Music & clubs

Pop goes HKW

HKW offers up another heady music programme exploring the roots of pop. Whether that's your bag or not, you've got to appreciate the line-up, including music legend Ebo Taylor. Check out the rest of our highlights and see for yourself Apr 28-May 1.

Image for Pop goes HKW
Photo by Wim Heutnik

Another month, another Haus der Kulturen der Welt festival with a vague curatorial premise and impressive global roster of performers. This time it’s POP 16, part of the four-year cross-disciplinary project 100 Years of Now.

The programme, which proposes to tackle the roots of pop music from 1900-1930, is even more eclectic than usual, stretching from interpretations of Egyptian “golden age” music to Polish cabaret. Don’t miss 80-year-old Ghanaian guitarist and music legend Ebo Taylor (photo; Apr 28, 20:30), whose new ensemble Konkoma revives the century-old proto-Afrobeat music style of the same name.

Japanese pop singer and Yellow Magic Orchestra collaborator Miharu Koshi , known for turning Western music into kitsch-bordering J-pop gems, will delve deep into European music’s back catalogue and reinterpret everyone from Friedrich Hollaender to Paul Hindemith to Charles Trenet (Apr 29, 21:30).

Veering over to America and Africa, Chicago house and techno producer Jamal Moss aka Hieroglyphic Being will perform his exclusively commissioned composition The Sirius Mysteries about the Dogon people of eastern Mali, involving vocals, African percussion and classical piano. (Apr 30, 22:00).

Bringing it all back to Berlin, a guided tour (Apr 29-30, 14:00) will reveal the city’s forgotten past as one of the world’s recording industry capitals. All this plus lectures, installations and much more; see the full programme at www.hkw.de.

POP 16 Apr 28-May 1 | Haus der Kulturen der Welt, John-Foster-Dulles-Allee-10, Tiergarten, U-Bhf Bundestag