Skaņu Mežs 2017Upcoming surprises

For a number of years Skaņu Mežs has been a good reason to visit Riga, the charming and beautiful Latvian city of stunning gothic architecture with a wonderful riverside. This year’s diverse and carefully curated edition has a number of solo acts and impressive collaborations and, as usual, some surprises. It nicely balances between experimental forms of sound art and quality dance music, thus making the experience pleasantly versatile.

This year the festival will feature a special performance from the reunited AMM with their classic line-up of Eddie Prévost, John Tilbury and Keith Rowe. The more extreme spectrum of sound will represented by Merzbow’s collaboration with Hungarian drummer Balázs Pándi, as well as American noisemaker Pharmakon, whose performances are always sincere and personal transmissions via subtle noise outbursts and shrieking vocals. Shabazz Palaces will stir the waters with their intelligent, multilayered dreamy cloud rap. Further on, the festival presents James Dillon, the legendary Scottish composer of the New Complexity school, whose Traumwerk will be performed by Duo Gelland. Roscoe Mitchell, a founding member of the world renowned Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians will also give a solo performance. Roscoe is also famous for experimenting with woodwind instruments. The more danceable part of the festival will be represented by dub techno pioneers Porter Ricks, the industrial/EBM induced techno of Broken English Club and Jlin, who delivers high quality dark, noirish footwork. Of course, there many more names to explore and discover. The full line-up can be found below.

Full line-up

– October 6, 18:00 – 22:00, art museum Riga Bourse, Dome Square 6, Riga:

Stephen Grew (SHAPE) AMM Nordic Affect perform works by Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, Þuríður Jónsdóttir, Hlynur Aðils Vilmarsson and María Huld Sofia Jernberg

– October 13, 20:00 – 3:00, music hall „Daile”, K. Barona street 31, Riga:

STROPS „Artifex Auditionis”, Anna Ķirse Joe Morris / Daniel Levin James Dillon Pharmakon Shabazz Palaces Jlin Machine Woman Oriole / Linda Konone

– October 14, 19:00 – 2:00, music hall „Daile”, K. Barona street 31, Riga:

„Akusmātika”, Rolands Kronlaks Roscoe Mitchell Moor Mother Mary Lattimore / Jeff Zeigler Merzbow / Balázs Pándi Broken English Club Porter Ricks Sign Libra

Festival tickets can be purchased here: ticketservice.lv