k r a a k f e s t i v a l
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Yeah dude, it’s the 15th edition of your annual journey through avant-garde music history, contemporary experimentalism and general under-theradar madness. We know it’s a jungle out there and we don’t understand things either. How lucky are you to meet your fellow freaks once a year for the Belgian Gesamtkunstwerk that is called KRAAKfestival, dedicated to the dionysian side of music performance. Twelve hours of intense eclecticism, synaesthetic concert experience, record shopping and general feasting. This year’s exhibition at Netwerk is called ‘Watch that Sound’ and brings together five artists that question the concepts ‘sound’ and ‘silence’ in sculptures, images and installations. See you in the zone!
La Ligne Claire (fr)
14:15 zaal
These French post punkers love Ghanaian highlife and solid amateurism, resulting in atonal no wave and other pleonastic non genres. Spontaneity probably is their key goal, as is obligatory record possession of The Shaggs, The Raincoats and Kleenex. La Ligne Claire could well be described as a contemporary version of the aforementioned, if it wasn’t for the fact that some male figures interfere. Anyway, it’s the only possible right way to go in the Parisian art scene. This is one for the hipsters with good taste. Jonáš Gruska (sk)
15:00 zaal
This young Slovakian composer studies at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. After work-
ing on digital compositions and multi-media installations, he currently focuses on the electro-acoustic studio sound of yesteryear. His recent Nocturnal oscillations for one recalls the atmosphere of the Radiophonic Workshops and some of Dick Raaijmakers’ work. In 2011 he founded the LOM micro label that puts out young Eastern European avant-gardists. Guds Söner (se) 15:45 studio The Sons of God consist of Leif Elgren and Kent Tankred. This Swedish duo undertook a permanent quest for what they call the mental airspace. In their public research both the visual and the aural are important. Their performances often mix hard noise soundtracks with theatrical alienation. The effect of their physical presentation on the audience is one of pure inconvenience. Not that easy to digest but all the more intense.
Richard Dawson (uk) 16:30 studio Few people in the Britfolk tradition guard the authenticity like Richard Dawson. Dawson tells life stories that are at times heartwarming, at others heartbreaking, but never without typically British self-mockery between the lines. His most recent output is The Magic Bride (Pink Triangle, 2011), on which his particular guitar style and peculiar vocal powers are combined along the lines of the great singer-songwriters. In his hometown of Newcastle he is a celebrated artist. He hardly ever performed outside of the UK borders as so far, but is now travelling through Europe kicking off with the KRAAKfestival. Lubrifikattor (ca/pl/fr) 17:15 zaal Cross-country trio that is mostly active in Paris these days. Ever since 2006 Lubrifikatttor deals with dark electro acoustic party noise and pagan Auto-Tune incantations, larded with inert
beats and saturated basses. Their releases come mainly through the Galerie Pache imprint. Their most recent one is called Tapette as a corelease with Tanzproces. Not for pussies. MANUEL PADDING (nl) 18:00 pakhuis In Home is The Sea - Up in Smoke, Manuel Padding, a poet based in The Hague, presents an audio-visual performance for tape (audio and video), video projectors, and fog machines: an immersive, almost existential experience. No up, no down, no sideways, just what is around us. The fog as space-time continuum where we exist and experience a complete life in a single moment. At the festival the piece is presented both as a day long installation and as a live performance at 18:00.
Jirí Wehle (cz)
18:45 studio
If you ever dwelled the streets of Prague you’ve most probably come across the wonderful Jirí Wehle on one or another street corner. With his hurdy-gurdy and his oddly shrill vocalism, Wehle plays both Czech folk traditionals as his own compositions. Wonderfull real people music.
19:30 Maan (be) zaal Last year the youngster duo MAAN suddenly appeared from the voids of the Belgian experimental underground, with a cassette release on the Smeltkop label in Ghent. Even more thrilling were the live performances that followed, which took a different approach on each occasion. Their Jesus please send the right ones to Eurasia in Art Cinema OFFoff was an instant classic of minimalism and repetition. MAAN also write ‘real’ songs that remind at times of the Shadow
Ring, Drunk Elk or Belgian cold wave history. Without a doubt one of the freshest homegrown acts. Maan will release their debut lp Manifold on KRAAK at the end of March. Billy Bao (es) 20:15 zaal One day Basque noise monger Mattin discovered punk rock. He looked for the loudest guitar player and the sleaziest drummer in his area and started to channel his noise within a classic power trio. Their second album Buildings from Bilbao (Burka for Everybody) is full of filthy Brainbombs style noise punk, white noise and weird editing. Band members are loving dads and hardly leave their houses. It’s easy to predict how this concert will turn out.
Sleaford Mods (uk) 21:30 zaal Sleaford Mods are the product of Britain’s harsh reality. It’s a punk band that, by lack of sympathy for the human race, replaced its members by a laptop. Their songs are fueled with working class philosophy, the vibe is bleak. You’ve got to be able to sell yourself so I stuck my life on eBay. £25 mate. True Allan Sillitoe heritage and the artistic proof that, outside of the The Cameleon, Notthingham will always be the wrong side of the river Styx. Their new lp Austerity Dogs was just released through the Harbinger Sound label. David Behrman (usa) 22:00 zaal The Austria born minimal composer and multimedia artist David Behrman has been active within the American avant-garde ever since the sixties. He began his career at Columbia where he introduced the New York experimen-
tal scene. Together with Robert Ashley, Alvin Lucier and Gordon Mumma he founded the Sonic Arts Union in 1966. He also composed for Merce Cunningham and taught at various international universities. Solo live performances in Europe are rather rare. Behrman will perform two pieces: View Finder and Useful Information. Tapes (uk) 23:00 café Tapes is one of the members of the GermanBritish Jahtari collective that experiments with dub and reggae. Recently Meeuw Muzak put out two amazing 7-inches of the man. Tapes is a longtime cassette-dj. As a recording artist he plays with fusions of dub, library and reggae. His live performances are predicted to be really loud, hot, hissing and with lots of electricity.
w a t c h t h a t s o u n d
exhibition In the Orfield Laboratory (Minneapolis, USA) one finds the unprecedented, quietest room in the world, an anechoic or “dead” room. Steven Orfield, founder of the lab, challenges people to experience a period of darkness within this room. The quieter the environment, the more sensitive the ear. In the anechoic chamber one can only hear the sounds of the body, as if they are being magnified many times. One cannot orientate themself in this darkness, because normally that is achieved on the basis of environmental sounds. People start to hallucinate in the anechoic chamber. So far no one could endure longer than 45 minutes. The exhibition brings together five artists that translate silence, absence and limitation of noise into sculptures, images and installations.
In his work, Stefaan Dheedene, plays with the question of how form produces meaning, and how the relationship between the two can be disrupted. The greatly enlaarged replica of a speaker appears to form a safe haven for those who want to hide in silence. Pierre–Laurent Cassière shows a sound installation, which consists of a tensioned steel cable stretching through the space that carries a transmitted audio signal. Through the viewer can only perceive the sound via physical contact with the cable. The work disrupts the usual perception of noise, and emphasizes the physical aspect of “hearing”. Sarah Van Sonsbeeck is fascinated by silence, both in a literal and a metaphorical level. Because she suffered from noisy neighbours she sought out the quietest spot in her apartment. Even so, she gives form to “visual silence” in an attempt to find silence in the never sleeping city, Istanbul. Mira Sanders took photographs of the Beirut City Centre Building; a once vibrant location for culture, which the government now strictly controls several years. Since then, it is quasi-forbidden to make images of the build-
ing, and it has become greatly ignored. Sanders has created collages, in which she visually explores how sound can be reintroduced into the building. Jo達o Onofre created a monumental, cubeshaped sculpture, inspired by the minimalist sculptures of Toni Smith. He seeks death metal groups to activate the cube by performing inside the closed box. The dead box and its lifeless contents, become literally transformed into vibrating matter.
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MANUEL PADDING
18:00 pakhuis
KOFFIE
17:45
Tapes
23:00 café
David Behrman
22:00 zaal
Sleaford Mods
21:30 zaal
Lubrifikattor
17:15 zaal
A box-Sized Die ft. Serial Butcher
21:00 galerie
16:30 studio
Richard Dawson
Billy Bao
20:15 zaal
15:45 studio
Guds Söner
Maan
19:30 zaal
15:00 zaal
wc
café
galerie
groundfloor
F E S T I V A L
Jonáš Gruska
Jirí Wehle
18:45 studio
La Ligne Claire
14:15 zaal
f a i r
r e c o r d
studio
zaal
→ Pakhuis third floor
first floor
K R A A k