Lineup
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...
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...
With their curious mix of infernal free-jazz and post-rock, LOTTO are one of the most inventive groups of the Polish underground. Embracing the minimalist spirit of The Necks, Godspeed You! Black Empe...
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Over the past decade, Malian, Grammy-nominated artist, musician, and actress Fatoumata Diawara has been universally praised as one of Africa’s most trailblazing and outspoken voices. Diawara&rsq...
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 mo...
Location: TivoliVredenburg
Wilhelmusvlug is a contemporary artist whose main focus for the last 15 years has been on monumental light art and video art installations. All My Colours is a light art in...
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...
DJINN, an alliance formed by musicians in Swedish outfits Hills and GOAT, has quickly flourished into a marvel in and of itself. Extracting sonics from the fabric of Alice Coltrane’s astral jazz...
‘FIS’ stands for ‘forever in search’, and in all respects, this is exactly the intent of producer Olly Peryman. The monumental soundscapes of FIS highlight that sense continuit...
Music as Spectral Infrastructure
Black Audio Film Collective’s 1989 film ‘Twilight City’ presents the financial deregulation and spatial restructuring of London in the late 1980s as...
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...
Claron McFadden and Matthew Wright’s Thrift Hybrids exist halfway through sonic and visual domains; the project, presented by The Hague group Ensemble Klang, intends to bridge the gap between pa...
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...
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 formed only a year ago, London four piece Black Midi is storming UK’s underground scene with tremendous and terrifying force. Following a notorious live session at NTS radio - during whic...
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...
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....
Musician Arish Ahmad Khan – better known as King Khan – will read ‘Black Power Tarot’ cards for festival visitors. It’s a series of tarot cards he created with filmmaker...
Cellist and composer Mariel Roberts plays her instrument of choice like an actor performs a scene, completely engrossed and enraptured within the composition’s totality. As both solo performer a...
Please note: in order to attend this film screening on Wednesday 10 November, you can just show your festival ticket at the entrance of Louis Hartlooper Complex.
In this film, Johannesburg record lab...
Farida Mohammad Ali's mastery of the ancient maqam discipline - a lifetime’s pursuit - is truly extraordinary. In execution, this traditional singing technique requires full command of complex m...
[ THUS TIME GOES BY ] is a new durational sound work by Midori Takada, consisting of four parts, created especially for the Jacobikerk and Le Guess Who?.
1 – THUS TIME GOES BY is based on...
In this film, Johannesburg record label Mushroom Hour Half Hour’s rotating SPAZA ensemble takes you on a journey through their creative process as they delve into a new project. SPAZA are a band...
Arsenal is about an ensemble set up in Kampala Uganda by composer/producer Jonathan Uliel Saldanha with three virtuoso young musicians belonging to the Nilotika Cultural Ensemble, a bastion in the def...
Fela Gucci and Desire Marea are on a mission. As performance art duo, FAKA could just as easily be labeled as a cultural movement. With a combination of sound, live performance, literature, video and...
‘The Invaders’ talks about a generation of civil rights activists who originated from Memphis in 1967, consisting of students, Vietnam veterans, musicians and intellectuals who were inspir...
The Violent Magic Orchestra (VMO) is an offshoot of Japan’s brutal orchestra of everything Black, Vampillia. In collaboration with Pete Swanson (ex-Yellow Swans) and French composer Paul R&eacut...
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...
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,...
Jazz collective Irreversible Entanglements came together in the wake of the killing of Akai Gurley by a police officer in 2015. Their sonic poetry, which echoes not only black struggle but also black...
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...
Haley Fohr’s Circuit des Yeux creates an unprecedented deep and rich sound. On Fohr’s latest, acclaimed album Reaching for Indigo, she combines 50s & 60s avant-garde with drone, experi...
Composer, guitarist and producer Patrick Higgins (also a member of New York avant-garde outfit Zs) will perform with string ensemble of the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra. The performance will feature...
The Israel-born, Switzerland-based Omri Ziegele is a self-taught alt sax player, honing his skills in London and at Boston's Berklee College of Music. Ziegele has performed in theatre and with the cir...
Nora Mulder is a renowned Dutch pianist. California-born, Amsterdam-based multi-instrumentalist Mary Oliver performs the violin, viola and Hardanger fiddle in free-spirited fashion as member of Nieuw...
The Graindelavoix ensemble from Antwerp is notorious for their daring and alienating performances that embrace the imperfections of what it means to be human. Now, they presents the four-hour piece &l...
Alexander von Schlippenbach is the founder of the famous free jazz super-ensemble Globe Unity Orchestra, which at different points featured Peter Brötzmann, the late Jaki Liebezeit, Paul Rutherfo...
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...
Quintessential Ethio-groove performer Ayalèw Mesfin has joined forces with the renowned US-based ensemble Debo band for his first European live performance ever, and in truth, few collaboration...
The phenomenal Yat-Kha, a legendary Siberian ensemble led by Albert Kuvezin, has expanded Tuvan folk music and throat singing into a global phenomenon. Kuvezin was also the founder of traditional Tuva...
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...
Here’s a first impression of London four piece ensemble Ill Considered to spark your curiosity: their self-titled LP sounds like free-wheeling jams left on the cutting room floor for Curtis Mayf...
The famous Bulgarian women's choir Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares ('Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices') is comprised of 22 members. Performing in traditional clothing, the varying voices of the cho...
The legendary Sun Ra Arkestra isn’t so much an ensemble as it is an ideology passed on from generation to generation. Founder Sun Ra (visionary pianist, poet, electronica pioneer and composer He...
Vivian Wang is one of the founders and multi-instrumentalists of Singapore-based art rock ensemble The Observatory. After initially honing her skills as a classically trained pianist, Wang approaches...
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...
After initially cutting her teeth with critically-acclaimed drone ensemble Vibracathedral Orchestra, Bridget Hayden’s first solo outing ‘An Indifferent Ocean’ turned a lot of heads w...
Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda’s devotion to spirituality defined the final decades of her life. In 1983, she established the 48-acre Sai Anantam Ashram outside of LA, where she quietly began...
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...
Made up from an ensemble cast of Finish rock musicians – with members hailing from bands like Speedtrap, Maailmanloppu, Perikato, and Kylmä Sota – Kohti Tuhoa is hailed as a...
Milford Graves Full Mantis is a portrait of renowned percussionist Milford Graves, exploring his kaleidoscopic creativity and relentless curiosity. Graves has performed internationally since 1964, bot...
Kamiel Thomas is an indie songwriter and former member of the avant-garde dark rock ensemble GOLD. Kamiel's songs are worthy of arthouse films while also creating a sense of home. Kamiel Thomas i...
De Witte Kunst is a Dutch musical ensemble consisting of multi-instrumentalist Lyckle de Jong and songwriter and singer Koen van Bommel. In their songs they dream about a better world, resulting in a...
A true scion of the experimental noise scene, Lasse Marhaug embodies the term noisenik and then some. The Norwegian artist frequently applies a brutalist heavy metal sensibility to his potent and loud...
This experimental duo, born from members of Dutch dream-pop ensemble Bird On The Wire, has been telling vivid stories with their music since 2017, the year in which they released their debut EP. Altho...
Hailing from the town of Agadez, which is known as “the gateway to the desert”, Etran de L’Aïr capture the pulse of everyday life at weddings, baptisms, political events, outdoo...
The most riveting, template-shifting music often comes from a state of displacement or transience, and the Luxembourg-based, Cape Verde-born ensemble Grupo Pilon is certainly no exception. Founded by...
Like some people collect stamps, Sofia Jernberg collects vocal disciplines. Born in Ethiopia in 1983, the Oslo-based artist mastered myriad styles – from opera singing to pitchless singing &ndas...
Hidden Musics
Female vocal ensemble Isokratisses both uphold and reinterpret one of the world’s oldest remaining folk music traditions: the polyphonic songs of Epirus. Thanks to the vast mounta...
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...
Shabazz Palaces have always drawn inspiration from the heart and human instinct; the Seattle-based hip hop voyagers produce transcendental albums from an intuitive frame of mind. ‘Black Up&rsquo...
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...
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...
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...
When ex- COIL member Drew McDowall decided to revive the group’s 1998 masterpiece ‘Time Machines’ to the present, two decades after its release, the joke was probably not lost on him...
As a live act, Japan’s Vampillia are an anomaly if there ever was one. They embrace and command both eerie silences and punishing volumes of dark oozing noise. It’s no surprise this 11-pie...
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...
This blood pact marries the ink-black, minimal productions of Alessio Natalizia (aka Not Waving and member of Kompakt stalwarts Walls) with the smoke-suffused vocal drawl of alt-rock minstrel Mark Lan...
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,...
Hosted by FACT
A pact made between Justin ‘JK Flesh’ Broadrick and Takeaki ‘Goth-Trad’ Maruyama when they released split-EP ‘Knights Of The Black Table’ resulted i...
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...
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...
Besides being a captivating composer, violinist, and vocalist, Jessica Moss is also a skillful story-teller. Listening to her first solo ventures, one is immediately transported into the icy Montreal...
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...
With Sons of Kemet, sax wizard Shabaka Hutchings takes cues from Afro-Caribbean carnival to contemporary UK grime and hip hop. This is music played with punk drive, the immediacy of club music and rid...
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...
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...
Before our very eyes, the mysterious Yves Tumor suspends set expectations of music and performance into a vortex of sheer disbelief. His unforgettable show at last year’s Le Guess Who? was a bre...
One listen to Duma’s track “Lionsblood” is enough to let us know what this outsider Kenyan project is all about. Martin Khanja and Sam Karugo, figureheads of the flourishing Nairobi...
Hailing from Brixton, vocalist and producer GAIKA developed his own take on the numerous currents of London’s contemporary music scene. With Jamaican and Grenadian roots, GAIKA creates a sonic b...
Dominican producer and multimedia artist Kelman Duran creates a club-situated, tense merger of Afro-Caribbean rhythms. Despite being rooted in the thriving L.A. club circuit, his music doesn’t l...
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...
The Philadelphia-based, noise-infested 700 Bliss is a collaboration between spoken word artist & sonic time-traveler Moor Mother and Discwoman-affiliated producer DJ Haram. Originated during Phill...
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...
Music as Spectral Infrastructure
In Turntable Epistemologies, artist, scholar, writer and DJ Lynnée Denise discusses her research into sound system culture during the rollout of neoliberalism...