Nov 27–Dec 1, 2007
Worldtronics 2007
Festival of Electronic Music
Every year, WORLDTRONICS tries to find the most innovative hotspots for electronic music as well as the most exciting musical developments in the wide world outside Europe and the United States. After all, digital cultural techniques have long since become a global phenomenon – producing new, unheard-of worlds of sound.
The first edition explores the electronic music scenes in Japan, Congo, Chile and Israel. It will be opened by Harmonia, the Krautrock pioneers of electronic music. For five days, the 1950’s architecture of the former Congress Hall on the River Spree will be welcoming musicians and DJs who play music ranging from minimal, abstract, techno and deep house to experimental pop, congotronics and acitón. We are indebted to experts and scouts in the various countries for this exquisite selection.
WORLDTRONICS invites you to come along and discover these scenes and their backgrounds. For Worldtronics is also a reminder that electronic music arises through sheer joy in experimentation. And that dancing is the most wonderful way of appropriating public space. With listening lounges and dance floors, a trade-show and talks, installations and videos, the House of World Cultures will be the festival meeting place in an autumnal Tiergarten. The House will be brimming with excitement – Welcome to WORLDTRONICS!
The music will be accompanied in the House's foyer by a small tradeshow at which participating musicians, labels, club operators, software and hardware producers and others active in the scene can meet each other and exchange goods, music, information and ideas.
The curators
Santiago de Chile
Eva-Christina Meier and Andreas Fanizadeh: The artist and the journalist from Berlin are, among other things, editors of Chile International – Kunst, Existenz, Multitude (ID-Verlag, 2005) and curators of the exhibition Museo Santiago – Die Stadt als Versprechen (Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, 2007).
Japan
Jörg Follert a.k.a. Wechsel Garland lives and works in Cologne as a musician and producer. Now, with seven albums to his name, he still continues to carve out new paths – off the beaten track – with his electronic music. His experience of the Japanese scene ranges from his collaboration with Sohichiro Suzuki (World Standard) to diverse remixes.
Congo
Vincent Kenis and Marc Hollander, both musicians and producers, operate the Crammed Discs label. The forerunner of this venture was their duet, Aksak Maboul, to whom we are indebted for musical discoveries like Congotronics, Bebel Gilberto, and others. Their avant-garde sound in the interface between fake jazz, electronics, as well as their very own version of African and Balkan music and minimalism is a milestone in the history of music.
Israel
The Israeli video artist and photographer Ronni Shendar lives and works in Jerusalem. Till Rohmann, AKA glitterbug, is a DJ, producer and artist who lives and works in Germany and Israel. Together, the two of them curate and stage c.sides, a festival for electronic music and political media art, which has been staged in Jerusalem for the past three years.