Event Type : HAMBURG

The mighty sound of Bulgarian women’s choirs, the introspective meditation of Gregorian chorales, the shimmering songs of central African nomads, classical bel canto, and the unique voices of the Gagaku – the ancient classical music of Japan. In her music, Hatis Noit – who now appears as part of the »ePhil« series – plays with the infinite facets of female singing.

Hatis Noit was 16 years old and on a pilgrimage to Buddha’s birthplace in Nepal when she heard a nun from the Lumbini temple singing. That voice, that sound, had a hypnotic quality. In this moment of awakening, Hatis Noit became aware of the deep emotional power of the voice – an original and instinctive instrument that connects people with each other, with nature and with the cosmos.

Hatis Noit relies entirely on this effect in her tracks. Loops allow her to create phenomenal sculptures, and only occasionally do soundscapes and electronic sounds ground down the polyphonic web.

In Japanese mythology, the name »Hatis Noit« describes the stem of the lotus flower, whose blossom represents the physical world, while the roots represent the spiritual world. Hatis Noit seeks to connect these spheres.

The artist grew up in the remote region of the Shiretoko National Park (Hokkaido), and has been living in London for a number of years. Like Nils Frahm, Lubomyr Melnyk and Ólafur Arnalds at one time, she belongs to the family of the legendary label Erased Tapes.

With these three geniuses of improvisation, it’s all about getting lost in the groove and becoming one with sound and rhythm. On the extra-long tracks of the album »Ghosted«, bassist Johan Berthling lays the foundation – driving, but with a self-assured calm. Layered on top, drummer Andreas Werlin puts together sketches of powerful beats. Oren Ambarchi’s guitar rarely sounds like one; he seems rather to produce soothing drone layers and Hammond organ sounds around the prongs of the bass and rhythm. In the trio’s work, scaling down leads to greatness.

Oren Ambarchi grew up in Australia as a Sephardic Jew and focused over the years on drums and percussion. But a new world opened up when he happened to pick up a guitar that was lying around and started hitting it with drumsticks. He was inspired by a love of rock and an unconventional approach to the instrument.

Ambarchi, Berthling and Werlin met in the legendary Rymden Studios in Stockholm in 2018. They pressed record and let the music take shape. A weightless, transcendental form of group improvisation.

The three have been playing their role in experimental improvised music in various formations for years. The assembly of »Ghosted« acted like a creative flow. And when the listener immerses themselves in this music, they get an idea of infinity.

As Rosaceae, the multidisciplinary artist Leyla Yenirce condenses down sounds, images and documentations of feminist resistance in her works. Rosaceae’s audiovisual works are multiform collages. She assembles impactful speech samples and auratic field recordings with musical elements of noise, ambience and techno. Rosaceae performs her work »A Piece Of The Storm« as part of the ePhil series. Electronic sound fields and the voice of vocalist Simav Hussein open up a space of resonance that negotiates that which spoken language cannot reveal.

Leyla Yenirce studied Fine Arts in Hamburg. She has been awarded the Karl H. Ditze Kunstpreis, the Bundespreis für Kunststudierende, the Playground Art Prize and, most recently, the Ars Viva Preis 2023. Her works have been performed at the Münchner Kammerspiele and the Berliner Festspiele, among other festivals, and include both audiovisual and performative elements. Her composition »Helbest« was published in collaboration with Deutschlandfunk Kultur.

JakoJako needed quite some time to realise what it means to be a resident DJ at Berghain. She joined that elite circle in 2021, and she has been regularly generating hypnotic atmospheres in the legendary club ever since. She is also one of the leading Berlin experts on analogue synthesizers.

To get into »SchneidersLaden«, the mecca of modular synthesizers in Berlin Kreuzberg, you have to know where to go and which bell to ring. Sibel Koçer, better known by her DJ moniker JakoJako, worked there for many years, supporting others on their journey to master the art of sound synthesis.

JakoJako also needs the feel and the aura of the real instrument in her live sets. What really gets her fired up is her »Korg« or the »Arturia MiniBrute«, and she loves it most when the sound-chemical reactions even confound her. »When I turn the knobs, see the lights or patch the cables, it calms me.«

Together with the grand master Rødhåd she created the album »In Vere«, featuring fast, driving structures that still have a peaceful undertone. In her solo work »Metamorphose« she relies on the more patient patterns of ambient tones. She recently also released »Verve«, her debut on the legendary label Mute, for which she had already remixed New Order and Depeche Mode frontman Martin Gore.

This season JakoJako is playing Crave Festival in The Hague, the Nation of Gondwana just outside Berlin, and Glitch in Malta. JakoJako is the sound-sorceress of the hour.

Harp arpeggios like strings of pearls, shadowy synthesizer foundations that merely suggest heavy hip-hop beats, field recordings of tropical birds in the forest – in such passages, Nala Sinephro’s music meets our expectations of ambient jazz. But then at a certain point comes the eruption, and all the energy that has built up releases. To call Nala Sinephro’s debut »Space 1.8« multi-facetted would be an understatement.

It happened in a rehearsal room crammed with instruments in a Belgian college of music. Between the fiddles and the bagpipes, a concert harp – with its alluring Baroque look – catches Nala Sinephro’s eye: on the one hand that golden aura of »accomplished young ladies«, and on the other a unique sound machine. The instrument speaks Nala’s language: soft-spoken yet immensely powerful. She practices on it in secret, and integrates the old harp into her new concepts of music.

In the long run, however, Sinephro feels stifled by the academic straight-jacket of the jazz schools. For her, the most formative educational experience turns out to be live mixing as a sound technician at shows and concerts, and ultimately also the vibrant, youthful jazz scene of south London. There she finds the unfettered creative forces she needs to realise the music in her head: free music ranging from the danceable and hypnotic to the virtuosically unrestrained. Her debut »Space 1.8« pours this diversity into a suite of musical experience.