Yaka Berger – a composer, producer, percussionist, and media artist – and his industrial glitch hop

The creative biography of Jako Berger resembles a clew of projects and collaborations, and it's a music lover's quest to unravele it. Berger producer (DUF) crosses clever asymmetry with dancefloor irony; Berger drummer balances between insinuating free jazz (Virtaranta Okuda Berger trio) and creepy psychedelia (Darla Smoking); Berger visual artist creates self-playing sound mechanisms and collaborates with environmental sounds; Berger composer – records tributes to Morton Feldmann and scores eccentric theatrical performances.

Sometimes the lines between the artist's roles become muddled. Yaka, for example, can incorporate modular synths into a percussion set and deconstruct it with a variety of items, transforming shows into "live" sound sculptures. While the quirky visual pictures in the DUF and Darla Smoking videos provide complete absorption in music even for those unfamiliar with avant-garde electronics.

At Fields RS Yaka will showcase the electronic project DUF, the one which is the closest to pop culture. His tracks blend sticky industrial hip-hop and dub with boiling synthesized bass and glitch. Unlike many other projects, DUF skips concepts and interpretations, instead focusing on two vague acronym expansions: Dead Underground Future and Designated Ugly Friend. We recommend that you search for your own meaning on the dance floor because both meanings smell a bit like of absurd.

In the mid-2000s, James Holden established himself as a genre pioneer and paradigm shifter: he paved an uncommon path between manufactured minimal techno, which monopolized dance floors at the time, and artisanal IDM, which by that point was becoming increasingly self-absorbed. He expressed this innovative synergy both in his music and his curatorial creation, the Border Community label, which facilitated the growth of music artists such as Luke Abbott, Nathan Fake, etc.

While sticking to the formal techno paradigm, Holden's records maintained an exceptionally expressive vibe: boiling synths seemed to overflow, melodies blazed and flared up, and each track exponentially evolved before reaching high point. After the "The Inheritors", it became clear that Holden's music no longer fit in sequencer angularity. Imbued with the spirit of primal spiritualism, his compositions flourished in a new manner during live performances with The Animal Spirits ensemble.

At Fields RS, Holden will perform his most recent album called "Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities", a reflection on the idea of a heartfelt and long-lost rave party infused with echoes of Terry Riley, new age music, and other highly suitable liberties that adorn this reconstruction of a paradise.

II/III is a Sloveninan duo of harpist and composer Urška Preis and audiovisual artist Tine Vrabič formed in 2016. Together musicians create a mesmerizing deep atmospheric sound somewhere in between thoughtful electronics, aerie cinematic ambient, futuristic neoclassical music and catchy IDM.

The musicians decipher the mysterious name of the project as “Two Out Of Three”, indeed sometimes it feels like there is the third invisible member in the music of the duet. Maybe it's the cloudy environment inherent in their music. The best description of monochrome moods and conceptual components of the duo’s music is the name of the their debut mini-album "It could be paradise". Sad, tender and disappearing beyond the horizons, the moans of Urška’s harp are drowned in the electronic rhythms of Tin – this is how Paradise could sound if you could approach it for a while and fly at high speed over its inaccessible majestic clouds.

Each member of the band creates equally impressive music as the duo. Tin Vrabik’s alias Nitz explores the properties of electro-acoustics along with its hum, subtle crackle and unpredictable sound synthesis. In her solo project rouge-ah Urska Pris is looking for harmonies in non-objective ambient and reversed field recordings, to which she mixes in a somewhat otherworldly harp playing.

Experimental meta-pop that uses an unrecognizable voice, devoid of age and gender, as its primary tool

Thea Soti is an interdisciplinary artist from Serbia who works at the intersection of experimental vocal practices, free electronics, sound installations, poetic declamations, and video art. The key instrument in Thea's performances is her voice, which undergoes multiple transformations to create an entirely new sound medium.

A classically trained pianist, Thea got carried away with jazz quite early in her musical career. Soon after that, she started moving in the experimental music scene of Budapest and Berlin. As a result, she became a part of several jazz groups, using her voice instead of conventional wind instruments and turning it into a fully fledged multi-purpose tool that helps stress important points amidst turbulent improvisations.

Thea describes her album "ØVER+", which was released on a French label Planisphèr last year, as an experience of gliding through parallel universes using nothing but voice, which in its turn, due to intuitive amplifications, becomes devoid of both age and gender. Listeners only hear a rapidly pulsating and twinkling sound sculpture at a meta-pop exhibition, to be scrutinized and interpreted in multiple ways.

Thea Soti's live performances are bright flashes of sound energy, quests for new musical meanings, and endless cycles of rebirth.

High-pitched pop tunes laced with 1990s nostalgia and reinforced with UK bass and hardcore

Ushko is the stage name of singer and producer Dasha Korotkova. For some, her songs ooze with nostalgic guilty pleasure evoked by the 90s pop music, like "Virus" and "Kraski" (in her interview with Fields, Ushko admitted that she indulges in that kind of music herself, putting it on from time to time "just for kicks"). Other listeners are attracted by the rough energy of 4/4 beat, while still others like her somewhat hysterical and ironic lyrics about opiates, anguish, and a gun in the jockey box.

Ushko's greatest strength lies in refusing to choose any particular niche. She is equally at home in stretched, purposefully raw lo-fi pop and model trance performed in a duet with Moa Pillar, who produced her most recent album, WET_HITS.

"When emotions fill you to the brim and feelings seep through; when the glass is so full that it overflows. This is a state of excitement, hysteria, like an episode of cystitis in the cold rain," – said Dasha about her new album, which deals with autobiographical narratives about school bullying and glorifies the children of the indigo generation. The record's sound framework matches the anguish conveyed in the lyrics: unlike the nostalgic Silver Hits, Ushko’s new LP produces an incinerating effect, as if searing through you with auto-tune lasers and dazzling bass lines.

Eccentric slovenian duo manifesting their freedom from social constructs through sharp post-club bangers

Destruction and melody, deconstruction and broken rhythms — Warrego Valles create a radical tapestry of music from patches of many genres. Social resistance and underground creative activity are woven into their character.

Their polarized music combines viscous bass, abstract voice samples, a constantly changing techno pulsar, and synthetic abstractions. Their social engagement is geared at building safe spaces and resists misogyny, cis- and heteronormativity.

Nina Hudej and Nina Kodrič are one of the most prominent figures in Slovenia's and the Balkans' experimental club scene. Their diverse activities include curating Grounded Festival, Pritličje venue, and electronic events in Club Monokel with their queer group Ustanova.

The soundtrack to your own vacation as a reason to revive new age music

Between tranquil palm-fringed shores and the edge of our galaxy, there is a shortcut: the music of X.Y.R. Excessively romanticized, this statement serves only to outline the range of X.Y.R.'s musical palette, encompassing oriental new age, tropical Balearic, and azure ambient.

Transliterated from Cyrillic, the acronym stands for Temple of Secluded Reflection. This word combination was used by Manilov, a character of Nikolai Gogol's novel "Dead Souls", to describe a simple gazebo set up on his estate. This poetic metaphor was used as a pseudonym by Vladimir Karpov, an ascetic and recluse who decided to move from the concrete jungle of St. Petersburg to a small rural house. It is there that X.Y.R. produces measured and intricate soundscapes that set a contemplative mood, put listeners in a state of hypnosis, or even lull them to sleep.

X.Y.R.'s releases have appeared on California-based label Not Not Fun, NY-based Quiet Time Tapes, and Oakland-based Constellation Tatsu. His debut album, "Robinson Crusoe", initially written as a soundtrack for X.Y.R.'s own vacation, is about to be reissued by an Italian label Mixed Up.

The father of no wave and the first musician to combine minimalism with punk rock will perform in Belgrade as a part of a local guitar trio

A celebrated American composer, Rhys Chatham needs no special introduction as a pioneer of reckless and unruly guitar music from the 70s, later to be dubbed "no wave." Having studied the intricacies of musical composition in the class of a legendary minimalist, La Monte Young, Chatham came up with a new way to combine modern academic music with barbed guitar clangs.

Glenn Branca, Morton Subotnick, Arthur Russell, David Toop, Charlemagne Palestine, Thurston Moore, Peter Gordon – for all these major figures Chatham is something more than just an associate and a kindred spirit. Rhys is their mastermind source of inspiration, a spirit guide into the world of avant-garde guitar music. It can be safely said that without Chatham, there would be no Sonic Youth and no New York Noise movement, including legendary bands such as Liquid Liquid, DNA, and ESG.

As a composer, Rhys Chatham works with both small forms, like pieces for solo guitar, and large ones, like gathering orchestras of up to 100 guitarists. The largest orchestra assembled by Chetham consisted of as many as 400 players. At Fields, the legendary Chatham will perform in a team with some of the best guitarists from Serbia. The exact lineup is the main intrigue of the festival. Stay tuned!

A mesmerizing and unpredictable folk tale inspired by dense Slovenian forests, minimalistic rituals, and collectors' instruments

Once upon a time, three Slovenian musicians, Iztok Koren, Ana Kravanja, and Samo Kutin went to a workshop on how to make a balafon, a quaint percussion instrument resembling an African version of marimba. Having assembled the instrument, musicians conducted an impromptu performance together, which turned out to be a starting point for a new transcendental folk trio, Širom.

Full of wonders and folk material, the music of Širom sounds as if it imbibed the majestic charm of Slovenia's nature and grew on its fertile soils without any human agency.
Širom’s live performances resemble alchemical experiments and produce an impression similar to that of observing a watermill at work: listeners are fascinated by sheer mechanical beauty, which we but rarely see in our everyday life. Among other factors, this effect can be attributed to an abundance of inventive means of expression: from lutes and lyres to DIY resonators and instruments you probably didn't even know existed (gimbri, ribab, mizmar, tampura brač and ocarina – give yourself a pat on the back for each instrument you've heard about before).

Širom came into existence only in the mid-2010s, and in a short time managed to conquer, if not the musical Olympus, then at least the Julian Alps: at this point, they deserve the unofficial title of the most eminent avant-garde music project from Slovenia and define the national music scene abroad. It is not by chance that the trio publishes their releases on a multicultural label Glitterbeat that served as a stepping stone for the projects such as Altın Gün, YĪN YĪN, and Lucidvox.
Širom’s most recent album, "The Liquified Throne of Simplicity", hit the 11th place in the Quietus Albums of the Year 2022 chart, while The Guardian compared the band with the 20th century avant-garde legends Steve Reich and Art Ensemble of Chicago.

Refined cross-genre electronica that uncovers the enormous potential of modular synthesizers

"A slap in the face for naysayers who claim that all modular techno acts sound the same," says a press release presenting the music of a slovenian artist Shekuza. Structural intricacies and clear-cut music textures that underlie Shekuza's music immediately convince listeners in the validity of this statement. This is one of those exceptional cases when modular synths conjure up distinct images in the minds of listeners: each track incessantly moves as the music undergoes one transformation after another.

The person behind this project is Miha Šajina, an artist who embraces electronic music in all its appearances instead of trying to grasp at specific genre patterns. For Šajina, a 4x4 beat does not necessarily entail techno; sometimes it forms a strong core that underlies multi-layered cross-genre meanderings. Some songs of Shekuza's contain a rhythmic frame of electro, which is counter-intuitively decorated with mawkishly shimmering string lights, while others flash bare industrial dub that oozes with electric impulses and forces the dancefloor into a measured, mechanical movement.

The soundtrack for an imaginary sci-fi movie or a trip to a hallucinatory version of Paris

Victor Kudryashov’s project, Discours Synthetique is rethinking French synthwave esthetics of the 80s by embedding elements of noise, art-punk, and techno in the classic cold sound characteristic of the genre.

During his shows, Victor applies his flawless command of the French language to call a cab service and order a drive through a hallucinatory Paris. On the other end of the phone line, a confused driver mumbles something unintelligible, unaware that they have just took part in the live show, an amusement park made up of lo-fi techno, thrilling synthwave, and arrogant EBM.

Very soon, we will find out if Victor's next performance is perceived as a trip to the mirrorverse France or a journey to the Cassiopeia constellation, as the cosmic sound of his synths suggests. In any case, behind the broad shoulders of a two meters high musician anyrisky venture will turn into a safe trip.

An unlikely combination of techno music and absurdist lyrics in the spirit of an avant-garde futurist art movement Oberiu

Born in Nakhodka, a city in the Far East of Russia, Mirabella Kiryanova has made a name for herself among Moscow clubbers and patrons of Russian electronic music festivals.

For her project Shadowax, Kiryanova assumes an ironic and gloomy persona and taps into minimalistic, bone-dry sound while complementing it with absurdist lyrics that would not look out of place in a collection of poems of Alexander Vvedensky or Daniil Kharms.

This unlikely combo of techno music and absurdist lines in the spirit of Oberiu, an early 20th century Russian avant-garde movement, won over the audience and critics in 2019, when Shadowax's debut EP "Nikolai Reptile" was released on the Nina Kraviz's label "Trip". This EP displays an ostentatiously naive motley of genres, including arrhythmic techno and hardcore, and contains a number of pop music and hip-hop references; it easily braves the risk of coming off as lightweight and facetious. Far from it being so, this playfulness has a hidden power in it, because nothing is more attractive than a sense of humor and a healthy dose of self-irony.

These songs also represent a confession of love to the British sound and Russian hip-hop from the 1990s. While any setting will do to get the first taste of Shadowax's music, we highly recommend that you come and witness her performance on the Fields RS dance floor.

A musical portrait of Warsaw from one of the most inventive polish composers and producers of his generation

A native of Poznan and currently based in Warsaw, a multi-instrumentalist Wacław Zimpel enjoys pushing the boundaries of traditional music forms. He is constantly on the lookout for new ways of communication with listeners while reinventing his own musical dialect. For this reason, his discography contains both solo releases and collaborations with other artists performed in a variety of genres: from jazz to minimalism, from electronics to folklore.

Zimpel’s musical erudition and boundless curiosity are reflected in his choice of instruments: he started with a classical clarinet and has been using an alto clarinet as his main tool up till now. However, after a while Zimpel became somewhat disappointed in the classical approach to teaching and playing music and plunged into discovering new means of obtaining the desired sound, be it a Laos version of a khene, oscillators, sequencers, tape recorders, or filters that provide necessary electronic effects.

Released in March 2023, Wacław’s most recent album "Train Spotter" sums up many years of creative search. Dedicated to Warsaw, the music on this release was influenced by the artist's impressions with last year's events: the exhaustion caused by the pandemic followed by waves of demonstrations for human rights in Poland and the reception of Ukrainian refugees.

The jingle of a passing tram, the noise of a baggage carousel, the thumping of basketballs in a city park – Zimpel pinpoints these and many more sounds that fill up a modern city using dictaphones, loopers, and synthesizers. The resulting album is an attempt at capturing the soundscape of Warsaw, a city living through its very own drama against the backdrop of global historical events. In Zimpel's own words, this record is about people’s extraordinary solidarity: they are ready to help each other and stand together despite different political beliefs.

Mystic folk songs for introverted dancefloors

Violetta Shabash's lyrical character is a forest enchantress who hides deep in the thicket of a birch grove, looking over river otters and occasionally taking a beastly appearance herself, releasing claws and exposing fangs. A bedroom producer currently based in St. Petersburg, Violetta presents her musical mythology in the form of dance songs where the dimmed groove of lo-fi electronics intertwines with sprawling folk lyrics.

Soft Blade’s music palette is dominated by various shades of gray, a mixture of gloomy British electronics and primeval Russian chthonian motifs. This cultural symbiosis was greatly facilitated by the highly contrasted musical expirience of Violetta: having sang in church choirs, she later took on the role of a techno DJ.

Violetta is constantly in search for her own musical identity. For a long time, she shied away from live performances and ascetically composed music at home with a simple MIDI keyboard and a phone to record her voice. At some point she even decided to put an end to her music career and switch to office work. Luckily for us, she secured the backing of her fans and recorded the album "Softic", which ended up winning over the hearts of musical introverts.

Dub music that stays true to the original South London sound while having a distinct Balkan flavour

Founded in 2019, a Belgrade-based dub band Headhop initially operated as a trio: Miloš Radičević aka Lil Taty took on electronic instruments and production, Danilo Ristić was on bass, and Miloš Stevanović, known in the Belgrade music community as Lavan, played the trombone. In 2022, the team released their 5-track debut EP, "Return to Soho", as well as a video for their single "Jawbreaker". Around that time, Stevanović left the group and Headhop transformed into a duet.

Headhop's music can be described as dub produced within the tradition of the original South London sound (the one that brought fame to the genre back in the day) while possessing some distinct local features. The duo uses sampling and trombone in a way that emphasises that theirs is the true sound of Belgrade’s streets.

Radičević and Ristić are currently working to release a double single; they also plan to present their debut LP as early as June this year. For their live performances, the duo engages a guitar player, Relja Popović, who makes Headhop sound even more psychedelic and surreal.

Sound sitcom as a new music form

Over the past ten years, Zhenya Gorbunov took part in an incredible number of projects, including ГШ, Interchain, NRKTK, and Stoned Boys. With time, Gorbunov's subtle musical irony and conceptualistic approach shaped into a distinctive individual style, which he later pushed to the maximum in his solo project, Inturist.

In one of his performances, Inturist did a musical voice-over of a whole football game, 2 sets of 45 minutes each. Another time, he performed among the armchairs, while the audience danced on the empty stage. When playing at large music festivals, Gorbunov usually creates hack-and-slash guitar show by expanding the lineup and engaging a saxophone player Sergey Khramtsevich, bass player Dima Midborn, and drummer Viktor Glazunov. As custom goes, noone, including the musicians themselves, can predict the Inturist's lineup for a given day.

In terms of genre preferences, Inturist has a penchant for a frolicsome, played-by-ear twist, new-wave, and no wave, with a drop of tropical rock for good measure. Gorbunov always sings about things he most cares about, be it the possible benefits for global economy, a very close friend of his father's, or a person who is about to arrive.

An exclusive revival of "the sweetest and most lowdown" singer of the millennium

Back in the day of comparative freedom, a singer with an untranslatably obscene stage name Zalupin debuted on the Moscow scene. His performances outraged the more refined part of the bohemian crowd in more ways than one: the mocking and explicit lyrics of the songs, the total anonymity of the artist, and a rooster’s comb provocatively dangling from the back of Zalupin's headmask. Another detail that added to the overall scandalous effect was that Alexander was up to all sorts of scoffing in his songs, mocking all and sunder in the art community as if he knew them in person.

Zalupin's hoarse voice that sounded as an approximation of all popular singers of Russian chanson helped him win over even the most unlikely listeners. The outrageous lyrics of his songs were conspicuously out of tune with the acoustic backing; Zalupin warbled like a lark to the rhythms of disco, indie rock, and noir pop. Somehow Alexander always managed to keep on the right side of good taste without crossing over to vulgarity; his songs made people smile rather than fly into rage.

Despite the smiley vibe, there was still a risk of a violent reaction on the part of the audience. Zalupin's earliest gigs featured a few able-bodied roughnecks who carried him to and from the stage and watched over him throughout the performance while Zalupin raved in front of the crowd assisted by his partner in crime, a tight-lipped bass player wearing a Fantomas mask.

Alas, but endless fun has no place in our violent and unjust world. As time went by, Zalupin's songs prophetically deviated towards a reflection on the sins of the modern time. Not long ago, the artist's social media published a distressing black-and-white tab informing the fans that their idol was no more.

However, we are to witness Zalupin's rebirth. As to what it will be like, no one knows yet.
This June, after 3 years of deathly silence, we will find out how badly Zalupin's long and curly hair was damaged by the cemetery soil and how impressive his resurrection will turn out to be.

A melancholic, mother-of-pearl-coloured mystery play in a frame of dub techno and IDM

Born in Nakhodka, a city in the Far East of Russia, Mirabella Kiryanova aka Ishome imbibed the hazy character of the region. Her music is full of a deep-water groove polished with tenacious rhythms of dub techno and sensual samples of her own vocals with words and phrases in a made-up, but intuitive language.

The worlds conjured up by the Ishome's music are easy to visualize and the titles of her songs help listeners form images in their mind. Mythological and fairytale characters, Ken Tavr and the hedgehog in the fog, Adam and Eve, Tetra and Dark March become the inhabitants of an audiovisual saga, which Ishome painstaikingly voices and visualizes during her AV-performances.

The first surge of Ishome's popularity was generated by "Confession", which gained a wide following and became her signature release. After that, Mira’s songs took on a life of their own and accumulated millions of streams while Nina Kraviz invited Ishome to join her label TRIP.

Industrial synth-pop and krautrock as an alternative option for techno dance floors

Named after a district in Berlin and deeply saturated with the German vibe, Marzahn is a co-project of Pavel Pakhomov and Nina Frolova. The duo combines groovy new beat with rough industrial synth-pop, pumping it up with an overdose of EBM and the monotonous krautrock sound. Pasha’s voice comes across as deliberately emotionless and detached when the artist performs his songs in a non-existent dialect of German.

Being focused around booming percussions and synthetic keyboard splashes, Marzahn's music is not tied to any specific locality: Berlin references coexist with allusions to the so-called New York noise, a music movement the US music scene saw in the late 70s. Journalists do not hesitate to compare Marzahn's music to the sound of Sheffield of 1978. To quote an impassioned review by Cai Trefor in Gigwise, "Mincing hard-hitting beats from a sampler with filthy synth runs and a myriad live percussion sounds, it's a warped disco for outsiders, where the bass claws at you and rumbles through your entire body when emanating from the speaker stack."

A punk rock trio from Belgrade that blends jazz improvisations into guitar sound

Crno Dete sound like a fusion of noise rock, jazz, punk, and folk. Fluid, psychedelic, and fully instrumental, to an untrained ear this Belgrade-brewed music can come across as an accidentally recorded jam session. However, this is not entirely the case. Crno Dete do indeed build up from and get inspired by the improvisational vibe, but their musical background includes underground projects, many of which were punky in spirit.

The project appeared in 2011 and at first existed as a one-man band. After a while, Crno Dete became a duet, and then a trio. Nowadays, the band consists of a guitarist Damjan Brkić, drummer Milan Bukejlović, and saxophonist Tomislav Marjanović.

Along the way, Crno Dete recorded 4 full-scale albums: "Riffs" (2012), "Dževad" (2014), "Zlatne Stvari" (2016), and "Neponovljivo" (2017). Their fifth album, "Sv. Prompt", сame out this May; the social media posts that preceded the release were generated by a chatbot similar to ChatGPT. As with all their previous works, Crno Dete's "Sv. Prompt" is a real brain-twister of an album!

Vocal experiments from the main keepers of the Serbian song tradition

Svetlana Spajič's creative biography reflects the evolution of contemporary Serbian folk. An indefatigable explorer of the local culture, Spajič worked for decades to search for hidden gems of Balkan ethnographic music and breathe new life into her findings.

The heart and mind of the local folk scene, Svetlana Spajič launched her music career back in the early 90s under the gentle guidance of highly experienced researchers of folklore. Spajič painstakingly transferred this obscure knowledge into the modern era, expanding her creative reach to other regions of the world. Spajić's artistic journey includes performing at the WOMEX festival, collaborating with Zeiktratzer, a radical academic ensemble from Germany, recording in a duo with Anohni and William Basinski, exploring Balkan sexuality in a project by Marina Abramovič called “Balkan Erotic Epic”, and deep diving into ethno-electronic deviations with Guido Möbius as part of the Gordon project. To a great extent, it was thanks to Svetlana's passion and dedication that Serbian folk music achieved worldwide popularity.

The traditional polyphony of the Svetlana Spajić Group project is based on aural materials painstakingly collected during their numerous expeditions to rural localities. Their performances are characterized by the maximum authenticity and developped a truly timeless quality. The acapella vocal quartet comprised of Spajić herself, her students and colleagues bridges generations and continues the vivid tradition of the unique Serbian culture.

Balkan punky ethnography spreading across miles of cassette tape

An active member of the local DIY music scene from the late 90s onwards, Vladimir Lenhart rediscovered the endless vistas of cassette tape plunderphonics after participating in a series of industrial and noise projects. Tempered by the passionate underground spirit, over the next ten years Lenhart became a leading figure in a subgenre called "turbotronics" (the term coined by Vice), a furious bastard-pop deconstruction of a local stage phenomenon, the so-called “turbofolk”. After that, Lenhart expanded the boundaries of his research even further by buying up heaps of audio products of questinable quality at flea markets and using a bunch of cassette players to operate the music fireworks consisting of industrial rhythms, Jugo-style agitpop, Middle Eastern melodies, and anything else Lenhart can lay his hands on. According to The Wire, seeing Lenhart Tapes perform is a raw experience, like watching a movie by Emir Kusturica played backwards on a haywire VHS recorder connected to a flickering TV screen.

In his most recent releases, Lenhart Tapes stays true to the sound collage approach and uses the same setup while focusing more and more on the archives of Tijana Stancović and Balkan folklore field recordings taped during Lenhart's expeditions. His latest release to date, "Duets", keeps on a cheerful and noisy immersion into the traditional motifs by revisiting the loops and using the guest vocals, including Svetlana Spajić, a musician, ethnographist, and a curator of "Fields".

Playful brain teasers for inquiring minds from the mastermind of the Berlin's electronic scene

The ingenious electronic music of Guido Möbius encapsulates the very best of the German underground scene of the last decades. It absorbed the frantic absurdism of "Geniale Dilletanten", hypnotic qualities characteristic of krautrock pioneers, perversive sensibility of electropunk, accessible complexity of the Cologne scene, and humorous romanticism of CDs from the 2000s. With releases on such labels as Karaoke Kalk, Dekorder, and Shitkatapult, Möbius created his own unique sound that turns subtle musical nuances into lucid concepts. He frames dissonances in funky vibes, builds up melodies from glitch sounds, and puts electroacoustic passages under the microscope to discover elements of pop music. An experienced PR agent, Guido Möbius diligently informs the press and the listeners about a wide range of new music, from Faust to the CTM festival. At the same time, he is very passionate about his own projects and builds intimate and trusting relationships with the audience.

Guido Möbius's music is a complex constructor kit, which is put together and reassembled all over again at each of his performances. In plain view of the audience, the straightforward sounds produced by a guitar, trumpet, or microphone flow through an entire orchestra made up of pedals and samplers. The shouts from the crowd, hiking songs, accidental extraneous signals, and other sounds transform in real time, turning the delicate pop-psychedelia into a frenetic rave ruled by the audience itself.

Adventurous saxophone improviser Sergei Khramtcevich gets personal

Saxophone wizard Sergei Khramtcevich is probably the busiest instrumentalist on Russia's independent music scene — even after he arrived in Belgrade. He has left his instantly recognizable touch on dozens of recordings – from experimental rock to postmodernist takes on Russian chanson. However, with his latest album “Five Colours of Experience” Sergei takes a break from collaborations and dives deeper into the world of his innermost feelings and intimate meditations.

Over the course of five compositions he takes us through a rollercoaster of emotions – the raw anxiety of Yellow, the lurking danger of Grey, the loneliness and inner emptiness of Black, the cathartic unpredictability of textures in Orange and the sense of hope in Green. Sergei lets his saxophone speak the pure language of his heart and takes us on a journey filled with wild melodies, abrasive timbres and adventurous spirit of improvisation.

Future jazz visionaries DYW will take you to another galaxy

What happens if you combine snaky saxophone lines, quirky electronic FX and textures and drumming that switches from hypnotic to frenetic? DYW’s futuristic jazz is the best answer to this question. The band is not afraid to tread stylistically diverse territories, being equally comfortable with muscular jazz rock, sophisticated avant-jazz and meditative minimalism.

DYW’s influences range from Sun Ra’s cosmogonic philosophy to Shabaka Hutchings’s uncompromised artistic bravery. The band’s live shows have been compared to intergalactiс expeditions, scientific experiments and even shamanistic trips. This time DYW will join forces with the drummer from fellow jazz experimentalists Džezbollah, whose approach combines deepness and passion with humour.

Future jazz visionaries DYW will take you to another galaxy

What happens if you combine snaky saxophone lines, quirky electronic FX and textures and drumming that switches from hypnotic to frenetic? DYW’s futuristic jazz is the best answer to this question. The band is not afraid to tread stylistically diverse territories, being equally comfortable with muscular jazz rock, sophisticated avant-jazz and meditative minimalism.

DYW’s influences range from Sun Ra’s cosmogonic philosophy to Shabaka Hutchings’s uncompromised artistic bravery. The band’s live shows have been compared to intergalactiс expeditions, scientific experiments and even shamanistic trips. This time DYW will join forces with the drummer from fellow jazz experimentalists Džezbollah, whose approach combines deepness and passion with humour.

A sonic alchemist seamlessly blending outsider electronics and atmospheric bass into a pulsating techno odyssey

SAUD is the papa snare of the SUTRA rave circuit, which over the time has hosted many eminent artists at Belgrade venues, including Batu, Aisha Devi, Abadir, Aya, Lee Gamble, Minor Science, Aquarian, and Peder Mannerfelt.

Prepare to be captivated by SAUD's transcendent DJ set where disparate sonic worlds collide in a mesmerizing fusion. Drawing inspiration from the intriguing universe of outsider electronics found on Nyege Nyege tapes, he intertwines it with the atmospheric bass production reminiscent of Skee Mask, creating an exhilarating sonic journey. With a touch of audacity, SAUD effortlessly accelerates and achieves an extraordinary speed together with Atrice, while maintaining a sublime uneven glow that permeates the air for hours. Brace yourself for a whirlwind of eclectic techno vibes, where pulsating rhythms and ethereal textures intertwine.

Deeply immersed in his craft, SAUD has ventured far and wide, leaving sonic imprints across global landscapes. From the bustling streets of New York City to the labyrinthine alleys of Berlin, from the serene landscapes of Belgium to the sun-kissed shores of Italy, his melodies have excited the souls of many. The Balkans have danced to his sound's irresistible cadence, as SAUD's sonic whispers have become an intrinsic part of their musical tapestry.

SAUD, the luminary of SUTRA, awaits your presence at Fields RS. Be advised that the unexpected is to be expected.

A solo project of Isabel Candia, s0.any combines the fragilily and tenderness of the entire world that screams with the power of the wind itself. Isabel’s music can best be described as ‘sharp as a needle’: a thready lo-fi sound that hides the scintillation of a thunderstorm behind it, as well as the crumbling of volcanic rocks and memories, and the responsiveless of birds' voices to a person who took refuge in the wild of the forest. The impressions of the natural world and a deep love for it are reflected in the dancing electronic sounds alloyed with wind and traditional plucked instruments, guitar loops, and field recordings. This music is breathing, crying, and rejoicing at the contemplation of natural processes as if joining in with the artist to ask the question – what piece of memory shall it become next? Isabel was born and raised in Peru, and her childhood recollections take the form of either Nazca Lines amid the desert sands or the magical deviations of time shaped as the selva forest.

Fields Festival inventivne muzike vraća se u Beograd od 16. do 18. aprila

U vremenu kada deluje da svet sve brže klizi u haos, muzika ostaje naše glavno utočište. Ovog aprila Fields ponovo okuplja one koji u zvuku i medijskoj umetnosti traže sopstveni osećaj slobode.

Istorija nam je više puta pokazala da se u teškim periodima ljudi okreću iracionalnom u potrazi za spasenjem. Mistične prakse, dadaistička umetnost, nadrealističke tehnike, karneval i klovnovština, izmišljeni rituali i potraga za identitetom kroz folklor — nismo se toliko promenili u poslednjih sto godina. U tom smislu, muzika ostaje jedno od najiskrenijih sredstava koje imamo.

Na Fieldsu 2026 krećemo na audiovizuelnu ekspediciju — kroz ritam i šum, kroz boju tona i tišinu, kroz apstraktne forme koje često izražavaju ono što reči ne mogu. Program festivala obuhvata krautrock i bedroom pop, jungle i jazz-punk, niskonaponski drone i meditativne perkusivne prakse, DIY tehno-mehanizme i optičke iluzije.

U programu učestvuje više od 20 izvođača iz Srbije, Hrvatske, Slovenije, Francuske, Švajcarske, Rusije i Ujedinjenog Kraljevstva. Format događaja obuhvata veliki koncert otvaranja, veče audiovizuelnih koncerata i performansa, glavni muzički program sa live nastupima i inventivnim DJ setovima, kao i medijsku instalaciju. Više detalja uskoro.

O festivalu Fields

Festival Fields održava se od 2014. godine. Godine 2023. festival je pronašao novi dom u Beogradu. Tokom godina, na Fieldsu je nastupilo više od 300 umetnika, među kojima su američki pionir new age muzike Laraaji, britanski producent James Holden i iranski eksperimentalni umetnik Sote.

Festival je takođe bio domaćin brojnih saradnji i premijera, uključujući retki trio Charlemagne Palestine, Mika Vainio & Eric Thielemans; duo britanskog elektronskog minimaliste Marka Fella i italijanskog violončeliste Sandra Musside; saradnju minimalističkog kompozitora Vladimira Martinova i elektronskog producenta Moa Pillar; kao i projekat Petra Theremina, praunuka izumitelja teremina, zajedno sa tehno producentom Nikitom Zabelinom.

Ključna ideja festivala jeste istraživanje muzike u njenim različitim oblicima i pojavama, otkrivanje izvođača na preseku žanrova, povezivanje avangarde i pop-kulture i građenje mostova između generacija. Fields briše granice između „visoke“ i „niske“ umetnosti, spajajući gotovo galerijsku pažnju prema zvuku sa energijom rejva.