Last year, Kevin Martin released his first non-collaborative full-length LP in seven years. 'Fire', brought out into the world via Ninja Tune, is maybe his heftiest yet, and already a landmark in his...

‘Concrete Desert’ is a colossal masterpiece created by The Bug (Kevin Martin) and Earth's Dylan Carlson. On this tandem project, Carlson and Martin plunge into deep sonic abysses, with dro...

Together, the most revered merchant of noise and two of the most resounding voices in grime form an alliance of gritty UK fringe music that simply knows no equal. These three artists will stretch the...

Do you know what total destruction sounds like? It’s sounds like MC/singer Miss Red, aka Sharon Stern, and producer The Bug, alias Kevin Martin, hitting the stage. The Bug’s monstrous, all...

Musician, producer and composer Kevin Richard Martin’s chosen moniker has always been a fitting one. As a defiant experimentalist ceaselessly exploring sonic extremities, contrasts and frictiona...

The Wire is an independent, monthly music magazine celebrating and interrogating the most visionary and inspiring, subversive and radical, marginalised and undervalued musicians on the planet, past an...

Since its inception a decade ago, King Midas Sound’s gloom-ridden transmutations of dub, lover’s rock and ambient music have made an unyielding impression. Producer Kevin Martin (The Bug)...

Japanese artist Hatis Noit’s accomplished range is astonishingly self-taught. Hoit is inspired by everything she can find from Gagaku — Japanese classical music —, Bulgarian and Greg...

Justin Broadrick (Jesu, Goldflesh, Napalm Death) and Kevin Martin (The Bug, King Midas Sound) initially consolidated their mutual love for abrasive noise, dub and industrial as Techno Animal. If that...

The Botanical RevolutionGardens have appealed to our imagination for centuries. We associate them with harmonious bliss, a place to witness the cycle of life and death, a place of contemplation, and a...

In ‘Everybody in The Place: An Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992’ (2018), Jeremy Deller explores the socio-political history and contemporary legacy of the ‘Second Summer of Lo...

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...

Musical selections and conversation with DJ Lynnée DeniseThis session looks at the overlooked genealogies of Black music that shaped the electronic sound of Detroit. Picking up from DJ Lynn&eac...

Musical selections and conversation with Dhanveer Singh Brar and Paul RekretIn this session Dhanveer Singh Brar and Paul Rekret are asked to pick a piece of music in response to a set of remarks that...

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...

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...

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...

‘Promises: Through Congress’ explores visual artist Julie Mehretu’s painting Congress (2003) and the 2021 album by electronic composer and musician Floating Points, jazz titan Pharoa...

Presented by Le Guess Who? & Springhaver The Burial Of Kojo follows the story of Esi, as she recounts her childhood and the tumultuous relationship between her father, Kojo and her uncle, Kwabena...

Presented by Le Guess Who?, Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, No Seat At The Table, BAK - basis voor actuele kunst, Urban Futures Studio (Utrecht University), RAUM “In urban social...

Kelman Duran presents‘To The North II’ is an experimental documentary by Dominican producer, multimedia artist and filmmaker Kelman Duran. It is the follow-up to ‘To The North I&rsqu...

Presented by Le Guess Who? & Springhaver Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story, tells the time-traveling tale of the mystical musician and vocalist - who gave a very rare performan...

The 3-channel video ‘Wajãpi’ follows the saga of the Wajãpi indigenous tribe in the north of Brazil while immersing the viewer in a universe of images that unveils at the rhy...

In partnership with Radio AlharaRadio Alhara presents an unprecedented collaboration between Beirut-based multi-instrumentalist and puppeteer Yara Asmar, electronic musician Sary Moussa, and Bethlehem...

At the centre of The Curse of Smooth Operations stands a proposition: THE MOST DISSATISFYING TECHNOLOGY OF ALL IS THE ONE THAT WORKS. We all know the feeling of dissatisfaction with technology that un...

Outside the Catharijnepoort, where today you’ll find the Smakkelaarsveld, the Ellendigenkerkhof (the churchyard of the wretched) was situated between 1402 and 1664. A burial ground for those who...

In partnership with Radio AlharaRadio Alhara presents an unprecedented collaboration between Beirut-based multi-instrumentalist and puppeteer Yara Asmar, electronic musician Sary Moussa, and Bethlehem...

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 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...

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...

Presented by Le Guess Who? & Springhaver Following the footsteps of Islamic mystics on the Indian subcontinent of Pakistan, the Swiss director Annette Berger managed to document the spiritual eve...

[ 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 1975, family group The Staples Jr. Singers released their first and only album: ‘When Do We Get Paid’ - recorded when the gospel band’s youngest members were in their early teenag...

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...

‘Ongehoorde geluiden’ hands the mic to people who courageously, and sometimes barely, brave daily life in the city of Utrecht. They’ve been homeless for some time and make little or...

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...

Chasing Reels presents; dir. Paul Elliott & Sean Lamberth ‘The Library Music Film’ is a quest for some of the most original, but largely unnoticed music ever recorded. In the document...

Keys of Light is a piano installation for everyone; it allows the audience to co-create the work by playing the piano. Every note that is played creates a pulse of light or visual element th...

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...

Don’t think about the elephant. Don’t think at all.We can only be in this moment. Not thinking.How do we not-do?We do other. Let’s get ourselves to do.The elephant in the room is our...

California, 1970. While the youth engages in the sexual revolution, anti-government protests, and the Vietnam War, a different kind of battle takes place underground. Vet Lauren Gray tracks down magic...

A woman arrives in Lebanon in search of a missing man, whom she met in Iceland a few years ago. Here, the buildings and landscapes still bear the traces of past conflicts, and the missing friend&rsquo...

In the shed of the Ping Pong Club, the former factory for ‘Werktuigen en Spoormaterieel’ - tools and railway equipment, is the home for the annual Wisselspoor Photo Competition. This year'...

New at Museum Speelkok, a museum that houses a phenomenal, unique collection of self-playing musical instruments, is the freely accessible art space, where talented artists can exhibit their music 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Movies That Matter presents “Ladies and gentlemen, you wanna change? Come join us now!” In the powerful, inspiring and eye-opening ‘Mrs. F’, Nigerian theatre director Ifeoma F...

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...

Composer Mario Batkovic is no stranger to praise from the public and the press; his debut self-titled solo album was listed by Rolling Stone among the best avant-garde releases of the year. In 2021, t...

The Late Frique Show, hosted by Arp Frique, is a late night talk show highlighting the music and artists you need to discover in order to grow and glow. The Dutch synth funkster making waves in the in...

‘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...

Tunisian-Belgian artist Ghalia Benali presented her new project ‘Hadret Ishq’, or the Sufi Project, live at Le Guess Who? 2021. The video premiere of the performance can be seen during thi...

Based in Jajouka, Morocco, The Master Musicians are a collective of Jbala Sufi trance makers who are committed to creating a contemporary representation of a century-old musical tradition. Their lates...

The traditional improvisational song of the Northern Algerian Berbers is called achewiq. It is a vehicle for women to express their feelings and deal with disaster—such as the recent forest fire...

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...

Brazilian Funk goes beyond the sound we all know. The different layers that compose the culture enchant everyone who experiences the dance, the places and its surroundings in a constant game of unstop...

Moonwatch plays layered dream indie pop, merging spellbinding melodies with reverb-drenched textures to convey the moods of the night sky. The members of the five-headed band from Utrecht joined force...

Hailing from the small town of Como, Mississippi, this vocal trinity of gospel singers perform their spirituals together with musicians from the Daptone family. Each heartwarming voice has its own set...

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...

Invoking the cosmic spirits of Sun Ra, futuristic three-piece The Comet Is Coming creates an impetuous blend of jazz, afrobeat and electronica. The group turn their intergalactic jazz into a mythologi...

dir. Maris Curran As a prolific artist, musician and lover of Mother Earth, Lonnie Holley treasures the discarded. Nurturing the neglected, he finds healing in the transformative power of art. This s...

In collaboration with Centraal Museum The Colombian ambient producer Lucrecia Dalt composed a commissioned piece for the exhibition De Line Up, which displays a rich overview of the power of drawing...

In 1979, The Raincoats helped shape the timeless notion that punk is what you make it to be—an act of raw expression, not any one sound. Their anarchy was poetic. The group’s debut album &...

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...

In the early 70’s, free-jazz evangelists Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids sprung from the tutelage of the great Cecil Taylor. Drawing furthermore from the vast cosmos of Fela Kuti, Pharaoh Sand...

Many nomadic Tuareg artists channel and preserve the vibrancy of life that was once the everyday in  Mali. Ahmed Ag Kaedy initially set out to do the same, but instead his haunting eight-track LP...

Mo DJ is one of the first artists to successfully integrate Malian music within the electronic mixing spectrum. His journey began as cassette salesman at one of the station roads in Bamako, Mali, moon...

Presented by Le Guess Who? & Springhaver Lutz Gregor’s documentary Mali Blues takes a vivid look at the West-African nation’s rich and diverse musical fabric, following folk star Fato...

Presented by Le Guess Who? & Springhaver The Devil and Daniel Johnston is a stunning portrait of a musical genius who nearly slipped away. Director Jeff Feuerzeig exquisitely depicts a perfect ex...

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...

The Fire Harvest balances beautifully between slow core, country-noir and post-rock. They master the art of dosage, of giving substance to their music in the right way so that tension is preserved. Wh...

The tour if full. You can sign up for the waiting list via this form.Le Guess Who? and Triomf invited nine artists to present their work in the public space of Utrecht during Le Guess Who? 2021....

“I want to make more music,” was the reaction of Japanese composer and musician Ryuichi Sakamoto when he was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014. Not long after his treatment he started m...

‘Vision Of Paradise’ is the thrilling, poetic story of the legendary Lee Scratch Perry, a fairy tale documentary rather than a biography. The film is a mind-blowing encounter with the inve...

Obscure a moment the thinking head, the sovereign eye, the ears of dialogue, the nose of instinct (...) this could create an extraordinary vacancy, an unprecedented brake on the rational injunction in...

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...

Little Blue Nothing is an intimate journey into the world of Irena & Vojtech Havlovi, two low-profile Czech viola players who live in the suburbs of Prague, out of society. The two musicians recor...

‘What do you do when your band has crafted such a unique signature sound and the aim is to maintain things at this superlative level without repeating yourselves?’, asked Christoph Clö...

London-based blues outsider Jonny Halifax summons swamp blues, cosmic jazz, and more for this year's consciousness-expanding 'Acid Blüüs Räägs : Vol. 1'. It might not be a coincide...

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...

Two seemingly very different collections meet in Double Act: the monumental video installations by the American Kramlich family on the one hand, and the 17th-century paintings of Centraal Museum on th...

As music and media are so closely connected, we often underestimate the role of the music journalist in the distribution of music. At one point, a portal from obscurity to recognition, music journalis...

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 cultur...

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 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...

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...

Originally from the forests of a mountainous region in East Bohemia in Czech Republic, Please The Trees is grounded in the psychedelic riffs and motorik beats of krautrock, striking out with mesmerizi...

Hidden Musics Lakha Khan is a living legend of Rajasthani folk music. As the undisputed master of the sindhi sarangi, Khan is one of the last remaining Manganiyars to have honed this complex instrume...

The story of Somalia’s legendary Dur-Dur Band is one of regrouping and resilience. In the 80s, their vibrant Somali funk music embedded the nightlife of the capital of Mogadishu. Since dictator...

Gyedu-Blay Ambolley is the true originator of simigwa-do, a Ghanaian fusion of afro funk, soul and jazz. His work with the Uhuru Dance Band and the The Apagya Show Band (the latter with one-time mento...

Throughout her chronicle of life, it’s easy to understand how Vivien Goldman earned the title ‘Punk Professor’. In the 70s, Goldman wasn’t simply satisfied standing on the side...

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...

Hidden Musics Christopher C. King’s relationship with the folk traditions of Epirus, a mountain region connecting Greece with the southern parts of Albania, occupies a special place in his hear...

In their four-decade career, The Ex have experimented with countless styles and ideas. They are revered by many of their guitar-wielding peers, notably Sonic Youth, Tortoise, and Steve Albini. But the...

Taking his name from a spot near to his heart and home, Phil Elverum of Mount Eerie and The Microphones makes music heavily imbued with that foggy green mood of Washington state. But far from limiting...

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...

2019 was quite a different year for ethnographic label Ored Recordings. Instead of setting out on expeditions throughout the frozen Caucasus mountains on a quest to collect traditional music from the...

Wanderwelle & Floor van het Nederend present their debut graphic novel ‘De Duizendpoot’ (The Millipede). The Wanderwelle duo is known for their electro-acoustic compositions and more....

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...

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...

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...

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...

Danseruna is an experience happening for the past 4 years in the south of France, in the small village of Capestang. Born from the desire to merge various dance languages, mostly traditional folk danc...

U? is Le Guess Who? participatory and freely accessible day program created for and with the city of Utrecht. During U?, programs are made with, or even fully by, local initiatives, entrepreneurs, soc...

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...

Alison Cotton's 2022 album 'The Portrait You Painted of Me' - her first for Rocket Recordings - eerily coalesces the viola, the harmonium, and the human voice, to conjure a rich and dark matter of son...

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 cultur...

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...

In 2021, Kenyan sound artist Joseph Kamaru (KMRU) and French digital alchemist Niamké Désiré (Aho Ssan), were invited by Berlin Atonal to collaborate on a project for the festival...

Idris Ackamoor has revived his legendary afro-jazz band The Pyramids before, but never quite like this. The epoch bringing them back for a new tour (to commence at Le Guess Who?) is one worth an epic...

Noori's musical journey began far before Ostinato Records scouted his mysterious band in late 2021. In the nineties, the then eighteen-year-old came across a guitar neck in Port Sudan. Forging it with...

After performing at the festival with her band, Grup Simsek, in 2017, this Hamburg-based singer and multi-instrumentalist is returning to Le Guess Who? on her own, making Anatolian folk the focus of h...

Raised in the small German town of Weilheim, Markus and Micha Acher were brought up surrounded by music, performing alongside their father in the New Orleans Dixie Stompers. But, through the catalogs...

Cirkel om de Haard is an initiative started by Avan Omar, Ali Authman and a group of Kurdish musicians – most of whom live in Overvecht. At this concert Ali Authman plays the violin and the viol...

Jota Ortiz is a collector, selector and musician from Panama. He has been roaming his hot and humid homeland for the past 10 years searching for lost gems on vinyl to preserve for future generations....

The 22 year old producer, vocalist, and artistic director IGOR began behind a computer screen in his attic room at the farm, where the internet was his introduction to the outside world. The utopian f...

Dutch artist Marijke van Warmerdam spent an extended time in Rome from 2017. During this period she recorded the city in her typical way, resulting in a series of films in which the present, the past...

Straight / Wandering is a sound installation specially created by composer, sound artist, live performer and sound engineer Renato Fiorito, and architect and Post-Doc researcher Chiara Mazzarella, for...

Via therapeutic frequencies, forest bathing, and binaural sound, Hinako Omori's solo work is more akin to immersive cartography of the mind in ambient tradition than a plain recording. The Yokohama-bo...

Born in the US, Sarathy Korwar grew up in Ahmedabad and Chennai in India. He began playing tabla aged 10, but was also drawn to the American music that he heard on the radio and leaking through the do...

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...

Lili Boulanger (1893) is a unique and prodigious case studies in music history, taking up singing, organ, piano, violin, cello and harp at the premature age of five. In 1913, she became the first woma...

Liu Fang is known for her virtuosic and expressive interpretation of traditional pipa and guzheng music from China’s classical and folkloric traditions. Celebrated as being one of the greatest v...

Born and bred in the isolated, outstretched emptiness that's the Mojave desert, The Soft Moon’s Luis Vasquez projects equally desolate imagery to voice his darkest fears. Each album peels away a...

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...

The Star Pillow is a drone/ambient moniker of Italian guitar impressionist Paolo Monti. Monti's craft is mainly informed by his research on the relation between sound, space and human emotion. On stag...

In Utrecht’s suburb Lombok, you're immediately welcomed by Turkish and Moroccan grocery stores, bakeries, the smell of kebab, and huge piles of colorful fruits sold in the streets. The impressiv...

The audio-visual happening of Jerusalem In My Heart has roots in both Montréal and Beirut, also combining the best of both worlds. Figurehead Radwan Ghazi Moumneh has been nursing the craft of...

An intimate portrait of the circumstances surrounding the creation of Jerusalem In My Heart’s live recording of “Wa Ta’atalat Loughat Al Kalam” (The language of speech has brok...

RVNG Intl. presents; dir. Tony Lowe ‘ICON EYE’ is RVNG Intl.’s first film production, about the making of the FRKWYS recording ‘Icon Give Thanks’. The film evokes a feel...

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...

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...

Angel Bat Dawid’s first album ‘The Oracle’ provides a new radical benchmark for contemporary jazz music, capturing a unique mystique within its economical recording methods. Meditati...

Naming a band after something concise and universal seems to naturally generate some of the most physically punishing music in existence. If Sunn O))) and Sleep are part of a three-headed beast of &ld...

When Girl Band prowl the stage, you’d best prepare for a barb-wired wallop of first class agit-rock. This Irish wrecking crew has become one of the most fearsome live units of the decade thanks...

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...

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...

The Sweet Release Of Death triumph over doom-and-gloom with a pinch of dark humor and a penchant for stretching guitar-based music’s outer peripheries. The group forms a maelstrom of ear-splitti...

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....

DJ Quesadilla and DJ Fitz, two swashbuckling archeologists of music who habitually turn dancefloors all over the world into journeys of sweet sonic oblivion. The former is one of the most prominent fi...

In cooperation with Utrecht Early Music Festival Olga Pashchenko, one of the world’s most accomplished piano and keyboard virtuosos, will bring a unique take on one of the most famous horror so...

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...

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)...

Presented by BAK - basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht Trainings for the Not-Yet is a project convened by artist Jeanne van Heeswijk and BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, in collaboration with many other...

Presented by IMPAKT - Centre for Media Culture The Sound Of One Computer Thinking invokes a paradox or question that is essentially unanswerable. Are love, death or humour uniquely human or biologica...

Presented by Le Guess Who? & Utrecht University In the wake of his recently published fifth book ‘Silenced by Sound: the Music Meritocracy Myth’ and driven by his ongoing field-record...

Presented by Le Guess Who? & Springhaver, hosted by John Doran (The Quietus) Hream follows the 25+ year career male nurse and adult music student Doug Hream Blunt as he embarks on a world tour, p...

Stella Chiweshe, The Queen of Mbira, broke new ground by becoming the first artist to successfully combine the mbira with the marimba. She took up the homegrown instrument back in 1964, originally use...

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 cult album Faust IV was the fourth studio album released by the German krautrock group in 1973. Listed in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, where it is referred to as a "krautrock...

Music as Spectral Infrastructure India Tapes (1969-1972), the opening session of ‘Music as Spectral Infrastructure’, explores the life and afterlife of early experiments in electronic mus...

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...

‘Pep Navigates’ is a short film accompanying the reissue of Valencian ambient composer Pep Llopis’ 1987 record ‘Poiemusia La Nau Dels Argonautes’. The album of minimalism...

“It’s not about the stories you know, it’s about the stories you don't know.” Reports from Other Continents is a platform for people to tell their own story. After the overwhe...

The documentary 'Before Wisdom' follows the journey of Pink Oculus, the alter ego of Amsterdam based artist and producer Esperanza Denswil, in presenting her debut album 'Before Wisdom' at the Le Gues...

The audio-visual happening of Jerusalem In My Heart has roots in both Montréal and Beirut, also combining the best of both worlds. Figurehead Radwan Ghazi Moumneh has been nursing the craft of...

Le Guess Who? curator collective CURL is made up of sonic eccentrics Mica Levi, Brother May, and Coby Sey, among others. A tightly-knit community of artists and musicians from the London underground,...

Congolese-born, Montreal-based musician, songwriter, and leading force of the collective Moonshine, Pierre Kwenders sketches memories and visions by singing and rapping in Lingala, French, English, Ts...

Swedish trio OCH is unafraid to tumble headlong into the darkness. Fearlessly embracing space rock's natural void (a frictionless slide into the vacuum, without so much as a handle to pull yourself ba...

Masayoshi Fujita trained extensively on the vibraphone before seeking out novel possibilities for it. The Hyogo-based Japanese composer has reinvented the instrument, adorning it with beads, foil, and...

Leading the Latinx-infused club music coming out of the UK is Marissa Malik, best known by her stage name Manuka Honey. The boisterous London DJ has been showcasing her brand of beautiful chaos all ov...

In partnership with Sonido ConfirmacionMEXPOSURE, a simulation of a pirate television signal disguised as an institutional TV channel, is a place where independent artists come to find a space to expr...

Repetition, repetition, repetition; these three 'r's are paramount to multi-instrumentalist Daniel Foggin's project Smote. Despite only bursting onto the scene in the hazy times of early quarantine, t...

Grit is something Lisbon-based Maria Reis has in spades, which captured the attention of Animal Collective’s Panda Bear. After the success of Pega Monstro, the punk band created with sister J&ua...

As a wind of change blows through Kinshasa - an alternative cultural scene that escapes the restrictive category of ‘world music’ -, the sound of the KOKOKO! project is heard in the air. B...

‘The leading light of the new generation of Brazilian songwriters’, ‘music of nowhere and everywhere’, ‘brilliant’ - everybody from no-wave icon Arto Lindsay, The N...

Following a stellar performance last year, Alabaster DePlume was an undeniable invitee to Le Guess Who?'s anniversary edition. This time, he too is celebrating - in his case, the release of this year'...

Innovative hip hop artist Ido Hoogendoorn is working hard to become a pioneer in the next rap generation.  His style is intense, intriguing, melancholic and sometimes on the dark side. His lyrics...

It doesn't matter whether you are musical or not, everyone can make tones in the Sound Garden. One day they just started building an interactive music machine. They have one limitation: all instrument...

On the quays at De Nijverheid you will find the annually renewed open-air art exhibition KunstKoers. Prick up your ears as you wander along the art works, so you won’t miss out on composer and s...

At De Havenloods you’ll be able to visit an art exhibition made for the Le Guess Who? Education Program. The exhibition features work made by five classes from three high schools from Utrecht: X...

Very few preserve the tradition of the tonkori; Oki Kano, or OKI, is one of the few surviving players of this five-string harp, performed by the indigenous Japanese Ainu people. Kano revives and reinv...

Finish off your U? journey with Ping Pong Club's all-day Sunday event. Visit one of Utrecht's last bars in the iconic train maintenance buildings around the city. They will have some of their local se...

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 w...

Utrecht's beloved independent print workshop, Kapitaal, collaborates with Stranded FM and Julian Brimmers to host the official Le Guess Who? 2022 Hangout through all things print and sound. The progra...

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 w...

In partnership with Sonido ConfirmacionMEXPOSURE, a simulation of a pirate television signal disguised as an institutional TV channel, is a place where independent artists come to find a space to expr...

Few contemporary rock bands inspire as much mystery as Swedish fusion group Goat. The collective boasts a ghostly presence on the music scene, preferring to move outside the public consciousness - to...

At last year's Le Guess Who?, British jazz stalwart Shabaka Hutchings performed with free jazz futurists The Comet Is Coming. This time around, Hutchings seeks out ghosts of the past with his South Af...

The incomparable Instant Composers Pool Orchestra are like the Jedi Knights of improvisation: a collective of musical marvels hacking the conventions of their individual instruments, setting an arena...

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...

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...

India-born, The Netherlands-based sitar player Surajit Das is a savant in the canon and exploration of Indian Classical Music, having studied under Kashinath Mukerjee and vocalist Chinmoy Lahere. Mast...

The slinky, cinematic music of Midnight Sister is brought to you by the isolating landscape of the San Fernando Valley — its colors, its diners, its lunatics, its neon lights. The duo of Juliana...

Alanis Obomsawin is a renowned filmmaker and visual artist. Before she released her album 'Bush Lady', which she will perform in full for the first time at our festival, she made Incident at Restigouc...

Islam Chipsy’s hyperactive keyboard mashing and drum duo EEK’s chaotic bliss rev up crowds into utter frenzy. This mighty Egyptian alliance is without question one of the most rowdy live a...

Hailing from Amsterdam, The Mauskovic Dance Band is a brainchild of producer and multi-instrumentalist Nic Niggebrugge, a.k.a Nicola Mauskovic. After years of playing drums for bands like Jacco Gardne...

Renowned for her extraordinary vocal range, The Chicago Reader described Maja S. K. Ratkje as “one of the most astonishing singers on the planet.” Even more of an accomplishment when you t...

The ‘Orchestre de Nouvelles Créations, Expérimentations et Improvisations Musicales’ (ONCEIM) is an orchestra of 34 musicians dedicated to the art of creation and experimenta...

The Avonden is the brainchild of prolific Dutch musician and visual artist Marc van der Holst (ex-Hospital Bombers and Spilt Milk). Debut LP ‘Nachtschade’, issued on Subroutine Records, ta...

Hidden among the rabble-rousing tourists and historic canals, Red Light Radio (RLR) is an online seminal DIY radio booth squat and international music platform based in the middle of Amsterdam’s...

Cycle or walk through Utrecht suburb Lombok's main street, and you're immediately welcomed by Turkish and Moroccan grocery stores, bakeries, the smell of kebab, and huge piles of colorful fruits sold...

As a spin-off festival of Le Guess Who?, Le Mini Who? transforms many of Utrecht’s local bars, restaurants, venues and warehouses into improvised venues for (mainly) Dutch underground bands to p...

In collaboration with Future Feminism New York-based performance artists Kembra Pfahler and Johanna Constantine call for the emergence of a feminine collective consciousness with their project Future...

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...

Fashion designer Iris van Herpen and sound artist Salvador Breed curate a lineup of artists and performances symbolizing their highly intertwined aesthetics, developed over years of collaborating on n...

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...

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...

During this decade, Atlanta art-punkers Deerhunter have further established themselves as one of the finest bands alive, consolidating an unmistakable sound with restless reinvention. The electronic-d...

YĪN YĪN is a jam-packed romp of South East Asian psych pop, funk, disco grooves and electronic music. The project was conceived by Kees Berkers and Yves Lennertz, two familiar faces in the Maastricht...

Priscilla Telmon & Vincent Moon are a collaborating multidisciplinary artist duo working as independent filmmakers and sound-explorers. Together they produce ethnographic experimental films and mu...

Adrift somewhere in purgatory between Syd Barrett and Robert Wyatt, the immense spacious beauty of Ed Dowie’s debut LP ‘The Uncle Sold’ can’t be overstated enough. Drawing insp...

The “demonic” and “physical” shows of this feisty Flemish couple are well-documented, ruthlessly steamrolling onlookers like some indomitable force of nature. The Glücks b...

Presented by Le Guess Who? & Fotodok & Casco Art Institute Being born and raised on the island of Curaçao, the work of Kevin Osepa (1994) revolves around his identity and the identity...

Presented by Le Guess Who? & Springhaver Franco Rosso’s Babylon had its world premiere at Cannes in 1980 but was deemed “too controversial, and likely to incite racial tension”...

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...

‘Rakka II’ is the follow-up to Sasu Ripatti’s 2020 escapade as alter-ego Vladislav Delay, ‘Rakka’. However, its latest incarnation is not to be seen as a mere sequel, but...

Berlin-based, Spanish-born musician Adrián de Alfonso has collaborated with names like Lydia Lunch, El Guincho and Le Guess Who? curator Lucrecia Dalt. However, it is on his own that...

Automatic is a fairly recent Stones Throw export, and the positive attention captured by their debut, 2019’s ‘Signals’, prove they are a successful gamble for the left-field label. T...

According to the band itself, it was a ‘common misinterpretation of psychosis’ that led Ice Balloons to start making music. The Brooklyn-based noise/rock band features Sean Kennerly (Samia...

No one does softness - so gentle it brushes moving – like Ichiko Aoba. The Japanese singer has been a staple of the country’s acoustic folk scene since her debut ‘Kamisori Otome...

‘Erratic Weather’, the digital art project of French digital artist Mathieu Le Sourd (Maotik) and Dutch cellist, composer and producer Maarten Vos, is a sonic picture of the chaos of clima...

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...

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...

Take a tour around the Ulu Mosque in Lombok. This is one of the biggest mosques in the Netherlands, and possibly also one of the most striking ones. When your train pulls into Utrecht Central Station...

Even if Neptunian Maximalism, also known as NNMM, are more of a sparse community of ‘multi occultural engineers’ than a band per se, their mission is crystal clear; to explore the evolutio...

Lubomyr Melnyk doesn’t like being called a composer; ‘I don’t know what I am’, he says. But the seasoned Ukrainian pianist certainly brought something novel to the instrument,...

Movies That Matter presents Memory House is the mesmerizing, carefully composed debut of director João Paulo Miranda Maria that follows Cristovam living in the poor, rural north of Brazil. Whe...

Oki Kano’s (A.K.A OKI)’s identity, as a part of Japan’s northernmost indigenous people, is central to his person and his art - as he says: ‘I might travel on a Japanese passpor...

In the small inland town of São Domingos on Cape Verde's Santiago Island, The Ano Nobo Quartet delivers a fresh take on Koladera, a guitar-driven, subtly rhythmic sound of a lighter spirit. The...

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...

Phoenix rap trio Injury Reserve’s momentum, fostered through their eponymous 2019 record, was put on hold in 2020 when rapper and member Stepa J. Groggs tragically passed away. In 2021, rapper R...

Dean Blunt’s label World Music’s output is often shrouded in mystery - much like the founders themselves. When it comes to their 2021 release ‘Quarrel’, put out under the name...

For a decade and a half, Mary Ocher has been weaving thought-provoking and often challenging art concerning authority, identity, and conflict. The artist's musical output encompasses everything from t...

Last year, Istanbul-based beatmaker Grup Ses returned with their first fully instrumental work since 2011's much-coveted 'Beats and Pieces from Turkish Psychedelia'. In 'Beats From the Vaults (2008-20...

Diverse musical approaches, tools, and histories come together in the repertoire of Iztok Koren, Samo Kutin, and Ana Kravanja. This Slovenian trio's work as Širom is inhabited with one-off imag...

As Bong-Ra, Jason Kohnen fuses monolith sub-frequencies, jazz percussion, wailing saxophones, and ritualistic chants. All of these can be heard on his second Tartarus Records release, this year's 'Med...

Known for the whisper-like tenderness of her music, Scottish songwriter Joanne Robertson has cemented her place in the femme-folk tradition with a series of solo records - the most recent of which bei...

Growing up, Maria BC found peace in solitude. Their liking of seclusion translates into their spectral sound. The Ohio-born, Oakland, CA-based artist cites poet Louise Gluck as an inspiration behind t...

Late last year, Dutch four-piece band PNEM unveiled the first chapter of a two-part homage to the systems that keep our day-night cycles in check, 'Circadian Rhythms'. This spring, the part krautrock,...

Coral City Flourotour documents the highly fluorescent corals living near the Coral City Camera site at PortMiami in Miami, Florida. These urban corals are not just survivors, but pioneers who have se...

Spain’s history can be heard in Lole Montoya’s voice. Uncontained by the categories of ‘singer’ or ‘cantaora’, she emotionally discharges her spirit with unseen cou...

Malian singer Oumou Sangaré has become a global legend. Her voice has toted some of the most celebrated titles in contemporary African music, and she has taken on prestigious stages such as the...

Álvaro Romero is William Burroughs in the middle of a flamenco rave; Pedro da Linha is Lisbon’s well kept secret, bubbling beneath the city's cobblestones. Through their 2022 collaboratio...

Asmae Amaddaou shares her keen yet velvety soft observations and experiences from her book ‘De wereld is van ons’. For the book, the 20-year-old Gouda-based, Moroccan-born writer drew from...

The Utrecht based Onegg is a synthesizer collective led by twins Ewa and Marysia Saras, with band member Mariette Huls by their side. The band produces hauntological, synth based electronica. Melody a...

An instrumental post-rock project by English musician Pete Barnes. Having toyed with the idea of writing atmospheric instrumental music for a while, Barnes was left bedridden following a serious cycli...

“Unfamiliar” sounds, from “unknown” parts of the world. Exoticizing entire cultures from a global North perspective, such are the traditional descriptors attached to so much of...

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...

Grouper, the moniker of Liz Harris, continues to bewilder with the most basic resources: a voice, one instrument and the ambience of her surroundings. Her sparse compositions occupy an intimate space...

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...

Over the span of two albums, the dynamic of pedal steel player Heather Leigh and brass/woodwind maestro Peter Brötzmann has become truly transcending: a continually evolving high-energy exchange...

Margaret Chardiet doesn't need to change costumes to completely transform on stage. As Pharmakon, she creates an echo chamber of monstrous proportions, making Pharmakon one of the heaviest and most di...

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...

As we struggle to keep up with a world enwrapped in digital technology, its influence on art and communication is often dismissed as harmful. Spencer Doran and Ryan Carlile's ambient project Visible C...

Phil Elverum's latest Mount Eerie album ‘A Crow Looked At Me’ opens with the words "Death is real/someone's there and then they're not". The album is a deeply personal document of grief, h...

It's kind of funny how one of Mario Batkovic's most well-known pieces is called Restrictus, as ‘restricting’ is quite the opposite of his enthralling mastery of the accordion. The Switzerl...

Fhloston Paradigm is one of the many groundbreaking excursions of renowned Philly producer, musician and DJ King Britt. Hyperdub debut ‘The Phoenix’ and this year’s follow-up ‘...

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...

La Double Vie de Véronique is a story of two women that go by the same name and share the same hopes and dreams, even though the one lives in Poland and the other in France. Unaware of the exis...

Six standalone stories are featured in this film, which are united by a common theme of violence and vengeance. Director Damián Szifrón takes the idea of human behavior of people in dist...

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...

New York musician/composer Lea Bertucci threads the needle between the physical and abstract. The soothing movements she creates with alto saxophone, electronics and bass clarinet interact with device...

“The Jimi Hendrix Of Africa” Sekou Kouyate is a renowned Kora-player, a free radical with one leg planted into the tradition of his homeland Guinea. The other travels out and about into mo...

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...

Nicole Mitchell, the former first female president of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), is an award-winning flutist, composer, poet and educator. Invoked by...

As a transgender, Katey Red was one of the first openly gay artists within the masculine bounce hip hop-scene. Red became known for her rapid, machine gun-like beats and her explicit, gender fluid lyr...

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...

We welcome 69-year-old Kadri Gopalnath, saxophone maestro and pioneer from India. Gopalnath’s life’s work is to incorporate the woodwind instrument into the classic South Indian Carnatic m...

Rock ‘n Roll revolutionary and punk veteran Ian Svenonius is back in town. The mythical performer, author, and filmmaker is currently taking the world by storm with his solo project Escape-Ism....

New York-based musician Martin Bisi is hailed as iconic producer who defined the sound of New York noise. This year’s release ‘BC35’ celebrates the 35-year Anniversary his of BC Stud...

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...

Yonatan Gat became known as a member of revolutionary Israeli punk band Monotonix, as well as an acclaimed recording artist. After powwow drum group the Eastern Medicine Singers initially turned down...

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...

Please note: limited capacity, sign up (between 5-7 November) via bit.ly/lgwlonnie Since 1979, Lonnie Holley has devoted his life to the practice of improvisational creativity through drawing, painti...

RVNG Intl. presents; dir. Misha Hollenbach & Johann Rashid ‘Sunshine Soup’ is a documentary about the making of the FRKWYS recording ‘We Know Each Other Somehow’ by Robert...

Cate Le Bon, Tim Presley & H. Hawkline present Cate Le Bon and Tim Presley form the musical duo DRINKS, but also practice other arts and crafts as a means to enter a different headspace. Together...

Curated by Shabaka Hutchings; dir. Marc Levin ‘SLAM’ is an 1998 independent film starring actor, screenwriter, noise poet and hip hop futurist Saul Williams. The film tells the story of R...

For eclectic London-based group The Heliocentrics, musical boundaries are invisible. This collective has the ability to fluently string together a broad spectrum of genres, including jazz, hip-hop, ps...

While the festival’s numerous performances spread all over the city of Utrecht, there will be one moment we all come together, and that is at the afterparty. The line-up will feature dub-king Ke...

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...

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...

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...

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...

The power of the imagination is arguably the greatest during youth, and Oslo-based collective DNA? AND? bring this notion into play in the most remarkable fashion. Comprised of special needs children...

The Chilean colossus known as Föllakzoid, are clerics of both the cosmic heritage of Can and the more progressive electronics. The trio are no longer bound by concept or narrative on their latest...

One famous sci-fi film once sported the tagline ‘in space no one can hear you scream’, but Prison Religion put that hypothesis to the test and then some. This Richmond, Virginia-based coll...

Overviewing the impulsive career of Asha Puthli, it’s dizzying how one individual can encapsulate such a ridiculous range of juxtapositions. Puthli’s notoriety really depends on who you as...

Flaunting an impressive resume of bands (notably as singer/guitarist of trance-rock cosmonauts Spacemen3) and production credits (Panda Bear, MGMT, Beach House), Pete Kember’s genius has now spa...

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...

As Yves Jarvis, Jean-Sebastian Audet’s gauzy post-R&B vignettes are driven by color, both as a visual and thematic component. His 2017 album ‘Good Will Come To You’ (released und...

With a super contagious cocktail of Afrobeat, disco and funk, Arp Frique is the past, present and future scrambled together in one groovy, bright-lit musical skirmish. The Dutch producer’s new l...

Felix Manuel’s ears are attuned to the spontaneity of jazz while his production chops create original compositions out of a wellspring of samples, textures and beats. Manuel’s extraordinar...

Named after a Yoruba deity, OSHUN preaches spirituality, rebirth, identity, unity and the blessings of Mother Earth with an Afrofuturistic center of gravity.  The duo of Niambi Sala and Thandiwe...

Xylouris White is firmly rooted in the past and future: a tight alliance between Greek musician and songwriter Georgios Xylouris and drummer Jim White. Xylouris White reconciles not only the tandem&rs...

Porto collective HHY & The Macumbas compose mind-blowing permutations of experimental jazz, dubbed-out noise, and hypnotic African folk. Lead by artist Jonathan Saldanha and a rotating cast of pla...

Russian collective Shortparis is all about tension, friction and disruption, obscuring the boundaries between audiovisual theatre, techno raves and punk rock performance. Whether it’s shattering...

Former Screaming Tea Party-member Koichi Yamanoha was once better known for his scream than his whisper. ‘Hazy Eyes Maybe’, the Japanese-born, London-based musician’s debut LP under...

Presented by SPRING Performing Arts Festival Happiness explores the area where man and artificiality converge, where synthetic substances help us to re-humanise, maxi-humanise or, for a while, abando...

Presented by Centraal Museum Visual artist Eva Spierenburg from Zeist is the winner of the K.F. Hein Stipendium 2018. Physicality is omnipresent in Spierenburg’s work. Whether it is the visuali...

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 place for craftsmanship and de...

Presented by Le Guess Who? & Springhaver The directorial debut from Boots Riley presents an alternate reality of present-day Oakland, California, when telemarketer Cassius Green finds himself in...

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...

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, i...

With over twenty releases under a closely-related variety of names – Orinoka Crash Suite, OCS, Orange County Sound, The Ohsees, The Oh Sees, and Thee Oh Sees, and now just Oh Sees – f...

Japanese composer and percussionist Midori Takada is a true luminary in the world of ambient and experimental music, playing solo, in various groups and theatre productions. In the 1980s and 1990s, Ta...

Like his forbears Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, Sessa casts a beguiling spell over the listener with his sultry, jazz-flavoured folk rock. But there’s a gravitas to Sessa’s music as wel...

Model Home is a hyperprolific experimental hip-hop formation from Washington D.C., instigated by rapper NAPPYNAPPA and producer Pat Cain. The duo recruits an ever-changing cast of collaborators to giv...

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...

It has been speculated how the current environmental crisis we face will inspire musicians, the same way warfare and social justice have. Perhaps no current artist embodies this prediction as heartily...

Although Mairee Sioux grew up with no musical ambition, music came to be the best vessel to fill a cultural void filled by severed connections to her Polish, Hungarian and Native American ancestry. Sh...

This avant-rock group's relationship with Le Guess Who? goes way back; the three-piece Montreal band has played the festival time and time again. This year, it only made sense to mark our return to fo...

The name of this Columbian project means, in Spanish, “suck my finger”. One might wonder if that could be a reference to hallucinogens, since this is decidedly the same state of fever drea...

In 2020, Lyra Pramuk published a picture of her vocal cords on Instagram – a display-case of the force behind her debut album ‘Fountain’, arranged entirely from the sound of her...

Based in London, born in Lagos, Funmi Ohiosumah began calling herself Flohio as a teenager. Nowadays, her self-given alias is synonymous with the harsh, bleak electronic beats that surround her &lsquo...

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...

Equipped with an unorthodox vision of a centuries-old tradition, singer, producer, NTS radio host and engineer Arushi Jain has made waves with her music, which re-imagines North Indian ragas with the...

Kleine Crack is the only Belgian artist signed to Burning Fik. The cult-rapper and his producer-teammate Slagter create ominous hip-hop, set to heavy beats. In their hometown ANNA (Antwerp) they are s...

The Amsterdam-based trio Marathon started out as a psychedelic shoegaze band, until they got a taste of the exuberance of garage punk. This discovery eventually led to the sound that characterises Mar...

Petersburg is one of the most mysterious and unique indie bands in the Netherlands. The band, formerly known as Petersburg Orderer and consisting of Camiel Muiser, Erik van de Paardt, Boris de Klerk (...

The Flare Quartet, with violinists from the Netherlands, Spain and Canada, was founded in 2020 by a group of master students from the Utrecht Conservatoire. They are joining the  Palestinian, Syr...

Brewpub De Kromme Haring is the house brewer of Le Guess Who?. Visit the brewpub and see where the festival beer is made, drink a pint of the LGW Yuzu Pale Ale or try YAYA's non-alcoholic Kombucha. Th...

The Amsterdam-based, but born and raised in Incheon, Korea, Sun-Mi Hong has a unique perspective of life. With a signature of rooted groove in combination with well-tempered outbursts, Sun Mi has plac...

Common Frames and Radio Einstein present Greet & Meet: films, podcasts, photographs, talkshows and art, about and by newcomers from Utrecht and the surrounding region. In the wooden trailer you ca...

As a resident photographer for LGW and a resident of Utrecht, Juri Hiensch has been rediscovering the city of Utrecht. He has captured the unique character of several neighborhoods outside the city ce...

Location: Vredenburgplein Aïda Gómez is an urban artist based in Berlin. Working with language games and the playful replacement of social codes in our everyday environment, she finds a w...

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...

With their latest record ‘Oh Yeah?’, New York free-jazz quartet Sunwatchers released their most accessible & melodic work to date. Their aesthetic is best described through the acknowl...

On a quest for the awakening of true beauty on stage and all around us, Mathieu David Gagnon conjures up in Flore Laurentienne’s chamber music the lushness of vintage film, blossoming spring, an...

Alabama-born, Marseille-based artist and musician Turner Williams Jr. (formerly Ramble Tamble)’s latest record, 2021’s ‘Let It Warp’, was shaped by the thirty-two winds of the...

Jana Rush started DJing in her native Chicago aged only ten. Three years later, she started producing - releasing music with ghetto house pioneer DJ Deeon as ‘DJ Deeon Presents The Youngest Fema...

Rotterdam’s Rats on Rafts’ most recent album, ‘Chapter 3: The Mind Runs A Net Of Rabbit Paths’, is proof of their ambition - and even more so is their one-off performance at Le...

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...

Although musician upsammy and multidisciplinary artist Sjoerd Martens’ A/V performance originated in the Netherlands, it reflects something profoundly universal. Meandering through digital and a...

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...

Vik Sohonie is a Grammy-nominated music producer, writer, storyteller, activist and founder of Ostinato Records, a record label working with historic archives and contemporary acts. He will tell the s...

When describing the cultural shapeshifter Kode9, there is no easy place to begin. A restless sound explorer, Steve Goodman has taken on many roles throughout his career. Not only is he the founder of...

Born to an artist and an architect, German musician and artist Lena Willikens was raised on art; even though she is Amsterdam-bound, her creative impulses have rendered her influence global. Be it pil...

Zachary James Watkins (Black Spirituals) and Ross Peacock (Mwahaha) conjure a new possibility of tone together. Influenced by dub and krautrock, and molded by experimental masters that came before the...

Known for its copper and mines, the second largest city of the Democratic Republic of Congo is also home to DJ P2N (real name Prince Mulowayi) - a restless creative, putting his town in the musical ma...

As The Garbage Man, Liz Harris of Grouper DJ’s odd tunes and scavenged mash-ups of obscure pop, classical, noise, and field recording on vinyl and cassette. This year, she is cordially invited b...

Eco-friendly-Afro-futuristic-punk-assemble would only scrape the surface in describing this artist collective based in the Congolese capital city Kinshasa. In order to understand, one must immerse the...

Following a decade of sonic research, 'Veines', Merakhaazan's second LP, is the France-based artist's vision materialized. Surrounded by an array of influences, ranging from post-rock and jazz to cine...

The future is heard whenever DJ Travella steps into the booth. The nineteen-year-old producer, born Hamadi Hassani, has reinvented the high-speed Tanzanian dance music sound, singeli, by injecting int...

DJ Diaki is Diaki Kone, radio animator and DJ in Sanakoroba, Mali. He is also one of the main figures behind Malian phenomenon 'Balani Show'. This high-energy genre of electronic music emerged in the...

After having spent the past six years recording traditional music and soundscapes across Asia, Oceania, and Africa (as well as releasing them on his label Les Cartes Postales Sonores), Julien Hairon,...

The Amsterdam-based, but born and raised in Incheon, Korea, Sun-Mi Hong has a unique perspective of life. With a signature of rooted groove in combination with well-tempered outbursts, Sun Mi has plac...

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...

Somewhere close to the sounds of trains leaving and entering Utrecht Central Station, you can find the Ping Pong Club. Ping Pong & DJ’s will take place in this industrial former warehouse. P...

‘To carry you from melancholia to utopia’ was how NPR described the effect of Asher Gamedze’s 2020 bandleader debut ‘Dialectic Soul’. Behind the drum set, the Cape Town c...

Cheikha Rabia and Esraa Warda both hail from Algeria, but today, they live in opposite corners of the world. Rabia, a renowned singer with over five decades of experience in keeping Bedouin vocal trad...

Cultural appropriation, misogyny, racism, post-colonialism, and political correctness are not usually themes heard on the dancefloor; but Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul rebel by inviting the...

Running for president in Uganda can be deadly dangerous, even if you are a democratically elected member of parliament. Charismatic ghetto pop star Bobi Wine decides to chance it anyway, but meets dau...

Having participated in pretty much every edition of the festival thus far, internationally recognized DJ Fitz, is by now basically Le Guess Who? royalty. One of the world’s primary authorities o...

Few have a bond as vital with Le Guess Who? as Irish psych master DJ Fitz. Only having missed the festival's very first edition in 2007, he has been a recurring presence at the event ever since. Thus,...

With an increasing abundance of music events in recent years, the competition for audience engagement within the cultural sector is as high as ever. In light of everything visitors have to choose from...

Lucas Kloosterboer plays the trombone, is a drummer and text performer, and has a degree in Dutch language. Others have described him as a 'freejazz-faun', 'iconoclast', 'slightly down in the mouth',...

Right next to the chaos of Utrecht Central station is Perron West, an old train car revamped to serve as a get-together. Party by day in the Stiltecoupé; a channel serving silent disco by local...

Elegance, punch, softness, a magical rhythmic playfulness – Flamenco has it all. Flamenco is a physical activity, making music with the body, an outlet for the stirrings of the soul. Azules is d...

Whip is the combination of Ben Kalb (Pizza Knife) and Bob Mollema (Fluisteraars). They don't know what kind of music they make; it's genreless but explores all the areas they find relentlessly inspiri...

Claudia C. ten Hoeve creates art for children aged 1 to 111. She playfully explores how everyone can make a difference in the world. For U? she wants to turn Ravenoord (at Rotsoord) into Hartenoord, a...

Kaðlín is a composer based in The Hague, whose work reflects on deterioration by drawing parallels between the imperfections of memory and technology. She creates ethereal soundscapes by co...

Freetekno: stories of a subculture from 1988 to 2022, is a documentary especially made for Le Guess Who? en U? by Utrecht-based photographer Juri Hiensch. To further explore autonomous spaces, there w...

Hatis Noit’s vocal awakening came at the age of sixteen, during a trip to Nepal in which she was moved by a female monk’s chant. This experience led her to begin exploring the visceral pow...

Mabe Fratti’s second album, 2021’s ‘Será que ahora podremos entendernos’ (‘will we be able to understand each other now’) is an exploration of the challenges...

The breakdance and hip hop group Utrecht Connaisseurs Crew (UC Crew) was founded in early 2018. That same year, they won the first prize at the National Breakdance League. The crew consists of dancers...

Jamaican-American rapper, producer, and performer Ojay Morgan's alias Zebra Katz came through his thesis project - and morphed into a genre-defying extension of his interest in theater and cultural st...

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...

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...

South Korean outfit Jambinai performs a thrilling mix of post rock, noisy jazz, dreamy ambient, electro and metal. Their traditional rock instrumentation is given quite the upgrade with electronics, e...

Wolfgang Voigt's groundbreaking project GAS is the sound of organic matter and technology living in perfect harmony. As he himself puts it: 'bring the forest to the disco and vice versa'. Voigt struct...

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...

Canadian artist Sarah Davachi's creates immersive soundscapes with a playful exchange between ancient acoustic instrumentation and analogue synths. Davachi is a real sonic thrill-seeker who enjoys pus...

If you were to compare the world of noise music to our physical world, Prurient occupies the very bottom; the deepest and darkest dwellings in our oceans. Sound artist Dominick Fernow's output of obli...

You could describe Detroit’s Protomartyr as a post-punk outfit, but then again, the foursome could probably care less about what genre you stick to it. ‘A flaying intensity’ might be...

Maâlem (or ‘master musician’) Houssam Guinia is the son and successor of the late Mahmoud Guinia, an emblematic figure in the practice of West-African Gnawa music. Gnawa is an extens...

On one of her newer songs, Cut Connection, Jesca Hoop tries to reconcile a love with the words "be the drummer in my heart". The magnetic Hoop laces her distinct anti-folk with likewise playful lyrici...

Founder of the Moving Furniture label Sietse van Erve has been composing under his Orphax-moniker for the better part of the past two decades. Van Erve wields his minimalist music as a stream-of-consc...

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 element...

Essaie pas is one of the most exciting bands you’ll find on James Murphy’s influential label DFA Records. The group features burgeoning Canadian electronic maestro Marie Davidson as one of...

‘’7: Triptychon - Dreamtime' is an interdisciplinary project: a combination of dance / performance, a three-dimensional art installation and a magical ritual that makes Nicole Beutler phas...

Hellvete is the solo moniker of Glen Steenkiste. Previously active in Silvester Anfang and one of the founders of the Funeral Folk label, Steenkiste draws influences from early minimalism to old folk...

Madensuyu have always been charmed by the mysterious and esoteric, the notion that two mortal souls can inhabit a stage and conjure something bigger than themselves. Their angsty, sprawling brand of n...

Jerusalem In My Heart invites friends from Beirut and Montreal to take over the decks to fill the night to the wee hours of the morning with some badass music. Dress sharp...

Justin 'KUTMAH' McNulty was born in Brighton, England to an Egyptian mother and Scottish father. After moving to the United States at twelve years old, KUTMAH ultimately made a name for himself as an...

Continuing the legacy of her father, the legendary Ravi Shankar, Anoushka Shankar is considered to be one of the world’s most renowned sitar players. Her music reflects her Indian background as...

The sensational Afro-psychedelic collective BCUC (Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness) started out as a social gathering in their native township of Soweto, South Africa. BCUC is an alliance of guitari...

Gregory Shorter Jr., also known as Ras_G, is an instrumental hip-hop producer, DJ and afrofuturist. Active in L.A.’s avant-garde beats scene since the early 2000’s and associated with the...

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...

Takuro Kikuchi’s subdued piano compositions move adrift between tranquility and contemplation. The 35-year-old musician hailing from Sendai, Japan, has been playing since the age of nine, drawin...

Maria Chavez approaches the turntables as an instrument of transmission. This Peruvian artist doesn’t opt for just its function of mixing different types of music. Her approach is more primordia...

Besides being one of Chicago’s finest producers, Kavain Space a.k.a. RP Boo is also known as the originator of footwork music. Emerging from Chicago house in the late 90’s, the genre inclu...

With her wistful, feathery voice as your guide, Shannon Lay channels the turmoil and fears of seeking out an unconventional life. Her 2017 album ‘Living Water’ was produced by The Cairo Ga...

In the late 70’s, as member of the notorious Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Lydia Lunch was a leading figure in the rise of New York City’s no-wave scene. Grounded in a dissonant and atonal...

In recent years, Ghanaian star King Ayisoba ascended the West African pop charts with his futuristic approach of traditional styles. A master of the ancient kologo instrument - a two-stringed lute -,...

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...

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...

The King of Keyboard himself, Rizan Said, remains one of the most famous and influential musicians from Syria. He’s made a name for himself as composer for all kinds of Syrian artists, as well a...

Despite Sun Foot being a three piece, they could easily be defined as the exact opposite of a power trio. Labeled as surf noise and anti-beach pop, the members of Sun Foot play at a low volume, frisky...

Jessica Pratt’s peculiar brand of astral folk has a way of stopping you dead in your tracks. The LA-based songsmith’s captivating, wistful coo evokes a mirage-like warmth, seducing the lis...

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...

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...

Singer-songwriter and producer Emel Mathlouthi combines the vibrant sounds of psychedelic folk with heavy electronics and atmospheric melodies. She gained global recognition when her recording 'Kelmti...

Cindy Lee is the 60s girl group persona of Pat Flegel, once the voice of now-defunct indie pop outfit Women. Though his former band flirted with sounds of the past, Flegel now follows through, bending...

Despite its apparent frigid exterior, Hilary Woods’ debut LP ‘Colt’ is ultimately an inviting listening experience. Woods’ minimalist ambient pop compositions come to life with...

Manchester-based synth pop duo Virginia Wing fully embrace the perfect counterbalance of the considered and the superficial. Wrapped in catchy, playful synth tunes and upbeat drum loops, their latest...

Seattle-based singer-songwriter Austin Crane (aka Valley Maker) has one of the most remarkable voices in contemporary pop music. Accompanied by heartfelt, wistful acoustic guitar arrangements, Valley...

In 1970, soul artist Jerry Williams, Jr. radically reinvented himself as Swamp Dogg: an anti-hero who smashes the conventions of commercial R&B music, and whose subversive lyrics earned him a spot...

While some records appeal to the brain’s immediate pleasure zones, other music trickles down the subconsciousness like a warm and alleviating light. Swedish duo Thet Liturgiske Owäsendet&rs...

British collective Seefeel straddled that chasm between experimental rock and ambient techno long before artists like Radiohead and Broadcast – and even later, Dirty Beaches and Caribou –...

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...

Once, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs’ guitarist Adam Ian Sykes said: “on stage is where the slaughter takes place.” This is probably the best way to describe a performance of thi...

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....

Public Poetry takes the written word into our shared communal life in public space; it brings people together for the sake of the most intimate of verbal arts. In this session, LGW artists are invited...

Norwegian-born, Berlin-based artist Stíne Janvin has the special ability to morph and manipulate her vocals into beautiful sound abstractions, to the point even where you forget it’s a vo...

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...

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...

After notable stints as Inga Copeland and Hype Williams (the latter with Dean Blunt), Alina Astrova once again brandishes her signature Baudelairean hybrid of pop and stripped-down tech...

Oorutaichi takes the word ‘fun’ into hyperdrive. This Japanese producer shakes the rules of techno, electro pop and sampling like a can of soda and lets things fly with contagious enthusia...

Príncipe Discos presents, hosted by FACT “Her music is dazzling in all senses, a trance-inducing tangle of boxy drums, vivid swirls of synthetic melody and buzzsaw grime bass,” The...

Whether they intend to or not, Negativland have bursted many bubbles over the decades with their quizzical remapping of pop culture, media and advertising. Though Negativland consider themselves artis...

Hidden Musics Ustad Saami is the last living khayál master, widely considered a precursor of qawwali music that originated in Pakistan. That’s no small distinction, as Saami’s voic...

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...

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...

After 15 years of performing for passersby at Paris’s Line 2 Metro, Algerian musician Mohamed Lamouri’s trademark ragged voice and buoyant Casio keyboard melodies are reaching ears all ove...

Istanbul’s Lalalar remind you of your favorite 80’s cult show theme, and simultaneously sound like a delightful dumpster dive of spaghetti western-psychedelics, Anatolian funk, sampling an...

The words ‘wacky’ and ‘profound’ often walk hand-in-hand in the world of Gruff Rhys. The Welsh artist is best known as spearhead of perpetually wry pop oddballs Super Furry Ani...

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...

Hosted by FACT As sparkplug of dubstep’s golden age the previous decade, Mala is now part of a select group of producers taking it to thrilling forward-thinking pastures. Responsible for some o...

Tropical Fuck Storm’s wailing backing harmonies sound like a coven chanting hellish incantations, and the filthy percussive thrusts, the otherworldly synth flourishes of the band’s debut L...

Over the past decade, Mali rapper Master Soumy has been a key figure within the West-African nation’s youth movement. Along with his peers, Soumy’s sharp-witted lyrical mastery became the...

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...

With her enrapturing deviations of electronic music, R&B, jazz and all-out pop, Sudan Archives - born Brittney Parks - doesn’t just bend the rules, she breaks them. Her innovative take on th...

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...

Tongue-in-cheek, hilarious and often controversial, Ghanaian duo FOKN Bois coined their sound as gospel porn rap, which might be a cryptic way of calling their art slyly subversive. Their music has be...

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...

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...

In the vocabulary of Icelandic artist dj. flugvél og geimskip – translation: ‘dj airplane or spaceship’ – the notion of choice is pretty overrated. Why not rapturously e...

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...

Presented by Centraal Museum Alles is Rond (All Is Round) was made in the city where Louis Andriessen and Madelon Hooykaas both grew up: Utrecht. Both artists have worked together before, but this is...

Presented by Le Guess Who? & Springhaver In this genre-defying film, Zerzura follows a young man from a small village in Niger who leaves home in search of an enchanted oasis. His journey leads h...

Mazaher are a small group of mostly women musicians and singers who play Zãr music: chanting songs and playing hypnotic polyrhythms used as a purification and exorcism ritual to help pacify and...

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...

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...

Much of John Dwyer’s curatorship for this year’s Le Guess Who? reflects his attraction for music that is as exciting as it is mad, loud and potentially deafening. All these attributes can...

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...

There is so much underlying this trumpet-and-percussion duo’s mix of free jazz, Afro-Caribbean traditions and electronic production that their music urges multiple, infinite listens, only to pee...

Spirit Fest is the avant-pop supergroup we all fantasize about having by our bed-stand to sing us to sleep every night. Featuring members of The Notwist and Tenniscoats, this dream collective delivers...

French label Versatile Records prides itself on encouraging artists to stray far from the norm. ‘Jours De Grève’, helmed by French folk muse Emmanuelle Parrenin and German electroni...

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...

After attending a workshop in deejaying and music producing by East African platform Femme Electronic, model Anita Kevin decided to try it herself. Watching her do her thing as DJ Turkana, we would be...

'Le Poème du Feu' is perhaps Russian composer Alexander Scriabin’s most recognizable work. The ghostly symphonic piece, loosely based on the myth of Prometheus, even gave way to new music...

Listed by NPR as one of the Top 100 Young Composers of today, Pakistani singer Arooj Aftab carries in her music a seasoned tranquility that inspires calm to whoever listens. Inspired by the work of Su...

Does OSEES leader John Dwyer ever sleep? The prolific musician has added a new entry to his never-ending catalog this May - Bent Arcana’s sophomore effort, ‘Moon Drenched’, courtesy...

It is no wonder that this Spencer Clark project is inspired by eighties cult horror movies, such as ‘Hellraiser II’ and ‘Pin’. Every album released under Typhonian Highlife sou...

The guitar has always occupied a special place in Spanish music - namely in flamenco, where players often perform with complicated and acrobatic techniques. But Madrid-born Víctor Herrero rose...

University Challenged are Ajay Saggar (Bhajan Bhoy), Oli Heffernan (Ivan The Tolerable) and Kohhei Matsuda (Bo Ningen). The trio, which splits itself between the Netherlands and the UK, is also glorio...

Mónika Lakatos was the first ever Romani singer to win the popular Hungarian television talent show Ki Mit Tud? in 1996 - to which she was enrolled in without her knowledge! To this day, she co...

This fascinating collaboration marks the novel encounter between experimental Tuvan singer Sainkho Namtchylak and Belgian installation artist and filmmaker Jochem Baelus’ Slumberland. When...

For a number of years, LA-based musician Shannon Lay played both for the post-punk number Feels and on her own. She released an array of critically acclaimed solo records which were praised for their...

Luc Bersier’s band Reymour exchanged the quietness of the Swiss Alps for Brussel’s busyness, and out of it came ‘Leviosa’, released under Amsterdam label Knekelhuis. Their debu...

This summer, The Mauskovic Dance Band’s Nic Mauskovic introduced the wonderful world of Nicolini with ‘Penni’s Palace’, released by Amsterdam label South of North. Picture this...

Two full decades after their debut, punk group OvO sound just as hardcore as they did back then. Their latest record, 2020’s ‘Miasma’, sees the savage band seeking to represent...

Based in San Antonio, Texas, claire rousay makes extraordinary out of the everyday. Voicemails, haptics, environmental recordings, stopwatches, whispers are all made suddenly big, their significa...

On Zwangere Guy’s debut album ‘Wie is Guy?’, there is a swagger in his flow that displays confidence usually only found in rappers who have been around for a while. It is perhaps thi...

The music of Plague Organ inspires superlatives of a particularly brutal nature. This mutating self-reproducing entity assimilates the qualities of metal, noise, free-jazz and experimental rock. Often...

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...

Dutch media artist Mark IJzerman and French sound designer Sébastien Robert team up to present ‘As Above, So Below’, an exploration of the changing landscape of La Araucanía...

Howart is operating in the psychedelica, kraut and noise pop realm. The project was founded by Anneke Nieuwdorp and has been her vehicle for experimenting, exciting art for the past ten years. The ban...

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...

The solo project of Luxembourgish-Finnish musician Maria Rossi has been described as one of the most striking ones to emerge from Glasgow’s underground scene in a decade. Conjuring simple yet ot...

Collective Stadwevers explores new grounds together with you to discover how we can experience the city in various and different ways. I Let’s Walk Make Sense / 12:15PM - 1:00PMGet to...

Le Guess Who? will host a special lunch at LOU Oudenoord. A place for conversation, reflection, relaxation and great food. Engage in talks with your fellow festival visitors about all the things you&r...

Peach Tree, Ambiguous is a research project mapping production processes of value and meaning in the spiritual void around luxury goods. Simulating a tribalized department-store, the exhibition shows...

Artists community NoEsUnaGaleria NL is organising a program with live painting sessions and performance art by artists Ricardo Saga and Mario Gildardo from Mexico and Harmke Datema-Chang and Laur...

Location: TivoliVredenburg Ginta Tinte Vasermane studied audiovisual arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and graduated from the Netherlands Film Academy in Amsterdam. She works in the field of motion...

Location: Korte Minrebroederstraat AKMAR is a multidisciplinary artist working with a range of disciplines, from video and computer generated work to physical sculptures. Vanitas is about digital tra...

Sisters with Transistors is the remarkable untold story of electronic music’s female pioneers, composers who embraced machines and their liberating technologies to utterly transform how we produ...

De Schuurman’s 2021 release – ‘Bubbling Inside’, a collaboration between Kampala-based label Nyege Nyege Tapes and Rotterdam’s platform Pantropical – centers around...

As a defiant experimentalist ceaselessly exploring sonic extremities, contrasts and frictional collisions, The Bug's obsession with beats, bass, body horror, and dub technology has been mirrored throughout his turbulent, mutating career. Le Guess Who? residential photographer Juri Hiensch spent four days with Kevin Richard Martin aka 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...

The Bug's Kevin Martin has announced his new solo album 'Sirens', to be released via Room40 on May 31st. It is the first time the electronic producer and composer releases a record under his real name. 'Sirens' is about the emotional rollercoaster that Martin experienced becoming a parent, heightened through the complex circumstances...

On this year's collaboration album 'Concrete Desert', Earth's Dylan Carlson and The Bug put their powers together to create a consciousness about the state of the world we're living in. Immerse y...

Zware Metalen, het grootste e-zine in het Nederlandse taalgebied voor metalliefhebbers, sprak uitgebreid met Le Guess Who?-curator Kevin Richard Martin, beter bekend als The Bug. Het resultaat is een enerverend gesprek met een specifieke gedachte, aldus Zware Metalen: wat kunnen metalheads leren van Kevin's roekeloze a...

Le Guess Who? 2019 curator Kevin Richard Martin (The Bug) has released 'Sirens', the first solo album under his own name. The album, released through Room40, is about the arrival of parenthood, and the complex and tumultuous journey Martin and his wife went through in the first month of their son's life, when he had to undergo t...

The Wire Magazine shares an exclusive collaborative track from Le Guess Who? curator Kevin Richard Martin (The Bug) and Japanese voice artist Hatis Noit, entitled 'After The Storm'. Listen to the track and read a statement about the duo's collaborative project here on The Wire's website. To receive a free download of t...

Three of the Le Guess Who? 2019 curators have just announced new albums and released new music to go along with it: Jenny Hval Norwegian avant-pop artist Jenny Hval will release her new album 'The Practice of Love' on 13 September via Sacred Bones. At Le Guess Who?, she will present her new performance baring the same title as the album...

FACT Magazine have just premiered a playlist personally put together by The Bug for his curation at Le Guess Who? 2019, featuring a.o. King Midas Sound’s gloom-ridden dub, spoken word and ambient; juggernaut industrial/metal outfit Godflesh; Jah Shaka, an essential figure within the British dancehall and dub scenes of the 70s;...

“When I first listened to Earth I just didn’t know what the fuck it was at all. I was just like, ‘woah, this is crazy shit.’ I knew a lot of noisy slow music but that took the...

FACTmag talks with The Bug and Dylan Carlson about volume, time and space in their only in-person interview. You can read it here to know why you should attend their show at Le Guess Who? 2017. "They...

The Wire is an independent, monthly music magazine celebrating and interrogating the most visionary and inspiring, subversive and radical, marginalised and undervalued musicians on the planet, past an...

"With his pioneering industrial metal band Godflesh, Justin Broadrick writes songs built on concussive beats, apocalyptic riffs, and feral howls. It’s music made for an audience who, during live shows, reward the storm of sound with rapt attention. But when Broadrick performs in techno clubs as JK Flesh, he wears a hoodie that...

Created specially for The Dowsers, hip hop pioneers Dälek have put together a playlist of 'Unsung Hip-Hop Heroes', featuring Le Guess Who? 2017 artists Moor Mother, The Bug, and Shabazz Pala...

Since its inception a decade ago, Kevin Martin (aka The Bug) and Roger Robinson's gloom-ridden transmutations of dub, poetry and ambient music as King Midas Sound have made an unyielding impression. This year, the duo returned with 'Solitude', a bleak and barren spoken-word/ambient record that laments the crumbling of a relationship....

Following our initial line-up announcement in May, we're now pleased to reveal the full curated programs by Fatoumata Diawara and Iris van Herpen & Salvador Breed for the festival, as well as new additions for Moon Duo, Patrick Higgins, and The Bug curations. We're also announcing Príncipe Discos and Spazio Disponibil...

We’re pleased to announce that Panda Bear & Sonic Boom, Alabaster DePlume, The Bug feat. Flowdan, The Notwist, África Negra, Max Cooper, EIGEN RISICO, Smote, and The Brother Moves On will be joining us this year. View the full line-up here.  We’re also announcing programs, films & exhibitions presented by...

US-born, Stockholm-based minimalist artist and apprenticing organ tuner Kali Malone gave a special organ performance in TivoliVredenburg's Grote Zaal as opening of Le Guess Who? 2019. The performance was part of The Bug's curated program for the festival.  We can now share two exceptionally beautiful pieces from the performance: 'Sa...

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...

ZONAL is the collaborative noise, dub and industrial project of Le Guess Who? 2019 curator Kevin Richard Martin (The Bug, King Midas Sound) and Justin Broadrick (Godflesh, JK Flesh). The group now announces their debut full-length album, to be released this fall via Relapse Records. The first two tracks; 'Cage Version' and 'No Versio...

ZONAL is the collaborative noise, dub and industrial project of Le Guess Who? 2019 curator Kevin Richard Martin (The Bug, King Midas Sound) and Justin Broadrick (Godflesh, JK Flesh). Now, the group release their debut album 'Wrecked' via Relapse Records, containing several collaborations with lyrical poet (and LGW18 curator) Moo...

Gonzo (circus), one of the best in-depth music/culture magazines in The Netherlands & Belgium, has compiled a mixtape for Le Guess Who? 2017, featuring Ben Frost, OCnotes, Surajit D...

ZONAL has shared the title track to their forthcoming album 'Wrecked', which is out on 25 October via Relapse Records. ZONAL is the collaborative noise, dub and industrial project of Le Guess Who? 2019 curator Kevin Richard Martin (The Bug, King Midas Sound) and Justin Broadrick (Godflesh, JK Flesh). The album contains...

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...

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...

Jah Shaka is an absolute pioneer in sound system culture and has been spreading his message of love and spirituality across the world for over 40 years. On Saturday, 9 November, he will bring his legendary dubs to Le Guess Who? for a 4-hour set, performing on Krackfree Soundsystem, a collective operating from Eindhoven. The soundsystem c...

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...

Philly-based noise artist, activist and wordsmith Moor Mother (Camae Ayewa) returns to Le Guess Who? for the third consecutive year. After being curated by Jerusalem In My Heart (2017), and being a festival curator herself (2018), she now teams up with ZONAL, the project of Justin Broadrick (Jesu, Goldflesh, Napalm Death) and Kevin M...

To help you explore the program of Le Guess Who? 2019, we've created a playlist including the music of the festival's curators. Five of them will perform at the festival themselves: pioneering voice of Mali, Fatoumata Diawara; Norwegian multi-disciplinary artist Jenny Hval; shape-shifting electronic producer The Bug; New York avant-g...

We've published the full time schedules for Le Guess Who? 2018. Dig in and find out who's playing when & where here. We’ve also added some new acts to the program: The Bug vs Miss Red,...

Stockholm-based artist and organ tuner Kali Malone builds a truly remarkable synthesis of analog and electronic music, drawing in listeners with discernible warmth and timelessness. This year she debuted on iDEAL Recordings with a new album,'The Sacrificial Code'. The album goes into deeper, darker, and rawer territory with...

Responsible for some of dubstep’s most iconic cuts, DJ, producer and label owner Mala is now part of a select group of producers taking it to thrilling forward-thinking pastures. His newest track is a collaboration with Joe-Armon Jones and Nubya Garcia. 'Scratch & Erase' is part of the compilation album 'Unti...

ZONAL, aka Kevin Martin (The Bug) and Justin Broadrick (Godflesh, JK Flesh) release their first single 'System Error', featuring vocals by Moor Mother. The track is taken from their upcoming debut album 'Wrecked', which will be released on 25 October via Relapse Records. Besides 'System Error' the album contains several collaborations wit...

(artwork by Grouper's Liz Harris) Liz Harris aka Grouper is one of the most prominent and inspiring musicians exploring the space between sound and song. While mostly ambient based, her compositions...

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...

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...

Ahead of the release of her new album ‘Broken Politics’ this Friday, Pitchfork has interviewed Neneh Cherry, stating that “even by pop vanguard standards, it’s fair to say Nene...

Earlier this year, the 14th edition of Le Guess Who? was postponed to 2021. Now, we proudly presents an alternative hybrid event, titled ON/OFF, happening 13-15 November, 2020. ON/OFF is a two-part program for international, as well as local, festival visitors. LGW ON introduces a freely accessible online TV channel with videos, films an...

Ahead of his appearance at Le Guess Who? 2018, The Quietus interviews Joe Cardamone about his searing new multimedia project, making art in the era of Trump, and how he survived the end of the gr...

With their new album ‘Full Upon Her Burning Lips’, Earth's core duo of Dylan Carlson and Adrienne Davies tap into the Platonic ideal of Earth— an elemental band, where every guitar note and every strike on the drum kit carries the weight of the world. Carlson describes the album saying: "I wanted this to be a &lsqu...

Earlier this month, Bosnian accordion virtuoso Mario Batkovic performed at Into The Great Wide Open on Vlieland. Vrije Geluiden was there to capture a session with Batkovic on the beach. Watch below.&...

Veteran agitators Dälek have never been ones to stick within the rigid parameters of the hiphop genre, holding the utmost contempt for conservative expectations. The trio just released their new...

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...

Today, Ben Frost shares a new track of his upcoming album 'The Centre Cannot Hold', which will be released september 29th via MUTE. Listen to 'Ionia' here - it follows the release of the title tr...

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...

South Korean outfit Jambinai performs a thrilling mix of post rock, noisy jazz, dreamy ambient, electro and metal. If you're interested in learning more about the city of Seoul, look no further. For T...

Neneh Cherry performed her new song ‘Kong’ on BBC Two's ‘Later with… Jools Holland’ this week. The track is taken from her upcoming album ‘Broken Po...

"De curatoren van Le Guess Who? 2019 maakten een zorgvuldige keuze, maar het aanbod blijft overweldigend.", aldus Gonzo (circus), het Vlaams-Nederlandse magazine voor muziek en andere kunstvormen. De redactie van Gonzo (circus) heeft daar iets op bedacht: De essentiële Le Guess Who? 2019-leeslijst aan de hand van de ke...

FACT, one of the long-term collaborators of Le Guess Who?, will host a program across three nights during the festival this year at BASIS: a nightclub located in a wharf cellar in the city center of Utrecht. BASIS has been a part of the festival since last year and is a perfect location to discover some of groundbreaking and forward-think...

J-E-T-S released an EP in 2012 and another in 2015, each offering a handful of soul-inflected DayGlo house and techno tracks. Now, almost seven years after their inception, they’ve returned with their debut full-length 'Zoospa'. The album not only showcases the playfulness when it comes to incorporating different styles of genres in...

Op donderdag 19 september onthult Le Guess Who? de volledige line-up voor de komende festivaleditie in EKKO, met optredens van Ben Shemie (SUUNS), Conjunto Papa Upa, Lechuga Zafiro en een speciale editie van Stranded FM x The Current. Entree is gratis.  Deze line-up aankondiging wordt gevierd met optredens van Ben Shemie, frontman v...

Ahead of Le Guess Who? 2018, Red Bull Radio has created a special preview channel for Le Guess Who? 2018 with interview and live recording highlights from Blanck Mass, Circuit des Yeux, Eartheater, Pan Daijing, Senyawa, Kate NV, The Bug & Miss Red, GAIKA, and many more. Tune in below to hear Shabaka Hutchings discuss his Caribbean ro...

Rabit just finished his work for Björk's new album, but is now also releasing his own. 'Les Fleurs Du Mal' is out now: a record that features collaborations with Chino Amobi and Elysia Crampton....

The Line Of Best Fit interview Dälek's Will Brooks, on 3 albums he'd be crate-digging for at the World's Biggest Record Fair, happening in Utrecht during Le Guess Who? 2017. R...

Last month, METZ brought out their third record 'Strange Peace'. Now, just before their tour kicks off, the band share a new video for 'Drained Lake'. Frontman Alex Edkins explains the song as "t...

UK-based musical collective Ex-Easter Island Head utilize horizontally-laid electric guitars and bass, developing their own distinctive musical language, eschewing digital processing and effects for a...

As a preview for his performance at Le Guess Who? 2017, Ben Frost has put together a 'Selections' playlist for Crack Magazine. As we wrote in his festival biography: "Ben Frost’s interests are a...

The Line Of Best Fit interview Zeal & Ardor, on 3 albums they would be crate-digging for at the World's Biggest Record Fair, happening in Utrecht during Le Guess Who? 2017. Fea...

"The loudest band we've ever had in the studio"; with those words, CBC Music shares a new session with METZ, performing songs from their latest album 'Strange Peace'. Watch below.  "The noise ro...

Just one year after his debut, Disappears' Brian Case is already releasing his second solo album, entitled 'Spirit Design'. The record features intense drone, combined with ambient soundscapes and con...

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...

Icelandic producer and composer Ben Frost is equally influenced by classical minimalism as by punk rock and metal. Frost just released his new EP 'Threshold of Faith', which you can stream n...

Working from her base in Philadelphia, Camae Ayewa, aka Moor Mother, has taken a wide range of influences and distilled them into an essential, idiosyncratic sound best evidenced on last year’s...

If there's one festival in The Netherlands that we feel a spiritual connection with, then surely it's Roadburn, who continue to challenge and rediscover themselves which each new edition. Now, Roadburn's main man Walter Hoeijmakers has collected some of his favorites from the Le Guess Who? 2019 line-up in a personal playlist for you to di...

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...

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...

Ahead of his performance at Le Guess Who?, shamanic painter Joe Coleman gives us a glimpse into his immersive work process. “Computers are very odd to me,” Brooklyn-based painter and perf...

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...

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-...

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...

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...

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...

Indian classical pioneer Kadri Gopalnath has devoted a lifetime to integrate the saxophone into the classical Indian genre of Carnatic music. We trace down the roots of this boundary-breaking art...

Every year in our visitors survey right after the festival, we ask you what your favorite performance of the festival. Below are your 17 choices of Le Guess Who? 2017. We're pleased to also share the...

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...

On November 9, 2019, the Greek polyphonic vocal ensemble Isokratisses gave a rare performance at the Jacobikerk during Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Founded by Anna Katsi, the group dedicates itself to the polyphonic singing of Poliçan, an ethnic Greek village in southern Albania. All the members are...

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...

Ever the experimentalists, Rotterdam post-punk quintet Rats on Rafts bring their multi-disciplinary spectacle, Visions of Chapter 3, to Le Guess Who? for its first public-facing debut. And, as frontman David Fagan admits, there’s no telling just quite how it will all pan out…

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 performance scholar decolonizing sound archives; a journalist turned label founder offering alternative histories of the global South; and a producer/dj using archival material as a springboard for musical collaborations in the here and now.

This November, Le Guess Who? will feature a rare performance (their first European show in over 15 years) of Egypt’s Mazaher: a small group of mostly women musicians and singers who play Zar music: chanting songs and playing hypnotic polyrhythms used in a ceremonial event to cleanse the spirits and to clear away illness and discomfo...

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...

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...

Besides the artwork and typography done yearly by Loudmouth Utrecht, Le Guess Who? each year invites a different illustrator to design the main festival images, which evolves during multiple line-up a...

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...

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...

To fight the ordinary, Paddy Steer does the extraordinary. Surrounded by knobs, wires, keys, and wearing self-made, Sun Ra-inspired costumes, Paddy Steer looks and sounds like a music wizard from anot...

Our residential photographers Juri Hiensch and Melanie Marsman have been exploring Le Guess Who? again in 2022, captured different photo series during the festival. The upcoming time, we'll be sharing these series on this website and our social media. Artist Portraits, by Melanie Marsman & Juri Hiensch At Le Guess Who? 2022, resid...

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...

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 series, host Margaret Munchheimer talks to an independent archival collective in Indonesia; a sound and performance scholar decolonizing sound archives; a journalist turned label founder offering alternative histories of the global South; and a producer/dj using archival material as a springboard for musical collaborations in the here and now.

(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...

(English version below) Voor de komende editie van Le Guess Who? (8 t/m 11 november in de gehele binnenstad van Utrecht, werkt de organisatie samen met VluchtelingenWerk, dat maatschappelijk par...

“Performing is a part of my identity”, says the Dutch Surinamese vocalist and producer Pink Oculus. Two years of not being able to do what she loves the most led to a brand new sound, and new music too: her forthcoming album, ‘Before Wisdom’, is expected in 2022. At Le Guess Who?, she will premiere these songs thro...

In this new breakdown-series we analyse and extract the groundbreaking work of pioneers in their line of musical duty. In this article, we explore Colin Stetson’s unconventional approach to the...

With their cosmic jazz celebration, Sun Ra Arkestra was one of the closing acts of Le Guess Who? 2017. We're pleased to now bring you the full recording of this show, spanning decades of the Sun Ra le...

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 performance scholar decolonizing sound archives; a journalist turned label founder offering alternative histories of the global South; and a producer/dj using archival material as a springboard for musical collaborations in the here and now.

Le Guess Who? presents ‘The Big Playback’, a conversational, in-depth podcast about all things music. In the second episode of ‘The Big Playback’, host Margaret Munchheimer talks to four different musicians about the shifting relationship between Art and Identity and who in some way explore the self as a mediu...

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...

Le Guess Who? presents ‘The Big Playback’, a conversational, in-depth podcast about all things music. In the second episode of ‘The Big Playback’, host Margaret Munchheimer talks to four different musicians about the shifting relationship between Art and Identity and who in some way explore the self as a medium, through persona and performance. 

In the first part of episode 2, called 'What's Behind The Mask?', we spoke to four musicians about how identity and persona play a role in their work, whether through legit alter-ego’s or just digging into the self as a raw material. We heard about different experiences from Cindy Lee, the drag-chanson project of Patrick Flegel; a series of music/performance art hybrids from Natalie Sharp aka Lone Taxidermist; anonymous Swedish collective Goat; and Jerusalem In My Heart, a film and music happening by Radwan Gazi Moumneh and Erin Weisgerber, which attempts to project Arabic musical references for reception into a western context.

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...

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...

Sudan's Noori & His Dorpa Band performed live at Le Guess Who? 2022, presented in collaboration with Ostinato Records. Below, you can relive the performance with our video of a part of the concert, as well as the audio of the full show, with a spirited introduction by Ostinato's Vik Sohonie before the band came on stage. Additionall...

The European Jazz Network (EJN) is the Europe-wide association of 170+ organizations and promoters from 34 countries who specialize in creative music, contemporary jazz and improvised music. Every year since 2012, the EJN awards a European promoter who succeeds to create visionary and fascinating musical programs.  Le Guess Who? is...

Listening to the life-affirming soul and vintage funk of London collective The Scorpios, you probably won't be surprised to find out most of its members originate from Sudan. After fleeing the fundame...

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...

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...

Each year, Le Guess Who? cooperates with a different illustrator to design the festival's main graphics and images (the layout and typography are done each year by Loudmouth). In 2016, the festival il...

Patrick Higgins may be best known as guitarist for the noise-rock band Zs, which New York Times called "one of the strongest avant-garde bands of New York", but his solo work is just as striking. From...

The famous Bulgarian women's choir Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares ('Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices') is comprised of 22 members, all dressed in traditional national costumes. The varying voices...

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...

Le Guess Who? presents ‘The Big Playback’, a conversational, in-depth podcast about all things music. In ‘The Big Playback’, host Margaret Munchheimer talks to musicians, scholars, record label owners, and music managers and delves into different topics exploring individual and collective musical experiences. You c...

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...

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...

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...

The Irish first class agit-rock outfit Girl Band and the extraordinarily abrasive yet undeniably catchy Australian psychpunkers of Tropical Fuck Storm will join Le Guess Who? 2019 in November. Girl Band also just announced their new album ‘The Talkies’; listen to the first track from the album below. Girl Band Prep...

(artwork by Emma Fischer) At a very young age, Han Bennink started drumming for his grandparents on pans and cookie cans, and with curtain rods as sticks. All over the world, Bennink is celebrat...

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...

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...

From 11-14 November, we'll celebrate the 14th edition of Le Guess Who? and we can't describe how excited we are to finally welcome you to Utrecht after two years. But first, there are a couple of things we’d like to draw your attention to. It won't surprise you that things will be a little different than usual this year. Please rea...

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 performance scholar decolonizing sound archives; a journalist turned label founder offering alternative histories of the global South; and a producer/dj using archival material as a springboard for musical collaborations in the here and now.

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...

Knekelhuis is an Amsterdam-based independent record label that heightens the aesthetic similarities between different genres, eras, and scenes, including wave, punk, synth-pop, industrial, ambient, techno, and abstract electronics. This year, Knekelhuis is presenting an international selection of label-related artists and dear friends th...

For the Dutch text, please scroll down. Le Guess Who? is inviting artists to present their work in the public space of Utrecht in the weeks before and during the festival weekend, November 11-14, 2021.  In collaboration with creative agency Triomf we welcome artists from various disciplines and offer the opportunity to present exis...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

We're very pleased to present you the curators and initial line-up for Le Guess Who? 2018. A gentle reminder: current 4-Day Festival Passes are available until Thursday, 7 June, and will increa...

After an overwhelming first edition in 2019, the celebrated concert series Hidden Musics returns to Le Guess Who? from 11-14 November 2021 in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Hidden Musics presents international musical performances that are not usually experienced on stages or at festivals; these rich, often centuries-old musical traditions ar...

Today, Rotterdam's noise pop revisionists The Sweet Release Of Death make their much-anticipated return with third LP 'The Blissful Joy Of Living', out now via Subroutine Records. The album could be considered a playful counter-statement to their own name. Over the span of six songs, it offers an acute glimpse of a band mired in tota...

Recently, Danish pop adventurers Efterklang released their fifth studio album 'Altid Sammen'. The day after the release, they debuted the record live in its entirety at the iconic Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg during this year’s Reeperbahn Festival. The trio was joined on stage by Øyunn on drums,...

Jerusalem In My Heart is an audio-visual happening with roots in both Montréal and Beirut, combining the best of both worlds. Figurehead Radwan Ghazi Moumneh has been nursing the craft of...

2018 marks the start of a long-term collaboration between the Utrecht Early Music Festival and Le Guess Who?. The first joint project, a marathon concert by musician and anthropologist Björn Schm...

Formed by Kenya-born musician Ajay Saggar in 2013, King Champion Sounds are an impetuous, eight-headed band from The Netherlands and England. Fronted by the inimitable G.W. Sok (former singer of...

Maâlem Houssam Guinia is the son and successor of the late Maâlem Mahmoud Guinia, an emblematic figure in the practice of West-African Gnawa music. Maâlem means 'master musician', an...

Pakistan’s Ustad Saami is the last living khayál master, a precursor of the ancient, Islamic devotional music of qawwali. Even under threat of Islamic fundamentalists, the 75-year old master has spent his life as a dedicated practitioner of a vanishing art--one that has been passed on from generation to generation since the 1...

COSMOS is Le Guess Who?’s hybrid platform with both live and on-demand exclusive content. Beyond music, beyond film, and beyond borders, COSMOS translates the festival’s mission to the online environment. From 10-15 May, 2022, the 2nd edition of COSMOS will be freely available for worldwide streaming via cosmos.leguesswho.com....

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...

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 Poema: a fixture in the life of every student in Utrecht. Did you know Utrecht is one of th...

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...

Les Amazones d'Afrique are a gathering of some of the most powerful female voices of West-Africa. These performers use their music as a weapon to address the disempowerment of women across Africa and...

Our residential photographers Juri Hiensch and Melanie Marsman have been exploring Le Guess Who? again in 2021, captured different photo series during the festival. The upcoming time, we'll be sharing these series on this website and our social media. Portrait series at LGW21, by Melanie Marsman At Le Guess Who? 2021, residential phot...

Every week, we bring you a must-hear track from the Le Guess Who? 2018 line-up. This week, it's one of Chicago’s finest producers and "the unsung godfather" of footwork RP Boo, who &nd...

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...

(Nederlandse tekst hieronder) Le Guess Who? exists to bring people together through art and music. In 2021, the international festival for boundary-crossing music and culture makes a new addition to the upcoming festival edition: U?, a new, participative and freely accessible day program created for and with the city of Utrecht.  L...

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...

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...

Tim Kinsella's art-rock band Joan of Arc have released their new song ‘Indelible in the Hippocampus is The Laughter’, which is a selection of audio from the live score the band made f...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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. In this feature, we introduce you to the pop-up nightclub of WAS.; a place where many electronic music freaks are assured t...

The sensational Afro-psychedelic collective BCUC (Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness) started out as a social gathering in their native township of Soweto, South Africa. Even with a relatively short h...

Last March, the beloved nineties alt-rock band The Breeders released a new album; the band's first in ten years. With the iconic ‘Last Splash’ line-up brought back together, their new full...

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...

Today, Shelter Press just releases Félicia Atkinson's new album 'The Flower And The Vessel'. The French experimental composer and poet was partly influenced by the French classical pieces that shaped her childhood, including Maurice Ravel's 'L'enfant et les sortilèges', Debussy's 'La Mer', and Erik Satie's 'Gymnop&...

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...

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...

Le Guess Who? 2021 will see the festival joining forces with the esteemed Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, founded in 1945. It's not the first time we're collaborating though: in 2017, the orchestra performed Lili Boulanger's towering 'Du Fond De L'Abîme' at our festival. This year, the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra will honor...

Originally conceived as a medium for Chicago-based multi-media artist/activist Damon Locks’s sample-based sound collage work, Black Monument Ensemble (BME) has evolved from a solo mission into a vibrant collective of artists, musicians, singers, and dancers making work with common goals of joy, compassion, and intention. Follo...

Czech Republic's Please The Trees originally hail from the forests of a mountainous region in East Bohemia. Grounded in the psychedelic riffs and motorik beats of krautrock, the band will present...

Electronic explorer James Holden presented his new performance 'James Holden & The Animal Spirits' live at Le Guess Who? 2017, featuring tracks from his new album; a record that enhances Holden&rs...

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...

In collaboration with producer Ian Brennan and Glitterbeat Records founder Chris Eckman, Le Guess Who? presented the first installment of Hidden Musics during the 2019 edition of the festival. Now and in the future, the project aims to present global music traditions that normally don’t reach our shores, often from more remote...

For the sixth consecutive year, Le Guess Who? and Basilica Hudson present the all-encompassing and immersive 24-HOUR DRONE: EXPERIMENTS IN SOUND & MUSIC in Hudson, NY, taking place Saturday, April 25 - Sunday, April 26, 2020. Tickets are available now.  An experimental music and sound program, 24-HOUR DRONE featur...

Four years on from their acclaimed debut album 'Holding Hands With Jamie', Girl Band are back with 'The Talkies', out today via Rough Trade. This Irish wrecking crew has become one of the most fearsome live units of the decade thanks to their shredding and propulsive performances. 'The Talkies' is as devastating as it is ja...

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...

After offering a first taste of his new album 'The Animal Spirits', electronic explorer James Holden now shares the second track from the album, 'Each Moment Like the First'. Listen below. ...

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...

An immersive event and all-encompassing experience, 24-Hour Drone is a roving, international series presented by Basilica Hudson and Le Guess Who?, featuring musicians and sound artists...

Every week, we’ll bring you a must-hear track from the Le Guess Who? 2018 line-up. This week, it's the Brazilian singer-songwriter who wrote the theme song for Netflix hit series 'Narcos'. But,...

During Le Guess Who? 2021, Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie / The Microphones) was one of five guest curators for the festival. Aside from putting together a personal program of inspirations and like-minded artists, Phil Elverum also performed live with guitarist Jay Blackinton to present Elverum’s latest album, 'The Microphones In 20...

Linton Kwesi Johnson's impressive body of work includes stints as reggae poet, political orator, recording artist, and author/journalist. His 1978 reggae album Dread Beat an' Blood is a statement akin to Gil Scott-Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. A vocal personality who fights oppression against black youth, the Jamaica-born...

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...

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...

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...

Every week, we bring you a must-hear track from the Le Guess Who? 2018 line-up. This week, we dwell on the emotional instrumental track 'Boat to Nowhere' by renowned sitar player Anoushka Shankar. 'B...

One-half of Philly duo 700 Bliss and member of the Discwoman collective DJ Haram speaks to The Quietus about the scene in her base of Philadelphia, linking up with Moor Mother and the Discwo...

Le Guess Who? 2017 celebrated the life & work of Alice Coltrane with the Sai Anantam Ashram Singers performing her ecstatic music live at the festival. Listen to three tracks of the performan...

This year's Le Guess Who? features a project which is like nothing we ever brought to you before. Choreographer Nicole Beutler directed '7: Triple Moon': an interdisciplinary project with a combinatio...

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...

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...

Le Guess Who? 2019 curator Jenny Hval's multi-disciplinary work aims to break beyond the confining zones of a certain genre or discipline to form a deeper connection with her audiences. Now, the Norwegian avant-pop artist announces her new album 'The Practice of Love' (out 13 September 13 via Sacred Bones), and shares its first singl...

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...

Every week, we’ll bring you a must-hear track from the Le Guess Who? 2018 line-up. This week, it's a synth-driven song by singer-songwriter Devendra Banhart, with nonchalant nods to disco. ...

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...

Ever since their performance at Le Guess Who? 2018 has been confirmed, Alabaster DePlume's latest record 'The Corner of a Sphere' has been on high rotation in our office. We'd now like to introduce yo...

Following the release of her latest album ‘Designer’ last year, New Zealand songwriter Aldous Harding performed at Le Guess Who? 2019, becoming one of the audience’s highlights of the 13th edition of the festival. The show rendered instrumentation and voice into the most vivid and impressionistic of scenes. Harding&...

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...

We’re thrilled to share the video of AEAEA (Nicolas Jaar x Patrick Higgins)’s live premiere at Le Guess Who? 2019. AEAEA is the recent collaboration of two of today’s most acclaimed musical visionaries; in 2019, Le Guess Who? proudly presented the duo’s live premiere as part of Patrick Higgins’ curation at th...

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...

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&...

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...

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...

Lost Horizons, the collaborative project formed by Simon Raymonde of Cocteau Twins and Richard Thomas of instrumental quartet Dif Juz, will release their new album 'Ojalá' this Friday via Bella...

Farida Mohammed 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 comp...

The cult album Faust IV was the fourth studio album released by the German krautrock group in 1973. Reimagining the music from the iconic album, Faust IV was performed live at Le Guess Who? 2021 as part of the curated program by OSEES' John Dwyer. Faust IV Live! captured the strange magic that then and now defines Faust as an entity unto...

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 to 13 November 2022, U? returns for its second edition.

This year, even more neighborhoods are taking part in the U? program. Aside from the city center, Lombok, 2e Daalsebuurt, Werkspoorkwartier, Transwijk and Cartesius, U? will expand to Overvecht and Wittevrouwen. The programs are made with, or even entirely by, Utrecht residents, local initiatives, entrepreneurs, social institutions and neighborhood centers. Residents and local initiatives were invited to participate by means of an open call, which resulted in a large amount of diverse and exciting submissions.

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...

A collaboration between Le Guess Who? and long-term partners Basilica Hudson, 24-Hour Drone is a roving, international series featuring musicians and sound artists experimenting within the spectrum of...

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-...

French sound sculptor Félicia Atkinson will release her new album 'The Flower And The Vessel' early next month. The record was was crafted while pregnant on tour, "in impersonal hotel rooms in foreign cities", and is partly influenced by the French classical pieces that shaped her childhood (Maurice Ravel's 'L'enfant et les so...

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...

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...

The Line of Best Fit recently sat down with Jenny Hval and The Raincoats ahead of their performances and Jenny Hval's curation at Le Guess Who? 2019, discussing their careers, albums & lots more.  The interview with Jenny discusses the concept of her latest record 'The Practice of Love', language and her mother tongue, Norway an...

Rotterdam's beloved The Sweet Release of Death have announced their return with new album 'The Blissful Joy Of Living', out October 10th, via Subroutine Records. The album finds the band reaching for their core instincts, channeling the brimming energy of their live shows. You can now listen to new single 'Sick Girl', which is a...

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...

24-HOUR DRONE is an immersive, all-encompassing event featuring an international roster of musicians and sound artists collaborating and working in experimental, classical, non-western/traditional, durational and other genres incorporating drone to create a full 24 hours of unbroken sound. Multidisciplinary arts center Basilica Hudson an...

In a short documentary, The Avant/Garde Diaries introduces you to the renowned Queen of Bounce Katey Red. As a transgender, Red was one of the first openly gay artist within the masculine bounce...

Starting off with a deep, sludgy bass line, 'Dig A Hole' is a new, bold track from the 'BC35' album, which celebrates the 35-year Anniversary of the BC Studio (the legendary recording studio founded b...

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. 

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...

The mythical performer and rock 'n roll reinventer Ian Svenonius has released 'The Lost Record'. It's the second album of his solo project Escape-Ism, after 2017s 'Introduction to Escape-Ism'. With hi...

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...

Y-Bayani & Baby Naa And The Band of Enlightenment, Reason & Love is a collaborative project between musicians Yussef Hussain (Y-Bayani), Naomi Addy (Baby Naa), Josie Coppola and Max Weissenfeldt (Philophon Records). Straddling the realms of reggae and Ghana’s Highlife movement into an innovative, cinematic sound that is...

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 ...

Earlier this week, Brooklyn-based, Pakistani singer Arooj Aftab won the GRAMMY Award for Best Global Music Performance for her song ‘Mohabbat’. She performed live at Le Guess Who? 2021, the international festival for boundary-crossing music & culture, as part of her first ever European tour. Arooj Aftab is the first Pakis...

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...

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...

Multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, songwriter, visual artist and record label owner John Dwyer was one of the curators for Le Guess Who? 2021, presenting his personal program with inspirations and fellow like-minded artists. As part of the curation, Dwyer also performed twice himself on the final day of the festival: first with jam-loving c...

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...

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...

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...

Graindelavoix is notorious for their daring and alienating performances that embrace the imperfections of what it means to be human. During Le Guess Who? 2018, the Antwerp ensemble gave an overwhelming performance of the four-hour piece ‘Tenebrae Responsoria’ by Carlo Gesualdo: a 17th-century progressive composer fro...

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...

Every week, we bring you a must-hear track from the Le Guess Who? 2018 line-up. Almost a half year ago, we started off with Kojey Radical's powerful and stirring track 'If Only'. Now, twenty-four weeks later, we have highlighted some of the most remarkable musical treasures of this year's line-up, ranging from Katey Red's fast-paced...

Every week, we bring you a must-hear track from the Le Guess Who? 2018 line-up. Last week, we highlighted a classical and timeless hip hop track of Georgia Anne Muldrow. This week, we shift phase...

Rock 'n Roll visionary Ian Svenonious currently performs with his solo project Escape-Ism, and will release his second disc of solo-sneers titled 'The Lost Record' on 7 September. Talking to The Washi...

Gaining worldwide recognition with their smashing, gummy hit single ‘Cannonball’, The Breeders were a leading figure in the 90s grunge scene. After a ten-year hiatus, they recently release...

Electronic sound explorer James Holden is added as curator for Le Guess Who?, hosting multiple stages on Saturday, 11 November. Performing is Moroccan Gnawa musician Maâlem Houssam Guinia &...

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...

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...

During Le Guess Who? 2022, flamenco icon Estrella Morente and Amsterdam Andalusian Orchestra came together for a magic showcase of warmth and joy. You can now watch the full concert film of the stunning performance at Utrecht's Jacobikerk, presented in collaboration with Ud Festival.  The daughter of world-famous Enrique Morente,...

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...

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...

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, outdoor soirees alike.  In 2020, The New Yorker's Amanda Petrusich picked the group's 'No. 1' as her favorite album of t...

Arushi Jain, a Brooklyn-based singer, producer, NTS radio host, and engineer, has made waves with her music by combining North Indian ragas with an unconventional vision of a centuries-old tradition. Jain was raised on Hindustani classical music, but while studying engineering and coding, she discovered modular synthesis. On her debut al...

In the early 1980s, Bertie Marshall was the frontman for post-punk boundary-pushers Behaviour Red, a group that fed off sound experimentation, tribal drumming, searing vocals, and guitar feedback. In 1983, the group broke up, but Bertie continued sketching out atmospheric compositions, leading to his solo debut in the 1990s. Here, Bertie'...

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...

After more than a decade of silence, we're absolutely thrilled to announce the return of Old Time Relijun, "one of the most distinctive and feral rock groups", in the words of The Stranger. Headed by the idiosyncratic Arrington de Dionyso, the group is celebrated for their raw and life-affirming songwriting. After qui...

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...

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...

After the last minute cancellation of Plague Organ's show at LGW OFF last November due to the global pandemic, Le Guess Who? and Roadburn collaborated and facilitated the band's live debut at Roadburn Redux on April 17th 2021.  After a limited availability at the Roadburn Redux website, the show is now available in full through...

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...

One of the first acts announced for Le Guess Who? 2021 is the Brazilian singer-songwriter Sessa. His music, sung in Portuguese, resembles the sensual lyrics and melodic flourishes of Bossa Nova, in the vein of classic Brazilian artists like Caetano Veloso and Jobim. However, the music gets a deliberate minimalist treatment rarely found in...

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...

As a sci-fi obsessed woman living in near isolation, musician Beverly Glenn-Copeland wrote and self-released 'Keyboard Fantasies' in rural Ontario in 1986. Recorded on an Atari-powered home-studio, th...

MusicMap.Global is a site dedicated to celebrating the global underground. Leading up to Le Guess Who? 2018, they interview some of the artists playing the festival. First up is Brazil's Negro Leo, ak...

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...

During Le Guess Who? 2018, the Portuguese platform Canal180 traveled to Utrecht to capture a film in collaboration with the festival. Titled 'Representing the Underrepresented', it reveals the story and ideology behind Le Guess Who? and, following its March 29 premiere at MIL Festival in Lisbon, the film is now available to watch online....

On Sunday afternoon, we’ll take a deep dive down into the depths of punk, new-wave and blood pounding rock ‘n roll. Together with long time festival location dB’s and brand new venue WAS., we will set the stage for a raving punk party, leading up to the celebration of 30 years of Mudhoney. Endless Boogie & Bloody Ma...

Sons Of Kemet's new album 'Your Queen Is A Reptile' (released in March via Impulse!) is the "jazz" choice for nomination in this year's Hyundai Mercury Prize. Ahead of the event, the band gi...

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...

Earlier this week, The Breeders returned to Later… with Jools Holland after the release of their latest album 'All Nerve'. With the iconic ‘Last Splash’ line-up together a...

During Le Guess Who? 2017, the French team of La Blogothèque traveled to Utrecht to record two intimate Take Away Shows at inspiring and special locations in our city. Now, we present the first...

In collaboration with Vrije Geluiden, we recorded one of the performances of Niger's Les Filles de Illighadad at Le Guess Who? 2016. Pan African Music now premieres these recordings, ahead of the rele...

Utrecht's Domkerk is the first Dutch gothic cathedral, dating back to the 13th century. With its 112 meters towering above the city skyline it is not just the highest building in Utrecht, it is also t...

Electronic explorer James Holden has just announced his new album 'The Animal Spirits', to be released 3 November via his own Border Community label. The album follows 2013's acclaimed The Inheritors....

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...

Ustad Noor Bakhsh, the Benju maestro from the Makran Coast of Balochistan, has just released his debut solo album 'Jingul'. Named after a bird that often visits Noor’s house and whose songs were the inspiration behind the last song of the release, 'Jingul' leaves listeners with a warm and tender feeling accompanied by hope and happi...

Throughout their decades-long musical partnership, Czech artists Irena Havlová and Vojtěch Havel 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 and friends which include Sufjan Stevens and T...

Earlier this year, Hinako Omori released her new album, 'a journey...'. Now, the Yokohama-born, London-based electronic composer and sound designer releases a live video for 'The Richest Garden in your Memory' from the album. It was filmed at London's Omved Gardens, in collaboration with director Jessie Rodger. The video, as mysterious an...

Ghent-based duo Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul performed live at Le Guess Who? 2022 following the release of their acclaimed debut album 'Topical Dancer'. You can listen to & relive their performance with 3 tracks: 'Mantra', 'Ceci n'est pas un cliché', and 'Thank You'. About Cultural appropriation, misogyny, rac...

The Quietus have premiered an intimate session with OKI captured live in Utrecht by Vincent Moon during Le Guess Who? 2022, along with a Q&A with the artist. OKI performs 'Muysoka hanene' and 'Tonkori Monimahpo-Yaykatekar (Medley)' in the garden of Grand Hotel Karel V in Utrecht. Watch the session and read the Q&A here via The Qui...

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...

Originated in Utrecht as a collaboration between the festival and long-term partners Basilica Hudson, 24-Hour Drone is a roving, international series featuring musicians and sound artists experimentin...

Acclaimed filmmaker and songwriter Alanis Obomsawin performed songs from her 1985 album 'Bush Lady' live for the very first time at Le Guess Who? 2017, featuring original compositions as well as music...

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...

Ahead of his appearance at Le Guess Who? 2018, The Quietus has interviewed lo-fi rap and trap producer JPEGMAFIA. In the interview, he talks about the study of journalism  the curr...

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...

Continuing the legacy of her father, the legendary Ravi Shankar, Anoushka Shankar is considered to be one of the world’s most renowned sitar players. In 2018, she performed at Le Guess Who?, together with Austrian percussionist and Björk collaborator Manu Delago and the 27-member string section of the Metropole Orkest, conducte...