philosophy than just filling up dancefloors. For him, DJing is a way to enter or create new places, to trigger...

Sarah Louise Henson operates from the roots of Appalachian folk music, but is likewise influenced by spiritual jazz, contemporary classical music and even new age. Her music has never sounded as penet...

Collaboratorium Harpist Mary Lattimore and guitarist William Tyler may have honed radically different string-instruments, their respective cunning for vivid storytelling with instrumental music is re...

Pop music canon has always compelled the listener to unravel the mystery behind the song. But the music of Aldous Harding inspires something arguably more powerful: an individual whose voice can seaml...

Next month, on July 27th, genre-bending vocalist and producer GAIKA will release his debut album 'BASIC VOLUME' via Warp Records. Today, he offers a new taste of the LP with the masterful video for&nb...

The duo Ko Shin Moon are entertaining in a similar way as back when you changed the instruments of sample tracks on a keyboard, just out of sheer curiosity how it would sound. Musicians Axel Moon and...

Le Mini Who? is a spin-off festival of Le Guess Who?. It turns venues, cafes, art spaces and even a fire station of the fast-developing and creative area Cartesius into improvised venues for (mainly)...

A classical singer. A multi-instrumentalist. A transgender artist. An experimental pioneer of electronic music. A children’s show composer and actor. A Buddhist practitioner. A psychotherapy co-...

Japanese for "geometric patterns", Kikagaku Moyo serves heavy-improv psychedelia with elements of German Krautrock, classic Indian raga and acid folk. The band have just announced the follow-up to 201...

Every week, we’ll bring you a must-hear track from the Le Guess Who? 2018 line-up. This week, we pick Ancient Shapes, a new project fronted by songwriter Daniel Romano. Always having been a...

Oren Ambarchi’s love for obscure and unexplored soundscapes has led him to join forces with fellow Le Guess Who? alumni, such as master experimenter Keiji Haino. This year, the man once named &l...

Ever since Phil Elverum began releasing records as the Microphones and Mount Eerie, he has been continuously moving the goalpost of musical storytelling to new and exciting horizons. The Microphones&r...

In our opinion, by the time November rolls around, Catalan duo Tarta Relena should head a-many top-of-year lists thanks to ‘Pack Pro Nobis’. The release, an expanded edition of prior works...

New York-based Ana Roxanne became the talk of the town in ambient music circles thanks to her second record, ‘Because of a Flower’ (2020) - and deservedly so. Her most recent contemplative...

Soul maverick Swamp Dogg has released his new album ‘Love, Loss and Auto-Tune’ via Joyful Noise Recordings. Although Jerry Williams Jr. said goodbye to the life of a conventional...

Authentically Plastic’s world is made out of contradictions - beginning, of course, with the music. Picking up inspiration from northern Ugandan rhythms, afro-futurism, techno and vogue, there i...

At only 24 years old, Pa Salieu is already being noticed by cultural gatekeepers like Dazed, i-D, GRM, The Fader, Complex, and many more for his show-stopping, dynamic singles, which blend his Gambian...

Every week, we bring you a must-hear track from the Le Guess Who? 2018 line-up. This week, we dive into the psychedelic, fleeting world of the Brazilian psych rockers Boogarins.  Exploring their...

Seattle-based singer-songwriter Austin Crane (aka Valley Maker) creates mystical folk songs with one of the most remarkable voices in contemporary pop music. His debut album 'When I Was A Ch...

For musician, composer, and new media artist Antye Greie (aka AGF), limiting sound to music is too meek. The self-described sonic sculptress frequently utilizes her recordings to capture everything fr...

Daniel Romano has always been a free and restless spirit, as well as a gifted and masterful musician. His new brainchild is Ancient Shapes: a fast and rebellious punk poetry outfit. Now, the...

Every week, we bring you a must-hear track from the Le Guess Who? 2018 line-up. This week, we highlight a track of acclaimed improvisational maverick and storyteller of the highest order: Lonnie Holle...

John Surman’s career recently entered its sixth decade, an impressive feat of which this composer, one of the most prolific to emerge from the British Isles in recent memory, can be proud of. Ma...

On her new album ‘Acquainted with Night’, Lael Neale is looking to untangle the paradox that is the difficulty of thinking, speaking and singing simply. The Virginia-raised, LA-based artis...

Leading up to their forthcoming album 'For A Lark', set to be released on the exact same day as their performance at Le Guess Who?, King Champion Sounds has shared a new video for 'Memory Is Imagined'. Premiered via Louder Than War, this track is a deeply psychedelic and transformative song featuring heavy guitar action courtesy...

Thursday 8 November, on the opening night of this year’s festival, we present two performances by ONCEIM in the Utrecht Dom Church, in collaboration with contemporary music organization Gaudeamus. ONCEIM, short for ‘Orchestre de Nouvelles Créations, Expérimentations et Improvisations Musicales’, is a French...

Pianist and producer Jamael Dean and singer Sharada Shashidhar were already jazz prodigies in their own right, even before getting together to make more wondrous music. Dean, the grandson of legendary...

Through sampling and re-sampling of pre-recorded material and live performed pieces, Jos Smolders (modular synthesizer) and Guido Nijs (saxophone and other wind instruments) are trying to find new way...

presented by Jongerentheater Link Discrimination, prejudice, exclusion, racism; these subjects are all up for discussion at Open Podium West. Hear and meet people of all ages from the neighbourhood,...

DUTCH CULT/CAMP TV, THINGS THAT DRIVE YOU MAD, AND NOISY GRINDPUNK!!!!!! ZALM IS A NEW EINDHOVEN-BASED ONE-MAN BAND THAT BRINGS UNPREDICTABLE SCREAMS AND DEEP, DARK GRUNTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ZALM IS FOR...

New Age & Folk Jazz pioneer Beverly Glenn-Copeland gave a rare performance on the closing day of Le Guess Who? 2018 together with five-piece ensemble Indigo Rising. The performance was curated by both Devendra Banhart and Moor Mother. Now, Beverly Glenn-Copeland and Transgressive Records have officially released the full recording of...

Ambient drones, cowboy psychedelia and fuzz folk - that's how singer-songwriter Bart de Kroon AKA Homemade Empire from Utrecht describes the sounds with which he takes us back to the future. With his...

De Nijverheid is a cultural freeport full of artists from all kinds of disciplines. Over fifty artists call this their second home, making De Nijverheid an artistic hub that sparks new creativity, une...

Rotterdam’s new livewire post-punk act Tramhaus have quickly carved out their own space within the iconic Dutch port city. On stage Tramhaus create shell-shocking havoc, with fragments of unfort...

Insert Blank Records is very proud to present to you their very first real-life showcase event. The new record label worked hard to build a diverse and joyful organization that represents the exciteme...

London band The Chisel’s new EP, ‘Come See Me / Not The Only One’ embodies a variety of British punk traditions, brought on by each member’s distinct origin story; Blackpool, C...

Uncloud 2021 takes the form of a pop-up museum for contemporary and media art. The exhibition, titled ‘Transliminal’, is about the temporary estrangement that takes place during the interm...

We're thrilled to reveal the guest curators for Le Guess Who? 2019. During the upcoming edition of the festival, we'll celebrate curated programs by the pioneering voice of Mali, Fatoumata Diawara; award-winning Dutch fashion radical Iris van Herpen & sound artist Salvador Breed; Norwegian multi-disciplinary artist Jenny Hval; sh...

In one corner, the shamanistic Saul Williams, actor, screenwriter and renowned harbinger of noise poetry and hip hop futurism. In the other corner, cleric of eclecticism King Britt, accomplished Philly-based musician, DJ, author and producer. On the explicit invitation of Moor Mother, who was a guest curator at Le Guess Who? 2018, these...

Location: Neude What happens when you embrace noise? FROM NOISE is an audio-visual sculpture consisting of countless noise frequencies. The noise is used as a building block in an abstract landscape...

Whether it’s the early, more electronic-driven beginnings or excavating field recordings at an abandoned settlement in the Arctic Circle, Danish pop adventurers Efterklang express boundless enthusiasm with each radical new undertaking. The band performed on the opening night of Le Guess Who? 2019, following the release of their new...

LGW ON Program LGW ON introduces a freely accessible online TV channel with films and documentaries selected by past performers, Reports from Other Continents, previously unseen LGW recordings, and more.  FULL PROGRAM LGW ON

Japanese musician and sound artist Haco has released a new collaborative ambient piece with Japanese composer and musician Takako Minekawa, former Ponytail guitarist Dustin Wong and the Czech experimental artist Tarnovski. The track, entitled 'Kannazuki', is a live recording of the collaborative, one-off improvisational show of...

Theater Kikker x U? presents The EarIn the 30-minute one-on-one performance Sensory Sensation Series No.1 – The Ear, the ear of the participant is central. The participant, the ear and the...

The First 5 Years Dive into our Five Years publication with pictures, reports and all the details about the first five editions of the festival.

Dublin's Girl Band has released the new song 'Going Norway' from the upcoming album 'The Talkies', which will be released on 27 September via Rough Trade. Going Norway' follows the previously released 'Shoulderblades' and comes with a both disturbing and witty video that was directed by Bob Gallagher; watch below. Girl Band's Dara Kiely...

The duo of Petbrick, comprising Iggor Cavalera (Sepultura) and Wayne Adams are known for making horrible noises that melt your face. The minute you press play, you hear the new audial destination of electronic experimentation, hardcore attitude, dystopian dread and in-the-red dementia.  The group now reveal the intens...

Cate Le Bon performed live at Le Guess Who? 2019, following the release of her latest album 'Reward'. You can now relive the performance with a video of Cate Le Bon performing 'Home To You' from her latest album, as well as the songs 'Love Is Not Love' and 'Wonderful' from 2016's Crab Day. Additionally, you can stream the full performance...

Jannis Stürtz first had the idea of co-founding his own music label amid traveling to North Africa. It was there that the Berlin-based crate digger was introduced to a brand new world of music fr...

Nearly a hundred years after the birth of surrealism in Europe, folk artist Anastasia Coope is keeping it alive and well in upstate New York. Both disruptive and whimsical, this nineteen-year-old pain...

Earlier this year, Cate Le Bon collaborated with Deerhunter to produce their new album, 'Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared?'. Now, their collaboration continues, with Cate Le Bon & Deerhunter's Bradford Cox uniting on a new collaborative EP 'Myths 004', to be released via Mexican Summer on November 1st. Fo...

Today, psych/kraut mystics and Le Guess Who? 2019 curators Moon Duo release their new album 'Stars Are The Light' via Sacred Bones. Taking disco as its groove-oriented departure point, the album shimmers with elements of ’70s funk and ’90s rave. 'Stars Are The Light' is one large hallucinogenic, repetitive trip,...

Despite drawing inspiration from multiple musical lineages, Laurel Halo’s consistency has allowed her to form her own signature sound, recognizable to both long-time and short-time listeners. Th...

Melika Ngombe Kolongo is Nkisi - DJ, producer and co-founder of NON Records, a collective of experimental African artists and of the diaspora. Born in Congo, she adopted the moniker after moving from...

COSMOS As an international festival, Le Guess Who? has always worked with a borderless and boundary-crossing ethos. Now, the organization further enhances this focus with the launch of COSMOS: a new, hybrid platform that connects the local, physical festival environment with exclusive content that is available for worldwide, online strea...

‘We are many, they are few!’, GNOD’s Chris Haslam cried out once. The Manchester’s collective constitution is indeed ever-growing. For their current line-up, they are joined by...

Although this Ireland-centered collaboration between Paddy Shine of GNOD and Phil Masterson of Los Langeros, Damp Howl, and Bisect, is technically “new folk”, the listener should tread car...

Nature’s opulence - its ability to morph, adapt, and flourish - inspired Glitchy Nature, the imaginative new crossover between Japanese tribal bass duo WaqWaq Kingdom (Kiki Hitomi and Shigeru Is...

Sarathy Korwar performed live at Le Guess Who? 2022 on the night preceding the release of his new album 'KALAK'. You can now relive the full performance below, which includes tracks from that album, as well as 'Coolie', performed live together with Alabaster dePlume.  AboutBorn in the US, Sarathy Korwar grew up in Ahmedabad and Ch...

The Brother Moves On, the captivating South-African ensemble famous for masterfully drawing from past, present and future, performed at Le Guess Who? 2022 following the release of '$/He Who Feeds You…Owns You' via Shabaka Hutchings' Native Rebel Recordings. You can now listen to & relive the full performance.  AboutTher...

Last November, Alan Sparhawk returned to Europe to play some select solo shows, the first being a performance at Le Guess Who?. Three decades ago, Sparhawk co-founded the band Low alongside vocalist and drummer Mimi Parker, who sadly passed away in late 2022. Their music derived elemental power from its fearless exploration of quiet, ge...

Through the Buurt tour, you will explore the neighborhood Lombok and discover some favorite spots of De Voorkamers’ community members. They will match Dutch speaking with non-Dutch speaking part...

Oregon psych/kraut mystics and Le Guess Who? 2019 curators Moon Duo have risen up as one of the most intoxicating live acts of this decade, embracing everything from 80’s disco, occult literature, electronic music and film soundtracks, armed with a mountain of effect pedals, shreds of reverberations, hallucinating gui...

Baltimore experimental rock quartet Horse Lords are as unbridled as ever on ‘The Common Task’, their fourth long-form sonic inquiry. In it, they dwell once again on twisted time signatures...

The musical trademark of Danish trio Efterklang is a tapestry of acoustic and electronic elements. The group will release their new album 'Altid Sammen' on September 20th via 4AD; now, they share the third single from the album, titled 'Uden Ansigt'. 'Altid Sammen's songs are about belief and togetherness,' frontman Casper Clausen s...

The hurdy-gurdy is an instrument few play and less master, but Valentín Clastrier does. The French musician’s career started out eclectic, as he picked up on choral singing, the cornet, a...

On his 2021 record, ‘Forfolks’, Tortoise guitarist Jeff Parker proves why he is considered one of contemporary music’s most versatile and innovative composers - be it in pop, rock, j...

Eddie Chacon performed live at Le Guess Who? 2021 following the release of his latest album ‘Pleasure, Joy and Happiness’, made in collaboration with producer John Carroll Kirby. You can now watch & listen to four tracks from the performance below.  AboutAs part of the soul duo Charles & Eddie, Eddie Chacon exper...

African Head Charge performed live on the opening night of Le Guess Who? 2023 following the release of their new album 'A Trip To Bolgatanga'. You can now relive the performance with the full audio of the show, which is assured to put a smile on anyone's face.  About'A bad attitude is like a flat tire - you can't go anywhere until...

WTF Gallery & Café was founded in 2010. The gallery has consistently embraced progressive thinking and pushed the barriers of what a small independent art space can sustain and present in terms of diverse art forms. A pioneering successful independent space, WTF is a vital meeting point for local artists and offers a rare platf...

Avant-rock group Suuns' relationship with Le Guess Who? goes way back; the three-piece Montreal band has always positively surprised us with their releases and their newest, 'The Witness', their first for Joyful Noise Recordings, is yet another impressive step of their sonic universe. Produced and recorded over the course of 2020 at ...

The legendary Chelsea Hotel in New York is being turned into a boutique hotel, and its permanent residents have been living in the mess for the last nine years. Dreaming Walls captures the last visibl...

In partnership with Coquetel MolotovRecife’s Coquetel Molotov teamed up with music producer Benke Ferraz (Boogarins) and launched a musical incubator for artists outside Pernambuco’s capital - an open call focused on artists to produce new music. Ten names were selected and brought to Caruaru for three days of immersion with B...

Followiung the release of her mixtape 'No Panic No Pain' back in November, FLOHIO is now back with a new, one-off single called 'Whiplash'. The UK based, Lagos-born rapper wrote on her Instagram, “I can’t lie this is gonna be nuts. I love you and I’m proud we are in this together. Friday I’ll drop somethi...

Luke Cohlen is a DJ and programmer whose sounds tread a variegated landscape, from quiet introspection to trippy and rhythmic club-terrains. Through an inherent drive to spotlight music and artists wo...

Rapper and producer Pink Siifu has released new album 'GUMBO'!', the follow-up to his 2020 release 'NEGRO' (which got expanded to 'NEGRO DELUXE' earlier this year). 'GUMBO'!' features guest appearances from a.o. Georgia Anne Muldrow, Bbymutha, Nick Hakim, Liv.e, and Maxo. Production comes from a.o. the Alchemist, Monte Boo...

Classic Water is a new Utrecht-based project, created by Tom Gerritsen (The T.S. Eliot Appreciation Society), in which surrealistic lyrics are combined with drawn-out instrumental parts. During U?, in...

In partnership with Independent Community Radio Network (ICRN) Bringing together DIY broadcasters from the Baltics and beyond, the Independent Community Radio Network (ICRN) has created an impactful platform that proves once more, that there is always strength in numbers. In 2022, a handful of activists and community radios from the Balt...

This Leo Sunrise is an alt-folk-indie rock band from Utrecht. Honest songs are mixed with cinematic, repetitive drones, creating a broad sound spectrum. The songs, atmosphere, production and lyrics &n...

East Side Radio is an online radio platform streaming from Lisbon’s East Side, Portugal. It’s designed to be a hub connecting widely recognised domestic and international talent. This COSMOS Embassy was the first happening by East Side Radio after a long pause, during which a new broadcast studio was designed and constructed,...

With just one week until the 14th edition of Le Guess Who?, the organization shares the timetable and last program additions for this year’s festival. Aside from some cancellations, the Utrecht festival for boundary-crossing music and culture now announces 41 final program additions, featuring live music performances, film screening...

Le Guess Who? is proud to welcome both artists and visitors of many different nationalities to Utrecht each year. In collaboration with SPEAK, we started a new video series in which Utrechters with foreign roots introduce an artist on the Le Guess Who? 2021 line-up from their country. SPEAK connects locals, newcomers and migra...

Throughout the month of November, Hof-artist Poernaka will be showing his new exhibition at multiple locations at Hof van Cartesius. Always wanted to take a look in his studio? Then visit the Hofloods...

Cavolo Nero is the ingredient for all kinds of Tuscan specialties, but also a six-piece band from Utrecht. The brand new project was born out of love for afrobeat and groove-oriented music. With inspi...

Jeffrey Bruinsma is researching the extent to which people can draw a line underneath their past and create something from scratch, the same way a painter starts with a blank canvas. A search for new...

With each of her releases, Berlin-based experimenter Lucrecia Dalt unbolts a new sonic door. She is led by assorted references, informed curiosity (the same which has led her to embark on many cross-d...

‘A bad attitude is like a flat tire - you can’t go anywhere until you change it’. So commences African Head Charge’s new record ‘A Trip To Bolgatanga’ - their first...

*Update: Goat have now released their new album 'Oh Death'. Stream below: Goat announce the release of their upcoming album ‘Oh Death’ and share one of the tracks entitled ‘Under No Nation.’ A fascinating blend between 70s funk and 80s post-punk, ‘Under No Nation’ transports listeners to a colourful,...

The work of multi-talented sound artist Ahmed El Ghazoly (also known as ZULI) has spilled over Cairo's borders onto the rest of the world, garnering support from the likes of Aphex Twin and Autechre....

Born in Japan, Yoshino Shigihara had been based in Bristol until settling in London. Her 2019 move inspired 'Crispy Moon', the project’s biggest record yet, released last May. Having fully immer...

*Update: Flore Laurentienne has now released his new album 'Volume II' in full. Stream below: A brilliant mix between rich sound, romanticism and sublime experience, Flore Laurentienne's second single 'Voiles' from his new album 'Volume II' takes the listener on a thought-provoking voyage exploring the fascinating relationship between...

West Coast-based hip-hop trio clipping. have refined their horror-inspired sound through multiple acclaimed releases over the years. In November, they will not only take the stage at Le Guess Who?, but they have also put together a personal and eclectic program for the festival ranging from rap to noise, from footwork to doom. ...

Kenya Mpya is a short documentary showcasing new Kenyan music culture, which is currently led by two genres or movements called SHRAP (Sheng + Trap + Pop) and Gengetone (Kenyan Pop). It briefly takes...

This report follows the work of Yunis, an artist, and musician from Kafr El Dawar, Egypt. Here, Yunis discusses his work as a mediator between traditional, popular music and contemporary productions....

Ivanov Down is one of the main representatives of the Ukrainian 90's avant-garde music scene, influencing the trajectory of post-punk and the new wave movement in Ukraine. A film by Worn Pop. Kyiv,...

WTF Gallery & Café was founded in 2010. The gallery has consistently embraced progressive thinking and pushed the barriers of what a small independent art space can sustain and present in t...

REProduce Live is a peer to peer live streaming platform that showcases left leaning artistic expression within India. Their goal is to weave a new fabric by challenging expectations of what contempor...

Mong Tong 夢東 is the Taiwanese psychedelic group formed by brothers Hom Yu and Jiun Chi, whose music is heavily influenced by Southeast Asian culture, including its mythology and folklore, as well as 60s and 70s psychedelic music. Now, the siblings release their newest album, Tao Fire 道火, via the Kikagaku Moyo-ran Japanese label Gurug...

At the time of Dutch colonial rule, trance was a lifeline for the Javanese people, pulsating with fervor as an expression of their yearning for freedom. Now, Indonesian duo Yennu Ariendra and J. Mo'on...

Price Attack is the new group allying the talents of Stef Kett (vocals and guitar), Leo Kurunis (bass guitar), and Jem Doulton (drums). Their songs leap across a tight-knit structure, and each track s...

In October last year, the duo of Noa Kurzweil (Supertalented) and Levi Lanser (Ludittes) released their genre-defying three-and-a-half hour debut, Sent from my Telephone, under the moniker of Voice Actor. Now, the experimental pop duo shares what can be considered a condensed version of their debut. Consisting of 13 tracks chosen from th...

Following the announcement of the curated programs and the initial names for the general program of Le Guess Who? 2022 last month, we are now adding four special projects to the program. These include the third edition of Hidden Musics and programs hosted by Coco Maria, GNOD, and Uncloud. Hidden Musics Le Guess Who? proudly presents the...

English contemporary artist Mark Leckey makes use of a variety of media, including film, sound, sculpture, and performance. His versatile practice focuses on the relationship between popular culture a...

Decisive Pink is the duo made up of Angel Deradoorian (formerly of Dirty Projectors) and Russian experimental pop artist Kate NV. The music they make together, much like the Wassily Kandinsky painting...

While Dallas-bred Liv.e might take cues from artists as diverse as Erykah Badu, DJ Screw, and Sun Ra, she mainly crafts her own idiosyncratic breed of lo-fi R&B. In the words of NME, she's 'R&B’s new avant-garde star who’s ‘tired of whispering.' That categorization is more true than ever on new track 'Ghost', he...

The Pankisi Ensemble goes against the typical 'ethno-fusion' grain in two ways. First, by not restricting tradition to a putrid, embalmed state, but by allowing their experimentation to take them to n...

A little over thirty years ago, avant-pop icons Stereolab splashed onto the scene with 1992’s ‘Peng’, a debut more agleam than most, revealing a charisma many bands never possess. Th...

This November, Le Guess Who? will feature a spellbinding solo piano performance by Abdullah Ibrahim, South Africa’s most eminent pianist, anti-apartheid activist and a world-respected master musician. Abdullah Ibrahim's effervescent music is instantly recognizable, taking the audience on a journey through gospel and jive, American j...

Glitching beats unfold on African timelines, expressed through free jazz sensibilities and the futuristic pulse of dub technologies; such is the sound of Nok Cultural Ensemble, Nigerian-British musici...

Musician Domenico Lancellotti (of +2's and Orquestra Imperial) grew up in Rio de Janeiro, and samba was the soundtrack not only in the city but also at home; his father, Ivor Lancellotti, is a revered...

This November, Le Guess Who? features a performance by Kamilya Jubran, which was curated by mastering engineer Heba Kadry. Born in Palestine and currently based in Paris, Kamilya Jubran is one of the most revered figures in the experimental and alternative Arabic music scenes.  Through her multi-disciplinary work, Jubran continues t...

This year, Le Guess Who? presents the fourth edition of Hidden Musics, a project that focuses on deeply localized music and features artists embedded in rich, often centuries-old musical traditions that have been developed with little or no outside influences. The first series was initiated in 2019 by Le Guess Who? in collaboration w...

For every record he spins, Pedro Ricardo takes on new challenges. The artist, who will be doing a DJ set at Le Guess Who?, relies on the strength of the grooves he plays, bringing forth a feeling of i...

New York rap virtuosos billy woods and ELUCID, collectively known as Armand Hammer, are back with their much-anticipated album, We Buy Diabetic Test Strips. This release serves as a follow-up to their 2021 cult hit Haram, produced by the Alchemist. Listeners can also expect some familiar sounds of Le Guess Who?, as the duo has invited th...

This summer’s lively ‘Soola’ is The Homesick announcing themselves back, renewed and reshaped. The Frisian trio, made up of Erik Woudwijk on the drums, Elias Elgersma on the guitar a...

Irreversible Entanglements, the free jazz collective hailed by NPR as “Perhaps the most thrilling band in jazz right now,” has released their new album Protect Your Light. Released through Impulse! Records, this album marks a significant milestone in the world of experimental jazz. The group is comprised of vocalist Cama...

With ‘Flowers At Your Feet’, Iranian-American multidisciplinary artist Rahill reveals her deeply personal artistry. Released on Ninja Tune imprint Big Dada, the artist’s new label ho...

We got an amazing amount of enthousiastic responds to our call for volunteers, so therefore we closed the registrations for now. However, schedules always change and there is a chance that a spot will open up. That's why we opened a waiting list. You can sign up for the waiting list here.Please keep in mind that being on the waiting list...

You can also listen to this story – below or via your favorite podcast app. Words & audio by Cheri PercyPhotography by Tengbeh Kamara   Rotterdam based-DJ collective AMPFEMININE scours its diverse database to bring an evening of fresh feminine energy to this year’s Le Guess Who? proving that female and non-b...

With last year’s ‘Endure’, New Orleans-based Special Interest cemented themselves as everyone’s readily-embraced champions of joyful and biting glam punk. Thanks to fearless vo...

There aren't many music performances that can be described as frightening, but Wolf Eyes' intense and bizarre live shows have garnered the band a truly creepy reputation. Formed in Michigan in 1998, t...

Cape Townian gem DIORA currently calls Rotterdam her home. The multi-disciplinary artist, DJ, and visionary’s work goes beyond herself, as she explores and researches the complexities of trans w...

The Hof van Cartesius is a unique circular work spot for more than 100 makers and entrepreneurs. It is also an incubator for new talent, a hub for experiment and a meeting space for the local communit...

V2X represents a new generation of Vietnamese creatives shaping their own identities. Operating as an independent media company on the intersection of art, music, culture, V2X highlights creative comm...

‘Porch music’, a term coined by acclaimed guitarist and vocalist Ripley Johnson (Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo), aptly describes his country psychedelic rock project Rose City Band. At first inspired by warmer months, Johnson has now embarked on a forever summer. Their new album, 'Garden Party', is said to be, &ldquo...

At the time of Dutch colonial rule, trance was a lifeline for the Javanese people, pulsating with fervor as an expression of their yearning for freedom. Now, Indonesian duo Yennu Ariendra and J. Mo'on...

As part of her guest curation at Le Guess Who 2024, Crystallmess invites British contemporary artist Blackhaine. The artist’s radical approach to drill and noise music extends to body movement, immersive A/V installation, and creative direction for globally renowned rappers. "I feel like whenever he's performing he's bringing a tot...

Baby's Berserk, a radiant manifestation from Berlin's Toy Tonics label, weaves the vibrant threads of 1980s New Wave and Y2K Indie dance sensibilities. Guided by Lieselot Elzinga, a sage presence in a...

Le Guess Who? is a Celebration of Sound. From 10-13 November, the festival returns to Utrecht, The Netherlands, for its 15th Anniversary Edition. We now reveals the guest curators and their full curated programs, as well as the first artists for the general program. Curated programs by Animal Collective, clipping., and CURL Inviting gue...

Fiftieth anniversaries call for spectacular celebrations, and that is what Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble are embarking on this year. To commemorate half a century of continuously shifting gears and tempos in the jazz-blues continuum, the band is embarking on a new world tour. Before they do so, they visited the BBC...

Eigen Risico is the project from the multidisciplinary artist Héctor Garcia Martin also known as Hache. Initially formed as a collective where live art performance and music melted into an intense live show, Héctor now decided to go solo. He now shares his new single en mil piezas me partí. How to rebuild yourself af...

As we near the start of Le Guess Who? 2024, we’d like to share the behind-the-scenes struggles and frustrations we are experiencing in trying to obtain visas for the artists we’ve invited to Utrecht. At Le Guess Who?, our focus and dedication has long been on developing a diverse and inclusive program, also through extensive...

New York City singer-songwriter Joanna Sternberg has made a delightful splash this year, with the release of their second album ‘I’ve Got Me’, which music critics were quick to showe...

Le Guess Who? exists to promote sounds that are often overlooked, and to platform fresh perspectives on what is possible in music. Artists from all over the world offer an insight into the unprecedented diversity of human creativity.  Le Guess Who? returns 7-10 November 2024 for its 17th edition in Utrecht, The Netherlands. We&rsq...

A shepherd becoming the ‘world’s best guitarist’ (according to Noisey), Omara 'Bombino' Moctar makes use of the electric guitar like few others. The Nigerien Tuareg musician was rais...

De Nijverheid is a cultural haven in Utrecht’s Werkspoorkwartier district, with artists’ studios and creative workspaces for more than 50 autonomous artists, designers and creatives.Het Kl...

The Getdowns are a young hardrock/punkband from Utrecht. Influenced by grunge bands like Pearl Jam and legendary classics like The Beatles, the four boys produce a massive amount of noise characterise...

Since 2022, Le Guess Who? partners with the Nature and Environment Federation Utrecht to offset CO2 emissions from international air travel by artists and visitors. Thanks to collaboration in 2023, a sustainable roof at Utrecht’s Hof van Cartesius, a unique circular workspace for creative entrepreneurs, has now been realized. Hof va...

Palestinian-born, Paris-based musician Kamilya Jubran is one of the most revered figures in the experimental and alternative Arabic music scenes. Raised by her music-loving parents in Galilee, for 20...

COSMOS x Santuri announce first 2024 Embassy Ahead of their first-ever electronic music summit, Kilele, COSMOS sits down with Santuri co-founder and director David Tinning as well as Nairobi staples Nyokabi Kariũki and KMRU.   For a full decade, the Santuri organisation has been supporting, highlighting, and releasing a mix of con...

COSMOS: Behind the Scenes with POP Montréal In 'Behind the Scenes', COSMOS dives into local stories from across the world together with our global partners.   Ever since Le Guess Who?'s very first edition, there's been a strong bond with POP Montréal’s 20+ year long history of platforming cutting-edge music. Fo...

V2X represents a new generation of Vietnamese creatives shaping their own identities. Operating as an independent media company on the intersection of art, music, culture, V2X highlights creative comm...

Three years after her last Le Guess Who? showcase, Brooklyn-based singer, composer, and producer Arooj Aftab is back as a performer and curator. Shortly after coming to Utrecht last, Aftab became the...

Mabe Fratti’s benchmark new record, ‘Sentir que no sabes’, comes two years after her stunning Le Guess Who? performance. This year, the Guatemalan-born, Mexico-based vocalist, and ce...

What is Foodman? By the time whichever song of his comes to an end, the answer has yet to be found. Plunderphonics, footwork, ambient, house, techno, and an array of other genres coexist chaotically,...

‘What Is Not Strange?’ asks Los Angeles-based performer Tashi Wada on his first solo album’s title. As its name suggests, the artist’s latest work - his most ambitious and impa...

Shards’ Kieran Brunt has been singing William Byrd since his college chapel choir days, and, in a sense, had been unconsciously setting up to release ‘Byrd Song’. The London band&rsq...

RP Boo (sometimes spelled Arpebu), or Kavain Space, is widely considered to be among the fathers of footwork, the Chicago-based, fast-paced, genre-leaping electronic music genre. Online crate digging,...

In the upcoming queer Latinx scene, there aren’t many bands like Blanco Teta. Onto all the hallmarks of their punk forebears, the quarter adds an unlikely yet compelling new element; the process...

Jagannathan Sampath, or DINfidel, is a computer programmer who makes music on his computer called DIN Is Noise. Sampath started his screen career elsewhere, as he began writing computer animation soft...

What if our attention was turned to the outer edges of the space we find ourselves in? - asked solo artists Nik Colk Void and Klara Lewis. After adding visual creative Pedro Maia to the mix, a new col...

In the grassy plains of Araucanía and Patagonia persists the Mapuche, an indigenous people native to south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina. Through land disputes, cultural discriminati...

An audacious force in genre-defying music, Montreal-based Swedish vocalist and composer Erika Angell is blissfully unaware of the concept of stretching oneself too thin. Her voice, depicted by Under T...

U? is opening up a monthly reading group, not as a fixed program, but as a shared space to gather, reflect and think alongside one another. Each month, we’ll come together to explore questions that matter to the people in the room: How can we build collaborations that are non-extractive and non-hierarchical between grassroots init...

M. Takara (Hurtmold, São Paulo Underground) and Carla Boregas (RAKTA, Fronte Violeta) have been making strides in the Brazilian music scene in their regard for years, but, as a duo, they feel l...

‘There is no pinpointing this band’, said Tomorrow Music of HYPER GAL. By blending soft vocals with harsh industrial beats, visual artist Koharu Ishida and noise artist Kurumi Kadoya summo...

A new wave is washing over Gnawa, the traditional North African music genre started by the Gnawa people of Morocco. Despite being an essential part of the tradition, only now are female bands appearin...

This fall, DARKSIDE is emerging from the studio shadows for their second tour in a decade. Chilean electronic musician Nicolás Jaar and American multi-instrumentalist Dave Harrington now welcom...

Just shy of the start of the decade, Brian Warren and Quentin Branch presented Angry Blackmen with the EP ‘TALKSHIT!’. Since then, the pair has amassed a well-earned cult following among h...

Seven years after her stunning 2017 debut ‘Ahwar’ sent ripples through the experimental music scene, Montreal-based producer and vocalist Nadah El Shazly has further propelled her sound to...

Regardless of where his muse takes him, electronic musician Nick León never loses sight of Miami's dance floor. The sound he curates for the club is dystopian in nature, evoking the chaos only...

VULVA and Acidic Male may both hail from the Rotterdam, but they are very different; whereas duo VULVA trade sludge and garage punk amongst themselves, interdisciplinary artist Acidic Male operates so...

Putrid, drug-fueled gutter rock; this is how New York’s Couch Slut best describes their sound - and we can picture that writing in blood. Described by Spin as ‘one of the best bands of 202...

In this concert, two virtuosos of ancient instruments unite to display their exceptional talents and introduce us to otherwise perhaps unheard musical gems. This crossover, however, is not new; Irania...

Seven years later, Ex-Easter Island Head is returning to Le Guess Who?. When this UK-based experimental musical collective steps on stage, the electric guitar (an instrument whose possibilities someti...

Christmas In Mourning is a collaboration between Beirut’s electronic musicians Sary Moussa and Abed Kobeissy, and the Greek Orthodox tenor of the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem’s Lauren...

With his second album, ‘THE REBELLION’, Durban’s DJ LAG announces a new era. Born and raised in gqom’s place of origin, the South African DJ has always kept the sound system-ha...

Zsela’s dynamite debut album ‘Big For You’ lives up to its larger-than-life name; it’s bold, raw, vulnerable, and, all in all, an introduction difficult to forget. Produced alo...

Maurice Louca is one of the most talented names to have emerged from Egypt's thriving experimental arts scene. He is continuously exploring new avenues for his sound. A restless creator, Maurice Louca...

This year, U? will have it’s very own ‘sustainable’ merchandise station. No one other than Utrecht’s infamous Birdguy, who created this year’s U? artwork, has designed a...

A Study of a Shared Meal is an invitation to come together in the preparation and sharing of a meal. Inspired by Harney and Moten’s idea of “study” as what you do with other people,...

Kunsthal Kloof is an exhibition space that creates new connections in Utrecht's cultural landscape through experimentation. In this exhibition, Kunsthal Kloof focuses on the relationship to our living...

Maha draws inspiration from the raw and vibrant spirit of 70s punk, fearlessly tackling systemic issues through her lyrics. Committed to amplify underrepresented voices, she shares personal narratives...

What does tradition turn into when flung into the future? The answer may lie in Merope, the duo centered around singer and kanklės player Indrė Jurgelevičiūtė. Their music is dug out of ancient Lithua...

In early 2021, GNOD’s Paddy Shine (one of the two ever-present members of the psychedelic noise-rock collective) crossed paths with MC Sissi at an artists’ residence nestled between the Po...

A musical hunter-gatherer, Badreddine Haouat, AKA Retro Cassetta, has spent years digging through crates in the lookout for North African music gems. His gargantuan cassette collection forms a musical...

In the wake of an old family snapshot, Azka, now a young adult, embarks on a voyage down the corridors of their childhood—a sacred time when the seeds of awareness were sown, both of the externa...

Birth of Manuel is a Faxe-powered punk band from the Utrecht underground scene. Founded by members of Throwing Bricks, Ontaard (performed at U? 2023) and Ciao Bon Jovi Jon Bon Jon Jovi Jon, with the g...

While shooting photographs, Jip Jansen tries to capture a feeling. To portray an emotion. The images are timeless. Almost all the photos are shot in the Slachthuis, the most beautiful café in H...

Gert Wessels crafts dynamic pieces that fuse form and function. His creations, marked by vibrant and distinct shapes, challenge nature with materials. Embracing chance, he sculpts polyurethane foam in...

Nearly fifteen years after bursting on the scene with debut ‘Splazsh’, Darren J. Cunningham, AKA Actress, is still pulling the wool over our eyes. This year, our earbuds are blessed with &...

The process of composing music for a film is intricate. Weaving together specific sounds and visuals to evoke certain emotions requires immense imagination and dedication. How does a creator of moving...

A new wave is washing over Gnawa, the traditional North African music genre started by the Gnawa people of Morocco. Despite being an essential part of the tradition, only now female bands are appearin...

Songpoet is what American folk artist Tucker Zimmerman identifies himself as on the cover of his 2006 album, home to the acoustic folk gem 'She’s an Easy Rider.' Zimmerman is one of America&rsqu...

Birdcage Radio is a creative community and daily online radio that focuses on forward thinking events and dance music. Next to the events Birdcage is also a record label and collaborates with visual a...

The new album by Polish guitarist Raphael Rogiński, featuring Lithuanian singer and kanklės player Indrė Jurgelevičiūtė, is named after the grass snake Žaltys, a revered household spirit in Lithuanian...

Interview: Seyðisfjörður Community Radio Seyðisfjörður Community Radio (SCR) is a shared digital and analogue broadcasting platform located in the fisher town of Seyðisfjörður. The platform is hosted, nurtured and initiated by an open-ended international community inhabiting various conditions and p...

Honiunhoni, meaning "Impossible Possibilities," is an independent music production collective and record label founded in 2022 by musician and anthropologist Daniyal Ahmed. Rooted in the ethos of ethn...

Bringing together DIY broadcasters from the Baltics and beyond, the Independent Community Radio Network (ICRN) has created an impactful platform that proves once more, that there is always strength in...

Seoul Community Radio (SCR) is South Korea’s premier community radio station. Established in 2016, SCR is a multi-platform online broadcaster at the center of Asia’s fast-growing electroni...

Honiunhoni, meaning "Impossible Possibilities," is an independent music production collective and record label founded in 2022 by musician and anthropologist Daniyal Ahmed. Rooted in the ethos of ethn...

Seoul Community Radio (SCR) is South Korea’s premier community radio station. Established in 2016, SCR is a multi-platform online broadcaster at the center of Asia’s fast-growing electroni...

Bringing together DIY broadcasters from the Baltics and beyond, the Independent Community Radio Network (ICRN) has created an impactful platform that proves once more, that there is always strength in...

Because of the eagerness in broadening the intersectionality of the punk scene and approaching a more interdisciplinary approach, community curator Bibi Bannink has invited, in collaboration with dB's...

With Military Genius, Canadian musician Bryce Cloghesy flexes his world-building prowess, a talent documented throughout boundary-pushing discography dating back to 2016. In his music, dream logic rei...

Utrecht's independent print workshop Kapitaal, once again hosts the official Le Guess Who? Hangout through all things print and sound. The program is a culmination of print, live music, DJ's, pizza's...

Partners in marriage and art, Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti and Frank Rosaly’s ‘MESTIZX’ builds upon the sounds of their respective ancestral roots in Bolivia, Brazil, and Puerto Rico....

Each year, COSMOS – Le Guess Who?’s global music community – partners up with eight new Embassies to showcase their music scene. For this, we commission local filmmakers to portray t...

Each year, COSMOS – Le Guess Who?’s global music community – partners up with eight new Embassies to showcase their music scene. For this, we commission local filmmakers to portray t...

Each year, COSMOS – Le Guess Who?’s global music community – partners up with eight new Embassies to showcase their music scene. For this, we commission local filmmakers to portray t...

“KNOW THE PAST. CHANGE THE FUTURE.” Operating under this slogan, Detroit’s Underground Music Academy is a place to learn about the history, creation and business behind electronic mu...

Chicago-bred singer and producer KeiyaA may be a newcomer to R&B, her airy yet thoughtful 2020 debut, ‘Forever Ya Girl’ may very well be her ticket to being spoken in the same breath a...

Representing the cutting edge of Istanbul’s vibrant improvisational music scene, this brand new trio tells stories of humanity, spirituality and community. Through the tension of jazz experiment...

The esoteric sound forged by Tristwch Y Fenywod is completely unheard, but instantly recognisable. Rooted in pagan mysticism and gothic rock, the trio (prolific members of the Leeds DIY underground mu...

From the warm cocoon of Dream of the Egg begins the new, deeply personal, journey of Tomo Katsurada, known for his work with the Japanese psychedelic band Kikagaku Moyo. It’s the first of five a...

Free jazz improvisation: check. Punk approach: check. Sound art extravaganza: check. Mopcut is the extraordinary trio consisting of experimental vocalist and electronic musician Audrey Chen; one of Eu...

With her new album, Dracones, Istanbul sound artist Hüma Utku ventures through chaos, transformation and the intimate unknown. As medieval explorers would mark uncharted, dangerous places on maps...

Composer and musicologist Youmna Saba explores the intersection of electroacoustic music and the Arabic language in its sung form, as well as the resonances of instruments and spaces. Blending voice,...

As part of her guest curation at Le Guess Who? 2025, trailblazing percussionist Valentina Magaletti takes the stage for a special improvised set. Her versatile technique, which can incorporate anythin...

أحمد [Ahmed] plays music of heavy rhythm, repetition and syncopation, producing a stamping, swinging, relentlessly propulsive music where profundity and physicality root back to ecstatic feeling. They...

With immersive bass drones and striking video projections, emptyset creates captivating audiovisual experiences that push the boundaries of electronic sound and architectural audiovisual. The multidis...

You might have seen her walking around festival terrains around the globe, with a bag full of vinyls and a big smile on her face. Inventive collector and selector DJ Marcelle brings her iconic three-t...

It takes a few instants to pick up on the explosive and contagious rhythms of Ndagga Rhythm Force. Led by the stunning stage presence of veteran percussionist Bada Seck and singer Mbene Diatta Seck, t...

Hong Kong native gyrofield is becoming a distinctive force on the global club circuit, with widespread praise accelerating their growing influence within dance music. Since discovering electronic musi...

Poet, musician, actor and director Saul Williams is the groundbreaking artist who introduced the world to the slam poetry movement–with the film Slam (1998)–and a vital voice in alternativ...

River Down Records is a label from Panama City, Panama, dedicated to documenting and developing the creative sound of Panama. With over 15 digital releases, River Down Records has produced new works a...

River Down Records is a label from Panama City, Panama, dedicated to documenting and developing the creative sound of Panama. With over 15 digital releases, River Down Records has produced new works a...

Vital and exciting, the music of Assiko Golden Band de Grand Yoff is rooted in a very specific community, Dakar’s nightlife scene, but speaks to the world. For twenty years and across three gene...

Over the last months, Black Country, New Road have become a steadfast live sensation with their mixture of post-punk, ashen Slint-like minimalism and pastoral dark folk leanings. Following the release of their debut album earlier this year, the group now already announce the follow-up: 'Ants From Up There' will be released February 4 via...

London-based seven-piece band Black Country, New Road have released a new song from their upcoming debut LP 'For The First Time', to be released February 5th via Ninja Tune.  Vocalist and guitarist Isaac Wood states that 'Track X' was first worked on back in 2018 but never made it to Black Country New Road's live performances. ...

The enigmatic Black Country, New Road became a steadfast live sensation with their mixture of post-punk, ashen Slint-like minimalism and pastoral dark folk leanings. Recently, the band signed to the more electronic-driven Ninja Tune label, for the release of their debut album 'For The First Time' in early February.  Recent...

Even with just limited material out, the enigmatic Black Country, New Road became a steadfast live sensation with their mixture of post-punk, ashen Slint-like minimalism and pastoral dark folk leanings.  Ahead of their performance at Le Guess Who? 2021, Turkey's Bant Mag. did a track by track interview with the British ban...

It is true that making plans for shows and festivals in 2021 is a bit of a gamble. But Le Guess Who? believes that it’s important to have something to look forward to. In the spirit of cautious optimism, we are proud to announce the second round of confirmations for November 11-14 in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Le Guess Who?’s...

Le Guess Who? exists to bring people together through art and music, and despite the uncertainty of the times we have continued to work toward that end. Some things might change, and some things will change, but we have put together a festival for 2021 that we are extremely proud of, and will bring it to you in whatever form possible.&nbs...

Inviting guest curators to build their own programs has become a hallmark of Le Guess Who? over the years. Featuring both their inspirations and fellow like-minded artists, this allows upcoming acts to perform alongside established artists. We are genuinely excited to now reveal the curators for Le Guess Who? 2021, as well as the first pe...

Brooklyn post-punk group Gustaf have generated quite the buzz for a band which hasn’t been around for more than a few years. On October 1st, the five-piece will release their long awaited debut album 'Audio Drag For Ego Slobs' via Royal Mountain Records. Following the release of first song 'Book' last month, Gust...

Duma's Martin Khanja (aka Lord Spike Heart) and Sam Karugo are figureheads of the flourishing Nairobi underground metal scene. After releasing an overwhelming debut album last year through Uganda's Nyege Nyege Tapes, the duo now return with new single 'Cannis/Mbukinya' for Sub Pop's Singles Club. Listen to both songs via the emb...

London's Vanishing Twin's mission is to ‘synthesize psychedelic traditions from around the globe’, inviting psych-jazz and psych-pop flavors from Europe to Southern America. Their previous records clearly signal a job well done, and later this year, they will follow-up with their new album 'Ookii Gekkou' (Japanese for Big Moon...

Founded by the international music festival Le Guess Who?, COSMOS invites vibrant music communities from every corner of the map to share their stories - both online and offline.

In the mid-1960s, Art Ensemble of Chicago sprung from the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Ever since, they have been celebrated as one of the most remarkable free ja...

In partnership with Mentha Project & BIE MusicThe project curated and produced by the Beijing-based BIE Music showcases the originality and creativity of China’s diverse indie music scenes with live sessions of Howie Lee, Hualun, Gong Gong Gong, Otay:onii, and Naja Naja. These globally established Chinese acts, who are asso...

In partnership with V2X. About V2XV2X represents a new generation of Vietnamese creatives shaping their own identities. Operating as an independent media company on the intersection of art, music, culture, V2X highlights creative communities from all corners of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Their work curating emerging cultures in today's m...

For over forty years, Belgian avant-garde group Aksak Maboul has been mixing and deconstructing genres to continuously re-invent themselves. In 2020, the group reappeared from a long hiatus with 'Figures', a double album hailed by critics as ambitious and mischievous. Now, the band release 'Redrawn Figures 1': an album of reworks, remixe...

We're very excited that this year, Le Guess Who? will coincide again (for the first time since 2018) with the Mega Record & CD Fair (November 13 & 14 in Utrecht), which is Europe’s biggest record fair. As a preview for both the festival as well as the fair, we're collaborating with The Quietus on a new series where we...

We're very excited that this year, Le Guess Who? will coincide again (for the first time since 2018) with the Mega Record & CD Fair (November 13 & 14 in Utrecht), which is Europe’s biggest record fair. As a preview for both the festival as well as the fair, we're collaborating with The Quietus on a new series where we...

In partnership with Buh Records.   Buh Records is a record label, based in Lima-Peru, founded in 2004 by Luis Alvarado. Focused on a wide universe of experimental and unconventional music, with outstanding work in the historical archive of Peruvian and Latin American experimental and avant-garde music, attracting the attention...

Recently, we revealed 46 new program additions for Le Guess Who? 2021, including Faust IV Live! as part of John Dwyer's curation at the festival. Now, we're sharing the video conversation that journalist and filmmaker Julian Brimmers had with Faust's Jean-Hervé Peron last November for our online TV channel LGW ON.  In th...

Neo-soul sensation, singer and producer KeiyaA stars in Solange's Saint Heron's 'Passage', a short film created in collaboration with avant-garde collective Standing on the Corner. The short was recorded to celebrate the 2021 International Woolmark Prize, an award that honors fashion talents from around the world who showcase th...

Interview: Kathryn Mohr Recently, we’ve visited the Eastern region of Iceland for an extensive chat with our 2025 COSMOS Embassy Seyðisfjörður Community Radio. This time, we’re moving a mere 100km further to Stöðvarfjörður, another fisher village in East Iceland that doubles as a hideout for cre...

Swiss-American musician Manuel Gagneux funnels the spells of black metal into howls of Tom Waits-esque juke joint blues. A strange request at the notorious 4chan forum lead to Zeal & Ardor's...

COSMOS: Behind the Scenes in Cairo, Egypt We speak to former LGW artist Yunis and B-62's Khaled Bargona about their highly creative film produced for the latest COSMOS edition. Here, we learn more about Cairo’s post-revolution music scene; how the artists that are featured in the film are creating a space for themselves in Cairo&rs...

COSMOS: Behind the Scenes with Liquid Architecture In 'Behind the Scenes', COSMOS dives into local stories from across the world together with our global partners. For over two decades, Liquid Architecture has grown from a student project to Australia’s premier festival for experimental and avant-garde music. In its current form,...

This week, you can start your Le Guess Who? 2021 experience already on Wednesday. That night, at 8PM, Louis Hartlooper Complex will screen the premiere of 'SPAZA – Road to Johannesburg'. Free entrance upon showing your LGW21 festival ticket at the door. This film is a new LGW production, made after the South African collective SPAZ...

With his self-taught piano improvisations and stream-of-consciousness lyrical approach, Lonnie Holley is a storyteller of the highest order. Now, Holley releases his new album 'Mith' which, unlik...

As Nihiloxica, musician Spooky-J and producer pq harness the full force of the Nilotika Cultural Ensemble's ancient Bugandan drumming tradition of Uganda and focus it on the contemporary dance floor through a dark lens of techno sensibility. Their new album, Source of Denial, which serves as a follow-up of their 2020 debut album Kaloli,...

We would like to introduce you to Black Midi: part band, part mystery. Despite the fact that they've got almost no online presence and are still unsigned, the group has already garnered praise from me...

Thrilling experimental pop artist Lido Pimienta spent the past few years studying European classical music to embark on a new ambitious journey. Shifting far from her previous electro pop sound, she remains as captivating and exuberant as ever. Influenced by the solemnity of early Christian hymns, her new album La Belleza is a grand orc...

Every week, we bring you a must-hear track from the Le Guess Who? 2018 line-up. As the festival is getting closer and closer, we dive deeper and deeper into this year's worldly, prismatic line-up. This week, we highlight the elated mix of Arabic rhythms, raw Eastern funk and vintage psychedelia of The Scorpios. Having fled from the...

The first curators are announced for the 11th edition of Le Guess Who? 2017, each hosting a range of inspirations and befriended artists, and also performing themselves. Perfume Genius invites a.o. Bu...

COSMOS x ICRN announce their 2024 Embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania Bringing together DIY broadcasters from the Baltics and beyond, the Independent Community Radio Network (ICRN) has created an impactful platform that proves once more, that there is always strength in numbers.  In 2022, a handful of activists and community radios from...

As an international festival, Le Guess Who? has always worked with a borderless and boundary-crossing ethos. With COSMOS, we amplify local scenes from around the world to an international audience.

As an international festival, Le Guess Who? has always worked with a borderless and boundary-crossing ethos. Now, we further enhance this focus with the launch of COSMOS: a new, hybrid platform that connects the local, physical festival environment with exclusive content that is available for worldwide, online streaming, via cosmos.legues...

On a sinking ship penetrated by patriarchy, what do you “choose” to do?: Future Feminism with Johanna Constantine This year, Le Guess Who? collaborates with Turkey's Bant Mag. The independent magazine, based in Istanbul, has been bringing together new and exciting tendencies about music, film, arts and culture since 2004. Sta...

COSMOS: Behind the Scenes in Pernambuco, Brazil Following their broadcast during Le Guess Who? 2022 as part of COSMOS, we talk to Ana Garcia and Benke, the people behind Coquetel Molotov to discuss the local music scene in the city of Caruaru; how their involvement in COSMOS became Coquetel Molotov’s first musical incubator; and di...

We're very excited that this year, Le Guess Who? will coincide again (for the first time since 2018) with the Mega Record & CD Fair (November 13 & 14 in Utrecht), which is Europe’s biggest record fair. As a preview for both the festival as well as the fair, we're collaborating with The Quietus on a new series where we...

After eight decades of triumph and tragedy, Brazilian protest singer Elza Soares is lauded as queen of samba and a powerful voice against repression and injustice relating to gender, race, sexual orie...

Before debuting his immersive multimedia-performance Somnium at this year’s Le Guess Who?, we had an extensive chat with Dutch musician, songwriter, and composer Jacco Gardner. About Dutch explorers, silent film soundtracks, Zambian rock legends, strange peninsula’s and of course, his upcoming LP Somnium. Jacco Gardner, sitti...

United Screens for Palestine is an open and decentralized collective of programmers, cultural workers and venues, responding to the paralysis brought about by the ongoing genocide as well as the increasing policing, censorship and criminalisation of everything Palestinian. As a collective, they aim to make each screening a space for conve...

Based between Amsterdam and Berlin, Insan Larasati is a community organizer, DJ, designer and inclusivity officer. With artist Shasti Andara they founded Nusaqueer Diaspora, an open-structured collective that focuses on community events for the Indonesian and Southeast Asian Archipelagan queer diaspora. Freshly graduated from the Willem...

COSMOS: Behind the Scenes in Goa, India Following different collaborations with Le Guess Who?, including for LGW Embassy: Goa, India which debuted last November, COSMOS talks to Rana Ghose (REProduce) about risk-taking as a focus area; instinct as a curatorial aspect and how Goa differs from the rest of India. As one artist chimes in: "E...

Having fled from the fundamentalists in their home country of Sudan, the original members of psychedelic group The Scorpios established themselves in London during the 80s. After releasing their self-...

Montreal-based artist Quinton Barnes releases his new ambitious album Black Noise. Released via Watch That Ends The Night Records, the record takes an assuredly different approach to radically innovate his methods of expression. It presents a bold sonic evolution and showcases the talents and efforts of a diverse collective of Montreal-ba...

In partnership with ICRN  Bringing together DIY broadcasters from the Baltics and beyond, the Independent Community Radio Network (ICRN) has created an impactful platform that proves once more, that there is always strength in numbers. In 2022, a handful of activists and community radios from the Baltic-Nordic region joined forces t...

Zanzibar singer Siti Muharam, the great granddaughter of famed taarab singer Siti Binti Saad, brings a modern twist to taarab on her debut album ‘Siti of Unguja'. Her show at Le Guess Who? 2021 will mark her first ever European performance. Taarab is a popular music genre in Tanzania and Kenya, combining musical elements from A...

Le Guess Who? is proud to welcome both artists and visitors of many different nationalities to Utrecht each year. In collaboration with SPEAK, we started a new video series in which Utrechters with foreign roots introduce an artist on the Le Guess Who? 2021 line-up from their country. SPEAK connects locals, newcomers and migra...

COSMOS: Behind the Scenes with Oroko Radio In 'Behind the Scenes', COSMOS dives into local stories from across the world together with our global partners. Within the first two years of their existence, Oroko Radio has come from a beautiful idea to a globally renowned fixture in independent broadcasting, connecting the dots between Accr...

W.I.T.C.H., the band responsible for pioneering zamrock, returned to the stage during Le Guess Who? 2023 following the release of their new album 'Zango', their first in nearly four decades. On stage, they were joined by a.o. Jacco Gardner, Michael Rault and Nico Mauskoviç. Relive the performance below with our concert film and the...

On Friday, 8 November 2024, Le Guess Who? will witness the magic of legendary Cumbia and Gaita ensemble Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto. To say that we are excited about welcoming them to Utrecht would be a massive understatement. In fact, the influence of this Grammy-winning, generations-spanning band on the trajectory of Latin American musi...

Chicago's Damon Locks' Black Monument Ensemble have released a new song from their upcoming album 'NOW', to be released on April 9th. With a mix of pulsing trumpet sounds, 'Keep Your Mind Free' originated from the reflection that Covid-19 has different outcomes for each group of society, especially for people in prison...

Melbourne foursome Tropical Fuck Storm's fiery flavor can be savored through a string of releases dating back to 2019 - but there is nothing quite like devouring the thunderous delicacy live, as we experienced again at Le Guess Who? 2024. Watch the concert film below. The group's new album 'Fairyland Codex' is out now via Fire Records.&nb...

Behind the Scenes is the new series by COSMOS, Le Guess Who?’s hybrid platform, in which we dive into local stories from across the world together with our global partners. Here, we talk to the people behind the video content that was created for the latest COSMOS installment to learn more about their local cultural scenes; their c...

Tia Maria Produções were set to present their very own program at Le Guess Who? on Saturday, 13 November. But after the Dutch government announced a partial lockdown and new restrictions for cultural events just the night before, these performances were not able to happen anymnore.  Devastated but not broken, the Lisbo...

Once upon a time, W.I.T.C.H. ruled Zambia. In the seventies, they were the driving force behind the decade's 'zamrock' movement, blending traditional African rhythms with garage rock. In 2023, W.I.T.C.H. performed at Le Guess Who? following the release of their new album Zango, their first in nearly four decades. Our residential photogra...

COSMOS x Honiunhoni announce their 2024 Embassy in Karachi, Pakistan Honiunhoni is an independent production company and record label founded by musician and anthropologist Daniyal Ahmed.  Rooted in the ethos of ethnographic research, Honiunhoni celebrates Pakistan's cultural richness and diversity by curating and highlighting the...

DRINKS are set to return to Le Guess Who? with a fresh batch of offbeat psych pop vignettes. We linked up with eternal nomads Cate Le Bon and Tim Presley via FaceTime to talk about living off the grid...

At the helm of her acclaimed Quartet, Muriel Grossmann creates beautiful, moving and engaging music that leaves its mark in the hearts and souls of listeners. Now, Muriel Grossmann releases her new album 'Universal Code', an album that successfully extends the spiritual jazz tradition in the 21st century. With Muriel Grossmann singing, R...

Etran de L'Aïr, the best of Saharan rock, has been in the game for 25 years. They're well-known for their hypnotic sound and sun-bleached melodies. This family band of brothers and cousins shared a common ancestry; in the shadow of the grand mosque, Etran's members are all the sons of nomadic families who settled in Agadez's small ne...

Ghanaian saxophonist, singer and guitarist Gyedu-Blay Ambolley returns with a brand new album, entitled '11th Street, Sekondi', and now shares the first single 'Black Woman'. On the album, named after the area of West Ghana where he grew up, Ambolley looks back at the area and musical styles that shaped his life. '11th Street, Sekond...

Le Guess Who? & de Volkskrant bring you video portraits of artists performing at Le Guess Who? 2016.  We meet legendary Brazilian protest singer Elza Soares before her performance, and talk...

U? is our new initiative: a new, participative and freely accessible day program created for and with the city of Utrecht. U? presents many cultural activities in different neighborhoods throughout the city of Utrecht and will take place during Le Guess Who’s festival weekend, 11 – 14 November. Now, we reveal the full program...

You can also listen to this story – below or via your favorite podcast app. Words by Julian BrimmersAudio by Cheri PercyCover photo by Gianfranco Bello   For 16 years and counting, Le Guess Who? has strived to create a space for generations of music lovers and makers to come together. A podium, where icons of their trade n...

In the spring of 2023, COSMOS – Le Guess Who’s? global music community – organized its first artist residency in Goa, India. Over the past few years, Goa has become a sanctuary for artists and freewheeling spirits of all kinds, including REProduce-founder Rana Ghose. In collaboration with Rana, COSMOS created a space for...

Irreversible Entanglements is a jazz collective from Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, DC, who have successfully cultivated jazz and associated Black music through a gripping form of avant-garde and free jazz. The group have just announced their new album 'Open The Gates', which will be a split release between the labels Internation...

Xylouris White is the alliance between Greek singer & lute player George Xylouris and drummer Jim White (Dirty Three). Xylouris White reconciles not only the tandem’s respective roots, but above all, a deep friendship forged in 25 years. Now, the group share 'Tree Song', the first single from their upcoming album...

COSMOS x Underground Music Academy announce their 2024 Embassy in Detroit, USA A place to learn about the past, present, and future of dance music. With the Underground Music Academy, Detroit’s own Waajeed has created a utopian space for the city's aspiring musicians. Among music fans, few places occupy a similar space in the coll...

In addition to the previously announced initial line-up and curators, we now reveals a range of special projects and performers for the festival: Future Feminism; 15 years of RVNG Intl.; ONCEIM; and t...

We are excited to present you a new satellite event during Le Guess Who? 2018: ‘Untitled’. The program focuses on all disciplines other than music and is an exploration of other artistic e...

Le Guess Who? 2024 will host a rare and exclusive extended vinyl set by Theo Parrish. The acclaimed DJ now releases his new 2 track EP Traffic Jams, "a response to stagnation and nonmovement", via his Detroit based label Sound Signature. The first ever-flowing song Positive Mental Attitude Solves All is a tribute to the eternal elder and...

Fresh on the heels of her Sun Ra Tribute Album Red Hot & Ra : The Magic City and last year's The Omnichord Real Book, acclaimed multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter and neo-soul movement igniter Meshell Ndegeocello has announced her second Blue Note album No More Water: The Gospel Of James Baldwin. The album is an homage to the e...

If you're a regular Le Guess Who? attendant, then surely you know musician/producer/writer/artist Arish Ahmad Khan, known by the stage name of King Khan. The artist also played the festival back in 20...

For Le Guess Who? 2024 guest curator Arooj Aftab, the night is a big source of inspiration: to the night she dedicated the new album Night Reign, out now via Verve Records.  "There is an exhilarating sense of potential on Night Reign: dew glistens and flowers prepare to bloom as Aftab opens herself up to new love. Throughout the alb...

In 2021, DARKSIDE released their highly-acclaimed, sophomore album Spiral, hailed by publications such as Crack, The Quietus, and MOJO as an awe-inspiring assemble of rhythmic sonic landscapes. Now, the group offers audiences a first taste from their new recording sessions with new single Graucha Max. "The track written during sessions...

Drummer, composer, and bandleader Asher Gamedze formed a new 10-piece ensemble: The Black Lungs. Together they announce the new album Consitution, to be released on the 30th of August via International Anthem. The expansive double album - recorded in a one-day-session in Cape Town – is an elaboration of the possibilities of autonomo...

Widely considered to be one of the most forward-thinking festivals, Le Guess Who? exists to platform fresh perspectives on what is possible in music. Artists from all over the world offer insights into the unprecedented diversity of human creativity. Le Guess Who? returns 7-10 November 2024 for its 17th edition in Utrecht, The Netherland...

Le Guess Who 2018 will host the influential Lydia Lunch and her Big Sexy Noise. How did Lunch become the revered anti-establishment figure she is today? This article offers a brief exploration of the...

Following his recent collaboration with slowthai called 'Glidin', Gambia-born, Coventry-based rapper and BBC Sound of 2021 winner Pa Salieu is back with a new, three-song EP titled 'Afrikan Rebel'. This latest EP features guest appearances from Nigerian artists Tay Iwar, Zlatan and Obongjayar. Listen to 'Afrikan Rebel' below. The Face al...

The artistic practice of Otay:onii (Lane Shi) spans across music, performance, installation, and film composition. After featuring on our COSMOS Embassy Film, we're honored to welcome her to the Le Guess Who? stage this year. Now, the artist reveals her new album True Faith Ain't Blind, a record that challenges established norms between c...

Driven by an appetite for boundless experimentation, producer and composer Ziúr has always been subverting expectations, corkscrewing through hardcore, metal and punk before veering towards electronic music's turbulent fringes. Today, the Le Guess Who? 2025 guest curator announces her upcoming album Home, out on September 5th via K...

Interview: Ozan Tekin x IDGK “İstanbul’u Dinliyorum Gözlerim Kapalı” is the title of a poem by Turkish poet Orhan Veli Kanık. It beautifully describes a city best experienced with all senses wide open. A sentiment that our 2025 COSMOS Embassy IDGK shares so much, that they’ve borrowed their name acronym from...

The shamanistic Saul Williams is a singer, rapper, poet, actor, screenwriter and renowned harbinger of noise poetry and hip hop futurism. At the moment, Williams is working on his Kickstarter film pro...

"Moin are subtly but brilliantly reinventing rock music", wrote Pitchfork last year in their review of the London three-piece's album Paste. Rest assured, they keep doing exactly that with the release of their new EP Clocked Off, self-described as "Outsider jams that rolled out of the studio. Part experiments, part sketches."  Compr...

Each year Le Guess Who? works with a big team of volunteers, consisting of enthusiastic, new music-loving friends from all over the world. The festival offers a place to connect with new people, to gain working experience and to discover new and inspiring music.  To give you an impression of what it is like to volunteer at Le Guess...

New York-based vocalist, poet and multi-instrumentalist Vera Sola recently released the single 'Small Minds' and now, she brings us the follow-up in the form of 'The Colony'. Both songs will appear on...

This year, COSMOS once again proudly partners up with acts, institutions, and collectives from around the globe. The 2023 Embassies are located in Vietnam, Australia, Indonesia, Canada, Greece, UAE, Peru and Ghana. In order to introduce the amazing talents behind these collaborations, we're starting a new interview & music series call...

With a wonderful blend of African folk, flamenco, bossa nova and jazz, Sibusile Xaba is slowly conquering the hearts of audiences outside of his home country South-Africa. His sound - both playful and...

Le Guess Who? is proud to welcome both artists and visitors of many different nationalities to Utrecht each year. In collaboration with SPEAK, we started a new video series in which Utrechters with foreign roots introduce an artist on the Le Guess Who? 2021 line-up from their country. SPEAK connects locals, newcomers and migrants i...

Just like the masterful Egyptian songwriter Umm Kulthum, Abdel Karim Shaar is linked to the concept of 'Tarab': a musical form that expresses a state of emotional transition. Shaar is a legendary sing...

This year, Le Guess Who? presents the fourth edition of Hidden Musics, a project that focuses on deeply localized music and features artists embedded in rich, often centuries-old musical traditions that have been developed with little or no outside influences. The first series was initiated in 2019 by Le Guess Who? in collaboration with C...

We're pleased to reveal the initial line-up for Le Guess Who? 2019, dedicated to boundary-crossing music from all over the world. The first 87 acts include very rare performances by Asha Puthli, Ustad Saami, and Ayalew Mesfin & Debo Band, as well as the curated programs by Jenny Hval, Moon Duo, Patrick Higgins and The...

Ahead of her performance at Le Guess Who?, we catch up with Tunisian singer, musician & artist Emel Mathlouthi while on her way to a performance in Washington DC. It became a talk about being challenged by collaborators, the Arab Spring and the role of social media, being categorized by singing in Arabic, and the importance of being t...

The Brother Moves On is the captivating South-African performance art ensemble from Johannesburg, famous for the way the artists masterfully draw from past, present and future within music. Now, the group releases an uplifting and inspirational new album entitled '$/He Who Feeds You…Owns You' via Shabaka Hutchings' Native Rebel Rec...

COSMOS: Behind the Scenes in Mexico City, Mexico We speak to Daniel (Danny) Alvarado Chávez, head of Sonido Confirmación, an independent project made to ‘represent and connect Mexico City through images and music’, while diving into the capital's music scene. Every minute, new acts mushroom across the city&rsquo...

COSMOS: Behind the Scenes in Slemani, Kurdistan-Iraq Following their broadcast during Le Guess Who? 2022 as part of COSMOS, we talk to Space21's Hardi Kurda about the concept of illegality; the musical cacophony of Slemani; the US-led invasion of Iraq, which happened twenty years ago, and also how it led to surprising musical discoveries...

Ever since the release of their debut album 'World Music' in 2012, Swedish psych/fusion group Goat remain a mystery and ghostly presence on the music scene. However, shortly after the release of the album, public and critical praise quickly caught up with them, with Happy Mag naming the record one of the greatest psychedelic rock albums o...

At Le Guess Who? 2023, veteran improviser Bill Orcutt (of Harry Pussy) was joined live by an all-star team of seasoned guitarists, made up of Wendy Eisenberg, Ava Mendoza, and Shane Parish. The four tackled Orcutt’s rhythmic tapestry released on 'Music For Four Guitars' (2022), following the intricate composition’s thread wh...

Last week, COSMOS' first international residency started in Goa, India. Composer, sound artist and improviser Hardi Kurda from Kurdistan-Iraq was invited by curator and filmmaker Rana Ghose to work at the new studio and gallery space 999. For two weeks, Hardi collaborates with a number of local artists to explore themes relating to m...

Le Guess Who? is proud to welcome both artists and visitors of many different nationalities to Utrecht each year. In collaboration with SPEAK, we started a new video series in which Utrechters with foreign roots introduce an artist on the Le Guess Who? 2021 line-up from their country. SPEAK connects locals, newcomers and migrants i...

"Tarot," says King Khan, shuffling a deck of cards rhythmically back and forth, "was designed to give power back to the people." - Dazed At Le Guess Who? 2017, King Khan and Game of Thrones...

Ahead of his performance at Le Guess Who? 2021, Turkey's Bant Mag. talk to Chicago visual artist, musician and sound artist Damon Locks. The interview is part of their series 'Letters from musicians'; as it’s been a whole year under the pandemic conditions, they have reached out to a number of musicians to hear about their varying f...

Nia Archives is bent on taking space in jungle as a young black woman, representing her Jamaican roots - and succeeding, becoming one of the most talked-about newcomers to the jungle scene. In March, she released her 'Forbidden Feelingz' EP, with the title track becoming a future classic. In that same month, she won the NME Award for Best...

At the age of 34, Chicago-based Angel Elmore quit her job selling high-end lingerie and pursued her childhood dream to become a musician. Now, as Angel Bat Dawid, she sings, composes, and plays keyboard and clarinet, which led to the release of her spiritual jazz album 'The Oracle' earlier this year. She recorded it over a period of more...

The full line-up for Le Guess Who? is now revealed, with 60 acts completing the program - check out the full line-up here.  The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda performed by...

Born in the Southwest of the United States as Otis Calvin III, OCnotes was influenced at an early age by skateboard culture and developed a fascination for cartoons, as well as receiving musical educa...

Le Guess Who? presents 'The Big Playback', a podcast about all things music. Episode 3 is a four-part series entitled 'For the Record', exploring the role of the archivist from all angles, released in weekly installments. In this new series, host Margaret Munchheimer talks to an independent archival collective in Indonesia; a sound and p...

For Episode 1 of our new podcast 'The Big Playback', we interviewed musician Angel Bat Dawid regarding the question Is Music a Religion? Dawid shared her thoughts on participatory music, her philosophy on people being creatures of habit and her idea of inner attainment. 

Mixing electronic music, punk and rap, LustSickPuppy's live shows are a perfect mix of experimentation, chaos and rave energy: a must-see for fans of hyper-pop and digital hardcore.  Last April, performer and producer Tommy Hayes released CAROUSEL FROM HELL, their debut album under the moniker LustSickPuppy. The record infiltrates i...

Coming up at the turn of the century, when underground rap was all about dusty loops and intricate battle rhymes, Antipop Consortium mixed an experimental, electronically charged sound palette with lyricism sharpened on the NY poetry scene. While they quickly summoned a cult following stateside, Europe’s alternative music circuit to...

Gambian-British grime/hip-hop artist and BBC Sound of 2021 winner Pa Salieu is one of the most exciting new voices in Britain’s flourishing hip-hop scene. Following the release of his celebrated 'Send Them to Coventry' last year, Pa Salieu now teams up with UK rapper slowthai to deliver the new single 'Glidin'.  Watc...

Free jazz collective Irreversible Entanglements, spearheaded by former LGW curator Moor Mother, met amidst an event protesting police brutality. Since then, they have released three full-length albums, the last being 2021's Open The Gates. Now, the collective add a new offering to their catalogue; their new album Protect Your Light will...

LA-based Dominican producer Kelman Duran has just released his new mixtape 'MOON CYCLES III', once again featuring a highly distinctive combination of minimalistic reggaeton beats, chopped up voc...

Today, improvisational composer and flutist Nicole Mitchell releases her new album 'Maroon Cloud' via FPE Records. The record sees Mitchell featured in a drumless chamber quartet together with so...

Etran de L'Aïr are a wedding band based in the town of Agadez, an urban center of the desert, and a city renowned for the production of music – in particular the electric guitar and the so-called “desert blues”. The name Etran de L'Aïr translates to “the Stars of the Aïr,” the mountainous regi...

Detroit ghettotech heroes HiTech share new high-octane single SPANK! featuring GDMRW. The new bouncing track by the rap group is released together with a fittingly “irreverent, psychedelic, and unflinchingly horny” videoclip, directed by IGOBYCY. "HiTech’s latest perpetuates a kind of closed-loop booty ecosystem,...

With their last record 'Love and Hate in a Different Time', released earlier this year, neo-soul sensation Gabriels seek to address hate, hardship and war, but most of all how to push through. The album received praise from the likes of Elton John, Gilles Peterson, and Virgil Abloh. The group, featuring vocalist Jacob Lusk ...

Jenny Hval’s output has been consistently evolving throughout the years. In her music, moments of melodic beauty light up like quivering candles within a pitch black solitude of sonic abstraction. Hval's new album, 'The Practice of Love', is no less ambitious and proves a thrilling exploration of Hval’s unique examination of t...

King Britt / Fhloston Paradigm's music features impulsive experimentation, cosmic ambience as well as more structured techno leanings. Britt now releases a new Fhloston Paradigm track, entitled 'Run'. Set on embodying afro-futurist ideals, this pulsating track has a threatening, ongoing drive which haunts you down to the ve...

Violinist and vocalist Sudan Archives writes, plays, and produces her own music. Drawing inspiration from Sudanese fiddlers, she is self-taught on the violin, and her unique songs also fold in el...

MHYSA is the underground popstar alter ego of multidisciplinary artist E. Jane. In her experimental club tracks, she channels the legacies of Black women icons into visions of utopias. Born in Maryland, E. Jane was enamored with singing form an early age, performing at church and school. Since 2015, they has been developing the perf...

Hard in style, soft in core. For Luna van der Laan (Looney Lunatic) and Carlos Kok (Boot 122), their passion for noisy, fast music stems from a broad artistic (self-)schooling, high levels of passion for music and, above all, an open mind. With a DIY-mentality, a grounded aversion of the establishment and a substance-over-style-approach,...

We are excited to present our film & talk program, as well as a special exhibition, new additions to our 2024 line-up and the long-awaited time schedules for Le Guess Who? 2024. Time Schedules Start your scheduling now! The time schedules for Le Guess Who? 2024, as well for U?, our freely accessible city program, are online now. Pl...

Today, New York-based artist Josiah Wise, a.k.a. Serpentwithfeet, releases his long-awaited debut album 'soil' via Secretly Canadian/Tri Angle Records. His first full-length is an accomplished ex...

South African collective SPAZA released their new album ‘Uprize!’ last month. It was recorded in 2016 as the soundtrack for Sifiso Khanyile's 2017 documentary of the same name, which tells the history of the 1976 uprisings in Soweto against the racist apartheid government. On the album, the SPAZA ensemble displays a mixture o...

South London musician, composer and multi-disciplinary artist Klein's work sounds delightfully disheveled - ghostly R&B tracks not meant for the world to listen to. Next month, she'll return with 'Harmattan', her newest album, to be released November 19th via Pentatone.  Klein wrote, produced, performed, and mixed the album hers...

Hatis Noit's musical awakening took place at the tender age of sixteen during a trek to Buddha's birthplace in Nepal. One morning when staying at a women’s temple she came across a female monk singing Buddhist chants whose otherworldly sounds moved her so intensely that she was instantly aware of the visceral power of the human voic...

Mark Kozelek aka Sun Kil Moon will perform on the opening night of Le Guess Who? 2017. Apparently, one of Kozelek's dreams involves touring with the late, great Elliott Smith, which he talks about in...

Exploring a multitude of musical influences and concepts about contemporary black British music, GAIKA releases his debut album 'Basic Volume' today. Reflecting on dark, uncertain times with a co...

Following the launch of LGW ON, our very own online TV channel which streamed mid-November 2020, we are now sharing a lot of programs and video content that premiered on the channel via our YouTube account. We've published the videos as part of our new Reports from Other Continents project; all episodes of our alternative travel sho...

With his unshakeable conviction, found all over his rhymes and delivery, Zwangere Guy quickly became considered ‘the boss of Brussels rap’. In his live shows, his boastful, insolent and exciting personality always shines bright.  Zwangere Guy performed live at TivoliVredenburg's Ronda during Le Guess Who? 2021 on the nig...

Chicago-based songwriter and guitarist Ryley Walker and Japanese psych-rockers Kikagaku Moyo gave a special collaborative performance at Le Guess Who? 2018. Now, the artists release the recordings of that show called ‘Deep Fried Grandeur’; two lengthy, kaleidoscopic jams featuring a revolving cast of folk jazz, acid rock, and...

Violinist, singer, songwriter and producer Sudan Archives shared the first single from her upcoming debut album, now she follows up with a stunning video for 'Confessions', whose closing section also debuts portions of new song 'Black Vivaldi Sonata'. Both tracks are from her impending debut full length 'Athena', out 1 November via S...

For a very special, one-time performance at Le Guess Who? 2018, Circuit des Yeux's Haley Fohr enlisted an eight-piece ensemble featuring members of the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra. With this performance, Fohr further expanded the captivating compositions of her latest, acclaimed album ‘Reaching for Indigo’, which c...

Today, we announce three final line-up additions for Le Guess Who? 2018, including a performance by British electronic musician/producer Blanck Mass. We are also sharing some venue hosts during the festival; find their descriptions below & see when/where they are hosting in our downloadable time schedules.  Blanck Mass Sin...

Kevin Morby wanders through Paris in his new black & white video for 'Downtown Lights' from his latest album 'City Music', released earlier this year. Watch below.  "I set out to write a sim...

Linton Kwesi Johnson’s impressive body of work includes stints as "dub poet", political orator, recording artist and author/journalist. A vocal personality who fights oppression against bla...

Hip-hop powerhouse Moor Mother fought her way out of the projects – and is now using poetry, music and ‘DIY time travel’ to build a better future for black America. "Our past has be...

Swiss-American musician Manuel Gagneux funnels the spells of black metal into howls of Tom Waits-esque juke joint blues. Live, Zeal & Ardor becomes an overpowering sensation. To get an idea, watch...

Over the last couple of years, COLORSxSTUDIOS has become an important music platform aimed at showcasing exceptional new talent from around the globe. In their own words: "All COLORS shows seek to provide clear, minimalistic stage that shines a spotlight on the artists, giving them the opportunity to present their music without distractio...

We’re pleased to announce that Khyam Allami, Animistic Beliefs, Natural Information Society, Antipop Consortium, Wayne Phoenix, Badume’s Band & Selamnesh Zéméné, Kim David Bots & Lyckle De Jong, Toumba, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Radio Choir performing Delius’ A Song of the...

Presented by Basilica Hudson and Le Guess Who? in collaboration with Sarah Van Buren, 24-HOUR DRONE is set to return to Basilica Hudson Saturday, May 18th – Sunday, May 19th, 2024 (noon to noon) in Hudson, New York. Tickets are available here.  24-HOUR DRONE features an international roster of musicians and sonic artists acros...

(scroll naar beneden voor de Nederlandse tekst) U? is the freely accessible day program of Le Guess Who? In 2023, U? takes place on 11 & 12 November. With this open call, we want to give everyone with ideas the opportunity to participate. The program of U? consists a multitude of events and activities which are c...

With his music, Tashi Wada explores resonance, dissonance and alternative tunings to create rich and unanticipated effects. Now, the Los Angeles-based composer and performer releases What Is Not Strange?, his first full-length solo album via RVNG Intl. The album - his most ambitious and impassioned yet - finds him rummaging through a puz...

U?, the freely accessible city program of Le Guess Who?, returns to Utrecht for its fourth edition. U? celebrates local and creative communities based in the Netherlands, with a strong focus on Utrecht. Our mission: Amplifying local communities from the fringe, U? is Utrecht’s radical playground for experimentation, co-creation and...

As part of her curation at Le Guess Who? 2024, Mabe Fratti presents some very special Mexican and South American acts that have influenced her personal development, including experimental jazz artist Germán Bringas. The short documentary Caminatas, created by Smiling C, dives into the life and work of the multi-instrumentalist and...

Festival curator Slauson Malone 1 performed live at Le Guess Who? 2023 following the release of his latest album EXCELSIOR via Warp Records. On stage, he is joined by cellist Nicky Wetherell. Relive the performance with our concert film: Speaking about his role as curator at the festival, Slauson Malone 1 (real name: Jasper Marsalis) s...

Each year, Le Guess Who? invites trailblazing creatives to curate their own dedicated programs, highlighting their inspirations, emerging acts and fellow like-minded artists, with an emphasis on discovery and exploration.Japanese psych-rock outfit Bo Ningen introduce their curation at Le Guess Who? 2024 with a playlist that they have...

Raziyah Heath is an independent curator (a.o at Metro54), programmer, curious cat, hater, organizer, killjoy, lover, DJ and artist. At the moment she mainly delves into sonic realms/dimensions, and uses DJing under the name Chinnamasta as a medium for research and discoveries. Their work aims to uncover the cross pollinations of Afro-dia...

South London's Wu-Lu, spearheaded by musician/vocalist Miles Romans-Hopcraft, performed live at Le Guess Who? 2024 as part of Bo Ningen's curated program for the festival. Below, you can watch the group perform the tracks Ten & Blame from the album LOGGERHEAD, released via Warp Records. “Powered by artistic freedom and sens...

During Le Guess Who? 2017, Red Bull Radio met up with German jazz saxophonist Peter Brötzmann (who collaborated with Han Bennink at the festival), to discuss post-WWII politics of sound...

Every week, we’ll bring you a must-hear track from the Le Guess Who? 2018 line-up. This week, it's Ethio-jazz legend Hailu Mergia with a contemplative solo piano track. Together with the Wa...

Somalia's legendary Dur-Dur Band played a major role in the 1980s nightlife of the capital Mogadishu. After reissues by Awesome Tapes From Africa and Analog Africa, Dur-Dur Band's mix of vibrant funk and traditional Somalian rhythms earned renewed recognition globally. The Vinyl Factory's longread tells the story about how the Somalian C...

The 2022 edition of the Polaris Music Prize, an organization that "annually honours and rewards artists who produce Canadian music albums of distinction", has declared Pierre Kwenders’ latest album ‘José Louis and the Paradox of Love’ to be Canada’s album of the year. Pierre Kwenders, the stage name of Jos&...

Stichting Le Guess Who heeft een Culturele ANBI-status. Een ANBI is een instelling die zich voor minstens 90% inzet voor het algemeen nut. Een ANBI is vrijgesteld van schenkbelasting. Voor een begunstiger van een ANBI betekent deze ANBI-status fiscaal voordeel in de inkomstenbelasting en de vennootschapsbelasting. KVK-nummer: 51954222RSI...

In partnership with Seoul Community Radio  Seoul Community Radio (SCR) is South Korea’s premier community radio station. Established in 2016, SCR is a multi-platform online broadcaster at the center of Asia’s fast-growing electronic music community – created by the scene, for the people that make it great. Inspirin...

Le Guess Who? is proud to welcome both artists and visitors of many different nationalities to Utrecht each year. In collaboration with SPEAK, we started a new video series in which Utrechters with foreign roots introduce an artist on the Le Guess Who? 2021 line-up from their country. SPEAK connects locals, newcomers and migra...

Le Guess Who? is proud to welcome both artists and visitors of many different nationalities to Utrecht each year. In collaboration with SPEAK, we started a new video series in which Utrechters with foreign roots introduce an artist on the Le Guess Who? 2021 line-up from their country. SPEAK connects locals, newcomers and migra...

Le Guess Who? is proud to welcome both artists and visitors of many different nationalities to Utrecht each year. In collaboration with SPEAK, we started a new video series in which Utrechters with foreign roots introduce an artist on the Le Guess Who? 2021 line-up from their country. SPEAK connects locals, newcomers and migra...

LGW’s resident photographer Juri Hiensch has been rediscovering the city of Utrecht lately, capturing the unique character of several neighborhoods outside the city center and offering some inspiration for your next trip to Utrecht. The first neighborhood in this photo & video series centers around the Tweededaalsedijk. Well, t...

Lombok Festival, one of Le Guess Who?’s satellite events, returns on Friday 8 November. The freely accessible festival is a celebration of the cultural diversity of this city’s district, initiated in collaboration with various locations, musicians, key figures and residents of Lombok. During Lombok Festival, various performan...

Sudan/UK collective The Scorpios performed on the closing day of Le Guess Who? 2018. Inspired by traditional Sudanese music and 60s and 70s pop, the group create an elated mix of Arabic rhythms, raw Eastern funk and vintage psychedelia. You can now listen to their full festival performance: About Having fled from the fundamentalists i...

Alanis Obomsawin received worldwide acclaim as a filmmaker and visual artist. Her work is binded by crusading for the rights and well being of indigenous populations while simultaneously celebrating t...

Hailing from the small town of Como, Mississippi, The Como Mamas consist of Sisters Angela Taylor and Della Daniels together with their friend Ester Mae Smith. They have been singing together since ch...

Sarah Davachi is a real sonic thrill-seeker who enjoys pushing the textural properties of music to the surface. CJSW, Calgary's Independent Radio, recently filmed Davachi creating drones on one of the...

U? is Le Guess Who’s participatory and freely accessible day program, made for–and with–the city of Utrecht. With U?, Le Guess Who? extends its mission to enrich people through music and culture even further to the city.  From 10-13 November, U? features music performances, exhibitions, brunches, silent disco&rsquo...

The Brother Moves On, the captivating South-African ensemble famous for masterfully drawing from past, present and future, performed at Le Guess Who? 2022 following the release of '$/He Who Feeds You…Owns You' via Shabaka Hutchings' Native Rebel Recordings. You can now listen to & relive the full performance.  AboutTher...

VPRO Vrije Geluiden were present at Le Guess Who? 2022 to capture several sessions with festival artists in TivoliVredenburg. Over the next couple of weeks, these will go online every Sunday. The Master Musicians of Jajouka led by Bachir Attar Jajouka is the name of a hidden village in the Jebala foothills of northern Morocco. Here, The...

Celebrated Israeli singer, musician and producer Dudu Tassa and award-winning composer and guitarist Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead, The Smile) have teamed up for the collaborative album Jarak Qaribak, which is released today via World Circuit Records. Jarak Qaribak translates, more or less, as ‘Your Neighbour Is Your Friend. It&r...

As a hallmark of Le Guess Who?, the festival each year invites trailblazing creatives to curate their own dedicated programs, highlighting fellow like-minded artists and those that have inspired them. Heba Kadry, a mastering engineer born in Egypt and currently based in Brooklyn, has curated a program for Le Guess Who? 2023 that she now...

You can also listen to this story – below or via your favorite podcast app. On the closing day of Le Guess Who? 2023, the festival features the first international performance of Ndox Electrique, whose music is inspired by an ancient ritual of the spirit-world originating from Senegal’s n’döep ceremonies. ...

Test your sustainable or social innovation at Le Guess Who? 2023Test jouw duurzame of sociale innovatie op Le Guess Who? 2023

Test your sustainable or social innovation at Le Guess Who? 2023Test jouw duurzame of sociale innovatie op Le Guess Who? 2023

As a hallmark of the festival, each year Le Guess Who? invites trailblazing creatives to curate their own dedicated programs, highlighting fellow like-minded artists and those that have inspired them. For the 2023 edition, Le Guess Who? invited mastering engineer Heba Kadry, who curated a comprehensive program, weaving together an array...

For U? 2023, Utrecht-based collective ZENITH and independent, Palestinian sound platform Zilzal join forces at the former Pieter Baan Centrum that serves as a powerful channel for 00970, gbw9, RAGASA, and Noise Diva to express their “current mental situation.” Photographer Rogier Boogaard documented a part of the artists ZENIT...

Having spent many years touring and drawing inspiration from many corners of the world, Jori Collignon has at last found a home in the idyllic Palmela, Portugal. It is here where you can find a home complete with a guesthouse, garden, studio, and a vibrant hub where artists from different parts of the world come together to exchange ideas...

French indie-pop band Keep Dancing Inc debuts on Dutch Radio with a live-session at 3voor12 Radio.

Every first Monday of the month, COSMOS broadcasts episodes of their radio show on Refuge Worldwide, highlighting their deep-running network of partners from around the world. On Monday, 7 October, from 2-4 PM, COSMOS returns with two new episodes. LE 18 For the first hour, we tapped our 2024 Embassy partners LE 18 for a guided tour thr...

London-based Mexican violinist, composer, and improviser Gibrana Cervantes performed live at Le Guess Who? 2024, as part of the program curated by Mabe Fratti. You can listen to the full performance below, featuring two unreleased tracks: ‘Blur of Memories’ and ‘Verdad vs. Error’, as well as ‘Moving Through...

We've made the stream of Shabaka & The Ancestors' powerful performance at Le Guess Who? 2017 available now, which was curated by James Holden for the festival.  Listen to British jazz s...

Last week, the mastermind behind Death in Vegas Richard Fearless returned to the NTS studio to deliver a relaxing live set filled with dub, reggae and roots. Listen to the one-hour set below...

Every week, we’ll bring you a must-hear track from the Le Guess Who? 2018 line-up. This week, it's one of the projects of jazz superforce & festival curator Shabaka Hutchings, who released t...

Every week, we bring you a must-hear track from the Le Guess Who? 2018 line-up. This week, we zoom in on an old-school-esque hip-hop track from LA-based producer, musician and vocalist Georgia Anne Mu...

We're proud to reveal the full line-up for Le Guess Who? 2018 with 47 new additions to the program. Starting today, day tickets for the festival are also on sale.  The final additions to the Le...

Every week, we bring you a must-hear track from the Le Guess Who? 2018 line-up. This time, we highlight a bubbly, crisp pop tune by American singer-songwriter Madeline Kenney. 'Cut Me Off' is taken f...

Dreamcrusher, the project of multidisciplinary artist Luwayne Glass, performed live at Le Guess Who? 2022 as part of the program curated by clipping. You can now listen to his performance below, released via Dreamcrusher for Bandcamp Friday.  Live at Le Guess Who? 2022 by DREAMCRUSHER AboutDreamcrusher began on Kansas-born, New Yor...

Washington-based experimental hip-hop duo Model Home have released a new collaborative album with Iranian dub duo Saint Abdullah. 'Invasive Inclinations' is described as a meeting of forces from "two similar planets in different galaxies but interchangeably habitable". The album was recorded in one day at Pioneer Works Center F...

Rapper and producer Pink Siifu's has become known for his mercurial talent for intersecting styles and culture. Last year, Pink Siifu released 'NEGRO', an album that employs influences from Sun Ra, Bad Brains and the late great Ras G to materialize a firebrand, revolutionary assault on police brutality and racism. Now, the rapper an...

Rapper and producer Pink Siifu has a mercurial talent for intersecting styles and culture. Following the release of 2020's 'NEGRO' (which got expanded to 'NEGRO DELUXE' earlier this year), Pink Siifu is now already preparing his follow-up, entitled 'GUMBO’!', out August 3.  The album will feature contributions by Nic...

Model Home is a hip-hop formation from Washington D.C. Instigated by rapper NAPPYNAPPA and producer Pat Cain, the duo is known for their experiments in liberated sound. On November 5th, the group will release their new album 'both feet en th infinite' via Don Giovanni Records.  Completed in just two days and designed with live perfo...

We're very excited that this year, Le Guess Who? will coincide again (for the first time since 2018) with the Mega Record & CD Fair (November 13 & 14 in Utrecht), which is Europe’s biggest record fair. As a preview for both the festival as well as the fair, we're collaborating with The Quietus on a new series where we...

Mónika Lakatos was born in Budapest to an Olah Gypsy family, and it was her family and community who taught her to sing. In 1996, she became the first Romani singer to win Hungary's most popular talent show. With her powerful vibrato, both polished and gruff, she continues to collect accolades as an ambassador for her community&rsq...

Forget Detroit, Chicago, and Berlin for a minute. Some of the most exciting electronic music records are being cut in the capital of Uganda, Kampala, and many are coming out of label Nyege Nyege Tapes. The collective is committed to shedding light on some of the best outsider music made in Kampala and all around East Africa. This Novembe...

REProduce Live is a peer to peer live streaming platform that showcases left leaning artistic expression within India. Their goal is to weave a new fabric by challenging expectations of what contemporary artistic risk taking in the region could look and sound like. For COSMOS, REProduce Live presented a selection of events they've pr...

After a highly impressive performance in 2015, we can't wait to have dynamic, improvisational trio The Necks back at Le Guess Who? this November. Founded in Australia in 1987, the group have been happily making music on the fringes for over three decades, working outside of conventions and allowing stories to unravel with painst...

Chicago-based songwriter and guitarist Ryley Walker and Japanese psych-rockers Kikagaku Moyo gave a special collaborative performance at Le Guess Who? 2018. Now, the artists release the recordings of that show called ‘Deep Fried Grandeur’; two lengthy, kaleidoscopic jams featuring a revolving cast of folk jazz, acid rock, and...

Conjunto Papa Upa, the so-called Afro-Caribbean retro psychedelic rhythm machine of Venezuelan, Amsterdam-based musician Alex Figueira, has released a new video for 'Todo Parao'. His music, a quirky combination of lo-fi surf rock, funk, psychedelica and samba, resounds the street scenes of Figueira's salad days in Caracas. You can w...

Le Guess Who? 2019 is almost upon us! There is an abundance of performances and activities happening this week, so we can imagine that some acts or activities may have slipped through the cracks. Therefore, we've selected 10 things you might not have discovered (yet) in the LGW19 program.  1. Three-day Film Festival at Springha...

Le Guess Who? and artist Jeanne van Heeswijk (of project Trainings for the Not-Yet) connected visual artist, activist, and womanist Patricia Kaersenhout with Chicago-based pianist, clarinetist and composer Angel Bat Dawid. Both women tap into the meaning and history of black life and experimental forms of radical self-care through various...

Like last year, Utrecht’s beloved independent print workshop Kapitaal will transform into the official Festival Hang Out during Le Guess Who? 2019.  Through live interviews, listening sessions, art exhibitions with select LGW? performers and all things print and sound, Kapitaal will transform into a three-day meeting...

The work of Ottawa-born, Paris-based musician and singer Mélissa Laveaux brims with defiance, cheekiness, and pride, combining lost traditions with modern influences like psych rock, calypso, folk pop, and punk.  In an interview with The Guardian, Laveaux talks about her third and most recent album 'Radyo Siw&e...

New York-based composer and guitarist Patrick Higgins has been exploring the possibilities and limits of music throughout his career. His latest album 'Dossier', which was released last year through Nicolas Jaar's label Other People, was recorded live without overdubs or edits. 'Dossier' deals with themes of alienation and individua...

In the mid-1960s, Art Ensemble of Chicago sprung from the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Moving far beyond jazz, avant-garde and performance art, the ensemble has created a realm that is entirely original. On the opening night of Le Guess Who? 2018, and on the eve of the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s 50t...

Next week, we'll present our newest satellite event, 'Untitled', with one of the goals being 'an exploration of other artistic expressions by festival artists'. As part of Untitled, we will present a guided tour through Utrecht by acclaimed visual artist, improvising musician and 'Lover of Mother Universe' Lonnie Holley. Led by the m...

This year, Le Guess Who? will feature three new venues for the official music program: WAS., BASIS, and Poema. All of them are part of Utrecht’s buzzing nightlife and are among the most prominent clubs in town. This time, we introduce you to BASIS: an Utrechtian sanctuary for house and techno lovers. "BASIS is located at a unique v...

Tunisian singer-songwriter and producer Emel Mathlouthi combines the vibrant sounds of psychedelic folk with heavy electronics and atmospheric melodies. Following the release of her album 'Ensen' last...

Unfortunately, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe can't perform today due to a cancelled flight. Colin Benders & Maarten Vos will play instead at Hertz, 21:15-22:15. Rob Lowe's show is rescheduled to tomorr...

Fhloston Paradigm aka King Britt: "My parents were collectors and my mother was exposing me to more spiritual jazz as a kid. I heard music he did with Don Cherry & Sun Ra first. Opened up sonic p...

Insecure Men, featuring Saul Adamczewski (Fat White Family) and Ben Romans-Hopcraft (Childhood), have shared their debut single 'Sebura Nights'. According to The Quietus it's "easily one of the best t...

Jamal Moss, better known as Hieroglyphic Being, is one of the most distinct figures from Chicago's rave scene. Throughout his impressive output, Moss’s glitchy style draws from the roots of spir...

"OCnotes is known for his wildly unpredictable and consistently on-point DJ sets, which could be considered snapshots of his comprehensive appetite for original sounds," as we wrote in our bio fo...

Brooklyn-based noise/rock band Ice Balloons features Sean Kennerly (Samiam) on bass and vocals, Kyp Malone (TV on the Radio) on synthesizers and modules, and Lyla Vander (Habibi) on drums and vocals. According to the band itself, it was a ‘common misinterpretation of psychosis’ that led Ice Balloons to start making music. The...

From the archives of Idris Ackamoor comes the first ever vinyl release of Ackamoor's debut avant-garde / Afro-jazz recordings from 1971 with The Collective entitled 'Idrissa's Dream.' Released via Strut Records on double 12" LP and digital formats on November 4th 2022, 'Idrissa's Dream' is exactly what the title implies - dreamy and...

24-HOUR DRONE is an immersive experience featuring musicians and sound artists experimenting within the spectrum of drone. Together, they create 24 hours of unbroken, uninterrupted sound. The event blurs the line between artist and attendee to create transcendence through communal experience.  Happening in-person for the first time...

Dreamcrusher, the project of multidisciplinary artist Luwayne Glass, performed live at Le Guess Who? 2022 as part of the program curated by clipping. You can now listen to his performance below, released via Dreamcrusher for Bandcamp Friday.  Live at Le Guess Who? 2022 by DREAMCRUSHER AboutDreamcrusher began on Kansas-born, New Yor...

Mourning [A] BLKstar performed live on the opening night of Le Guess Who?'s 15th Anniversary Edition in 2022. The collective, made up of musicians, writers, and multimedia artists, has a bountiful track record, amassing several releases under its belt since 2015. Their music is for both eulogies and revolutions, as they expand upon contem...

Founded in 1981, pioneering dub-reggae ensemble African Head Charge has gone on to achieve cult status with epic live shows and 13 albums under their belt. Now, the group returns to On-U Sound with A Trip To Bolgatanga, their first new album in twelve years.  A Trip To Bolgatanga is described as a musical journey to founding member,...

Born in Lusaka, Zambia, rapper and producer Backxwash's work is based in the horrorcore, hip-hop and industrial metal genres, and includes a culmination of themes around the intersection between faith, identity, and queerness. In April, the magnificent Roadburn Festival in Tilburg hosted Backxwash's European live debut with two special s...

COSMOS was born out of Le Guess Who?’s mission to platform adventurous sounds that have the power to enrich lives. It’s a hub for experimentation and inspiration, and an ever-expanding network of creative minds. Through films, interviews, performances, and artist residencies, COSMOS connects international music communities and...

Every first Monday of the month, COSMOS broadcasts episodes of their radio show on Refuge Worldwide, highlighting their deep-running network of partners from around the world. On Monday, 2 September, from 4-6 PM, COSMOS returns with two new episodes. Buh Records The first hour is curated by Peruvian avant-garde stalwarts Buh Records who...

U?, the freely accessible city program of Le Guess Who?, celebrates local and creative communities based in the Netherlands, with a strong focus on Utrecht. U? 2024 includes music, workshops, films, exhibitions, shared meals, discussions, and much more, spotlighting the diversity of the creativity from Utrecht and beyond. Now that the fu...

Ever since 1982, The Wire stands out as one of the best independent, in-depth print and online music magazines. The Wire celebrates and interrogates the most visionary and inspiring, subversive and radical, marginalized and undervalued musicians on the planet, past and present.  Leading up to Le Guess Who? 2024 we're very honored to...

Each year, Le Guess Who? invites trailblazing creatives to curate their own dedicated programs, highlighting their inspirations, emerging acts and fellow like-minded artists, with an emphasis on discovery and exploration.Three years after her last Le Guess Who? performance, Brooklyn-based singer, composer, and producer Arooj Aftab is back...

From Rio to Cairo, Miami to Kampala, Chromesthesia tracks Afro-diasporic rhythms and explores the history that undergirds Afro-descendant electronic music. At Le Guess Who? 2024, British-Egyptian award-winning social and intellectual historian Hannah Elsisi presented the 13-hour durational performance of Chromesthesia. Our residential ph...

Kahil El'Zabar Ethnic Heritage Ensemble celebrated their 50th anniversary on the opening night of Le Guess Who? 2024, commemorating half a century of continuously shifting gears and tempos in the jazz-blues continuum. Listen to, and relive, the full performance below.  The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble was founded by El’Zabar in...

Meshell Ndegeocello is a true multitalented and multifaceted artist: singer-songwriter, rapper, bassist, collaborator, GRAMMY-winner, neo-soul movement igniter. Yet, even when sinking seamlessly into each one of her many roles, she has always worn her artistry and identity as a proud Black queer woman on her sleeve.  You can now rel...

During Le Guess Who? 2024, we witnessed the magic of legendary Cumbia and Gaita ensemble Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto, thanks to festival curator Mabe Fratti who invited them to Utrecht. Dubbed "the authentic masters of traditional Colombian Music" by the New Yorker, Latin GRAMMY-winning Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto have toured the world f...

As every year, an important part of the Le Guess Who? program is about making new discoveries; experiencing new sounds and artists that might become new personal favorites in the future. To help you e...

Tampa's They Hate Change is a project born out of the duo's more-than-encyclopedic sonic knowledge. In between East Coast hip-hop influences and hyperlocal bass-music leanings, Dre and Vonne bond over their omnivorous appreciation of everything from grime to emo. The duo recently released their new album 'Finally, New' via Jagjaguwar to...

Every week, we’ll bring you a must-hear track from the Le Guess Who? 2018 line-up. This week, it's the new age & folk-jazz pioneer who has been curated by Devendra Banhart as well as Moor Mo...

Norwegian singer, producer, novel writer and Le Guess Who? 2019 curator Jenny Hval has released a new song called 'High Alice'. It is taken from her upcoming album 'The Practice of Love', which will be released in September. In a statement accompanying the release of the song, Hval says that 'High Alice' felt like the narra...

Filled with whimsical forays into glossed up afro-funk, psychedelic disco and sprawling electronics, New Zealand's Orchestra Of Spheres have released their new, bewildering album 'Mirror' via Fire Records. Opening with the almost-ten-minute-long title track, their album is a mainly instrumental exploration of energies and atmospheres...

Today, Lauren Laverne on BBC6 Music premiered Liars' new track 'Cred Woes'. The song is taken from their new album 'TFCF', which will be released 25th August on Mute. Listen below.&nbsp...

The originator of footwork music and one of Chicago’s finest producers RP Boo will release his new album ‘I’ll Tell You What!’ on 6 July via Planet Mu. Leading up to his new LP...

Following the announcements of the curated programs by Fatoumata Diawara, Iris van Herpen & Salvador Breed, Jenny Hval, Moon Duo, Patrick Higgins, and The Bug, we are now proud to reveal the full program for Le Guess Who? 2019. New additions include the premiere of AEAEA (Patrick Higgins & Nicolas Jaar), Aldous Harding, Deerh...

Flore Laurentienne announces the release of his new album 'Volume II' and shares the first single 'Navigation IV'. With this single, the composer reveals the mood and concept of the new album. Flore Laurentienne is the project of Canada-based composer Mathieu David Gagnon. His score-like string compositions meet analog synthesizers in an...

Mount Eerie has announced the release of '(after)', a new live album recorded live at Le Guess Who? 2017. The performance was curated by Perfume Genius for the festival, and took place at the Jacobike...

Drummer extraordinaire Greg Fox's new album 'The Gradual Progression' is released today. His rapid fire, blistering playing style is a true force of nature, and Fox’s unique take on his instrume...

Let's cut that wedding cake. Liars' new album 'TFCF' is out today, and you can stream it in full via the embed below. As Angus Andrew previously said about the album: "My favourite feeling is goi...

Following the release of her acclaimed album 'Modern Kosmology' earlier this year, Manchester figurehead Jane Weaver new announces her new EP 'The Architect', featuring the title track (stream be...

Following the release of new EP 'Threshold of Faith' last week, Australian-born, Iceland-based composer Ben Frost now announces his new album. 'The Centre Cannot Hold' will be released via M...

Yves Tumor is one of the most mysterious and gripping experimental musicians to emerge in recent memory. Watch his new video for 'Broke In' below, from his latest 'Serpent Music' LP. In an interview w...

Drummer extraordinaire Greg Fox just shared a new single called 'Catching an L'. It's a track from his upcoming album 'The Gradual Expression' which will be released in September. "His new LP, The Gr...