After an extended absence, CTM Festival is returning to its rightful date at the start of the calendar and cultural year. Taking place throughout ten days, across Berlin’s best venues—including HAU, Berghain, Silent Green, amongst others—CTM will set out once again to challenge our preconceived expectations of what we understand music to be, while chucking in a few riotous parties to boot. Expect the weird, the wonderful, and the wild, as CTM offers a dazzling and diverse line up of avant-garde electronic sounds, drone symphonies, and bass-heavy parties. With so much of offer, we scoured the line-up to pick out our top five selections for you not to miss.
Amnesia Scanner
One of CTM’s most-anticipated events is always the closing party, and what better act to pull in than the always reliable electronic-performative duo Amnesia Scanner. Always provocative, thought-provoking, and riotously entertaining, the duo will premiere a new, AV performance at Radialsystem, that will introduce their soon-to-be released album, coming out later this year on the PAN label. The showcase will toy together narratives about isolation and capitalist survivalism, all wrapped together into a grotesque carnival of bright lights, digital effects, and gnarly beats and sounds.
3OK (Zoë Mc Pherson, Jay Mitta, DJ Diaki)
As part of the Afropollination program, a series of events and workshops promoting cross-cultural partnerships, CTM will debut the new live collaboration by 30K. Consisting of prolific Berlin alternative-electronic music producer and DJ Zoë Mc Pherson, Balani Show and Mali’s DJ Diaki, plus Nyege Nyege’s Jay Mitta, the new and exciting live collaboration will boldly mix electro and African rave sounds alongside who knows what else in the Berghain rave-hall on Thursday February 2nd.
Hüma Utku
The mind behind last year’s deep and resonant doom-ambient release The Psychologist, Hüma Utku, willbring her melodic synthscape music to the three-dimensional soundlab, Monom. Abstract, and noisy, the Berlin-based artist will no doubt infuse the multi-spectral soundsystem with harmonious ambience and challenging textures, all in which define her elaborate, electronic work. Expect deep, pulsating, and complex sounds, that will enrich your ears, soul, and heart.
Iceboy Violet
British rapper and cutting-edge performer Iceboy Violet shook up the scene with their 2022 cassette release ‘The Vanity Project’, produced Space Afrika, Slikback amongst others. Rough-and-ready raps, and club-ready bass and beats, the record is filled with broad, and moody energy, all of which have come to define the artist’s live performances. At CTM you can expect a show heavy in personal, cathartic energy that is both profound and sublime. Tipped as an artist to watch in 2023, this a performance not to be missed.
Christina Wheeler
Running across three consecutive nights, Berlin-based producer and singer-songwriter Christina Wheeler will present The Totality of Blackness Trilogy, a series of a multimedia, immersive sound, and video performances. Throughout the events, Wheeler will be performing what she describes as ‘Tone Poems’, using special vocal techniques with effects processing alongside some unique instrumentation, that create mediative and transportive experiences for the those able to attend. With a messaging set out to reframe our relationships with Blackness, “and the accompanying fear often intrinsically enmeshed therein”, Wheeler’s immersive performances are a must for anyone attending any of the CTM events.
- CTM Festival 24th Edition | 27 January – 5 February 2023
