Preview of next spring's electronic symphonies

Coming spring, Rewire festival will transform The Hague yet another time. And to keep you riding through the storm, the festival announces the first confirmed artists today. For 2020, Rewire sticks with a theme that fits the year and hits all the chords with the current unsettling tides of the world: namely, “(Re)setting”. The theme aims to explore the relationship between changing environments, humans, and sound. Venturing into new listening experiences, urbanization, the changing rural landscape and the ecological crisis, (Re)setting will certainly leave not just your ears tingling, but also your minds buzzing.

Kicking off the list of the first release is Emmy-winning composer behind the gloomy score Chernobyl, Hildur Guðnadóttir that is. Her performance will take place at the Elektriciteitsfabriek, a perfect match with the processed recordings from the series’ power plant in Lithuania, and it will be accompanied by live vocal orchestrations all across the venue. At a radically different, but equally impactful, location, the Zuiderstrandtheater at the beach of Scheveningen, composer and pianist Jon Hopkins will perform the Dutch debut of his new work “Polarity”. DJ and producer Dis Fig is also bringing new music to the table: her vocal-centric “Purge” will leave you feeling holier than ever. On the other side of the scope of vocals, we’ve got YATTA, an interdisciplinary artist and poet, who paints the world of queer disorientation with vivid colours in “WAHALA”, boggling the undisclosed areas of your consciousness.

Speaking of altering the spaces of the mind, The Hague-based Leo Svirsky’s goal is just that. Through heavy collaboration with many other musicians, The River Without Banks resurfaced, a body of work that will surely take you into a dimension devoid of past, present, place and time. Bringing back the dystopian tunes with a new experimental show on “Four Pieces on Mirai” is James Ferraro. Topping the list off are two bands: according to OOIOO instruments are merely objects that produce sounds and Ex Eye promise to rinse your soul right through by fusing their underground sound into metal and avant-jazz.

If you’re already as excited as we are, keep in mind this was just a hint of what Rewire festival has in store for you. And they’ve got more, so see the full line-up on their website, and have a tiny bit more patience as even more artists, projects, talks, workshops and screenings are announced. See you there.