

Robert ‘Chi’ Machiri born in 1978, in Zimbabwe is an artist who works primarily through sound mediation. Machiri’s work exists at the juncture of two streams of practice; his intuition and a post-disciplinary production of works that draw on discourses that are presented through embodied critique, learning and unlearning, interweaving sound, music and images. His most notable project PUNGWE is a mutable project that circles pan African soundings with related contemporary arts discourses and spaces.

https://www.akademie-solitude.de/en/person/robert-machiri/

HEARTBLOOD

HEARTBLOOD is the artist moniker of Berlin-based singer/songwriter Christine Roseann. Originally from California, the Filipina-American pianist has lived in Germany for almost a decade. During weekly livestream performances on Twitch, she improvises and performs cinematic piano pieces and melancholy anthems with a dark electronic edge, as well as candidly documenting her creative process. When she isn't writing songs, she coaches other artists through the ups and downs of creative living.


https://www.heartbloodmusic.com

Cristobal Ruffo, aka just Ruffo, Fugaz, Foo gas, Fú gas, is a chilean from the wonder ocean side city of valparaiso, ex Computer Engineer, but programmer to the heart forever, sound and synthesis explorer, old technology scrapper and repurposer. Since his early twenties has adopted exploration through different instruments and sources of sounds. It is under this honest interest where he finds peace and comfort to consolidate his expression and self acceptance, but is not until 2016 when he gets closer to electronic devices, either of musical nature or with different purposes but centered in noise/sounds such as toys, calculators, radios, etc. He eventually finds his way into electronic instruments but without forgetting what is available in the organic world of sound, heavily relying on sampling to combine these daily-life sources with other more purely analogic/synthesized forms. The results are sonic panoramas of iterations of little fragments of reality, found moments of percussion, screeching noises, voices, silence. Resampling and postprocessing will take everything to unrecognisable territories, inviting the listener to navigate their own feelings and conclusions around sonoric stimulus. These sound pieces have found place in the performative art fields, in which he has collaborated initially in Chile and now as well during his time in Berlin. This relationship with movement and Dance have provided an interesting field for him to escape the conventions of Music structure but without losing the scope for arrangement and composition: an organized chaos of sound participants, reworked sonic memories, old saved drum machines, resampled dying toys, metals of different brightness, all combined to extrapolate a very personal feeling.

Naari is a singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist from New Delhi, India. Her voice is an unmistakable talent; and her poetry and lyricism play with surreal landscapes, immigrant escapism and unrequited love.

Her musicality blends influences of folk, jazz and noir; maintaining repetitive arrangements with dissonant and harmonious colours.

Her debut album was released to critical acclaim in 2021. She currently lives in Berlin.

https://naarimusic.bandcamp.com/album/naari

pic: Aurelie-Raidron

Camila Nebbia is a saxophone player, composer, improviser, visual artist, curator and educator debasing hierarchical systems by exploring migrational counterpoints through multiple, but minimally separated, mediums. From Buenos Aires, Argentina, based in Berlin, Germany, the multidisciplinary artist layers her practice through the creation and destruction of archival memory.

Has released as a band leader and solo performer “A veces la luz de lo que existe resplandece solamente a la distancia” (Kuai 2017), “De este lado” (Club del disco 2019), Aura (ears&eyes records 2020),“Corre el río de la memoria” (ramble records 2021) and “Presencias” (Sound Holes 2021) “Una ofrenda a la ausencia” (Relative Pitch Records 2023), “La permanencia de los ecos” (577 Records 2023).

Played and recorded with many artists of the international scene such as Valentin Garvie, El devenir del río, Burka, Paula Shocron, Barbara Togander, Patrick Shiroishi, Paul Pignon, Vinnie Sperrazza, Katt Hernandez, Kenneth Jimenez, Lesley Mok, Violeta García, Axel Filip, Susana Santos Silva, Tom Rainey, Elsa Bergman, l’ Arfi collective of Lyon, Joanna Mattrey, Micheal Formaneck, Vincent Drombowski’s Flow regulator, Sofia Borges, John Hughes, among others.

Co-creator and curator of the collective interdisciplinary group and improvised music series “La Jaula se ha vuelto pájaro y se ha volado”, the interdisciplinary festival “Guillotina Fest'' and creator and curator of the streaming concert series called “A door in the mountain”. Runs the concert series and independent label “Disfigured Rivers” based in Berlin.

Participated of many festivals around the world such as Winter Jazz Fest NYC co-presented with M3 (U.S), Buenos Aires Jazz Festival (ARG), Lima Jazz Festival (PE), Diskurs Festival (DE), Ultima Oslo (NO), among others, and has assisted to several residencies such as, ART OMI (NYC), SIM (NYC) Jazz & Creative Music dictated by Tyshawn Sorey and Vijay Iyer (CA), Konvent Zero (ES) UNCOOL (CH), Ensemble Evolution (US), CirkusVranen (SE), CCK with Tim Berne, Marilyn Crispell & Ben Goldberg (AR), among others.

Studied classical saxophone at the Conservatory "Astor Piazzolla", jazz at the "Manuel de Falla" Conservatory, Film Direction at the Universidad Del Cine, and the master degree program “CoPeCo Contemporary Performance and Composition at Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre in Estonia, Royal College of Music in Stockholm in Sweden, National Superior Conservatory of Music Dance of Lyon in France and Hamburg University of Music and Theatre in Germany.  Was part of the second cohort of Mutual Mentorship for Musicians M3 created by Jen Shyu & Sara Serpa 2021, and was a curatorial fellow at the Experimental Sound Studio of Chicago 2022.

Camila Nebbia is endorsed by D'Addario Woodwinds.

https://www.camilanebbia.com/

Credit-Michaela-Mahle

Klaas von Karlos is one of the musical aliases of filmmaker, writer, and audiovisual artist Jon-Carlos Evans. He is a graduate of Webster University (BA, Film Production) and the City College of New York (MFA, Media Arts Production). His audiovisual works fuse twisted samples of capitalist, western & religious agitprop against images and sounds of the Afro Diasporic experience with syncopated industrial drums, ambience, and dialectic imagery to create a sensory experience that is part sonic essay and dissonant revival.


In 2009, he founded the audiovisual collective ReVerse Bullets in Brooklyn with original members Marcus Pinn and Aedelwulf. The debut release, 2012’s “Drapetomania!” was nominated for “Best Mashup” at the MashRome 2013 Film Festival. 2020’s “US” from the EP “Stockholm Syndrome” was selected for the New York Live Arts exhibition “Curating the End of the World,” organized by Reynaldo Anderson, Tiffany E. Barber and Stacey Robinson at the Times Art Center.


As KVK, he has also collaborated as  a member of the projects BIINDS, Naked Sweatshop (w/ Kyoko Takenaka), Divan Rouge (w/ Ulises Labaronnie), and OXI (w/ Ememe). From 2013 - 2019, he curated the GLITCH performance series in various venues in Berlin and NYC, hosting such artists as Jessica Ekomane, Onyx Ashanti, Sofia Portanet, Sara Persico, Eiliyas, Infinite Livez, et al. As a subdivision of Perfect Entropy Productions, GLITCH also operates as a music imprint, releasing albums from artists such as Munsha and R.J. Thyme.


Past residency selections and support include Elektronmusikstudion, Harvestwork Media Center, CTM/Transmediale, Ableton MIDI Hacklab, and Goethe Institut Kamerun. Notable past releases include “Dreampop Dysphoria” (as ReVerse Bullets), “The Mansa Musa Affair,” “Divan Rouge,”  and “The I, Shinjia Mixtape”(as Naked Sweatshop).


He also currently works as the Programme Lead for the Creative Production (Film) MA at Catalyst Institute for Creative Arts & Technology in Berlin.


https://linktr.ee/ReVerseBullets

Born in Jakarta, since early Teenager has been involved in Vibrant Jakarta DIY Subculture scene either hosting events or being Performer itself, after moving to Berlin still continues taking part in Subculture scene and Political activism, in and out Punk bands and organizing dozens of events.

Marina Cyrino is a Brazilian flutist, sound artist and researcher based in Berlin. She works across improvisation, composition, instrument building, performative installations, video art and written formats. Her flute playing is characterized by singular techniques developed through the use of inside amplification. The rhythmic approach, the extensive use of objects and balloons attached to the instrument and the use of disassembled flute parts are striking elements of her

playing. She is a member of the Brazilian experimental music label Seminal Records. She holds a PhD in music performance and interpretation from the University of Gothenburg.

 https://marinacyrino.art.br/

https://www.instagram.com/marina_cyrino/

Oyèmi Noize is no stranger to the alternative music scene in Germany.Over a decade of shredding in noisy bands and international touring under her belt,she started a journey of creative and peronal self discovery. Accessing parts of her personality as an artist and a human being, brought some very necessary healing with it.

Tipping her toes to test the waters she came through with 2 dancy melancholy singles
in 2021 with a mixture of Synth Pop, Acoustic Indie paired with a Hip Hop drumset.In 2023 Oyèmi Noize is honoring her musical roots by releasing an acoustic EP
containing 6 songs with the titel „I Know It Hurts But Trust Me We Will Be Ok“.

On „I Know It Hurts ...“ she's exploring subjects such as heartbreak, empowerment,mental health & community. As shown in her previous work, Oyèmi Noize is not shying away from catchiness and melancholy, this time mixed with a breeze of cheekiness

and sass.

https://www.oyeminoize.com/

https://jaguwar.bandcamp.com/album/ringthing

Mauricio Takara is a drummer / percussionist /improviser from São Paulo, Brazil; where he has long been a key player in the experimental music scene as a member of São Paulo Underground (with Chicago trumpeter Rob Mazurek) and of the sextet Hurtmold. Recently relocated to Berlin, Mauricio has consistently played as a duo with electronic musician Carla Boregas, with whom he released a new record called Grande Massa d'Água on Hive Mind Records, and played festivals like the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Rewire and Radical Sounds Latin America. Mauricio is also a frequent collaborator of the Exploding Star Orchestra (Rob Mazurek's large ensemble), as well as an active member of Berlin's improvising scene, often sharing sessions with local musicians like Vinicius Cajado, Camila Nebbia and Mya Dyberg.In the past years, he ́s played with a wide range of artists from different styles and nationalities such as Joe Lally (from the band Fugazi), Nana Vasconcelos, Mia Doi Todd, Damo Suzuki, Yusef Lateef, Prefuse 73, Pharoah Sanders and Archie Shepp, to name a few.

He also records and performs solo, where he dives deeper into the exploration of the possibilities of acoustic percussion in conjunction with electronics, creating a more melodic and textural approach to rhythmic compositions and improvisations.

https://mauriciotakara.bandcamp.com/album/m-takara-reminisc-ncias

Elsa M'bala was born in Yaoundé, the capitol of Cameroon. Her family moved to South-West Germany, where M'bala visited an international school and learned to express herself in various languages. In 2009 M'bala co-created the Pan-African feminist poetry duo „Rising Thoughts" . From 2012 to 2016 she moves back to Cameroon where she developed a new artistic language, between visual and sonic explorations. Her current work uses voices and online samples in the form of transcoding, code switching and algorithms patterns, building a fine print of electronic griotage reaching from the past into the future. Mixing analogue and digital sound machines as well as electronic and acoustic instruments to experiment with speeches, rituals and poetry. Elsa M’bala work Addis’63 is a sound performance that explore the complexities and dualities of life, always torn between the aim to balance the inner with the outer world, the spiritual quest for identity. Using the total submergence of electronic sound and the rhythmical properties of Ekang/Bikutsi rhythms of the Beti people of central Africa to help us reconnect with the mythological, the spiritual and the imaginary. As the philosopher Mudibe said, Africa is an invention, for that matter Africans have to (re-)invent themselves. Elsa M'bala performed her writings and music at various events throughout Europe and the African continent. From Centre d'art contemporain de Bretigny, Bandjoun Station (CMR), Engagement global (DE), Aperture Magazine (USA), Contemporary And (C&); (DE), New Art Exchange Nottingham (E), Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa);(DE), Goethe Institut Kamerun, Centre Culturel Francais du Cameroun, Alte Oper Frankfurt, KW Berlin, heroines of sound festival Berlin, Augmented reality festival Darmstadt , She is one of the incubators Winners for Berlin Community Radio 2017 and had a regular radio show on the platform before it closed in 2019. She is currently in a residency at Ker Thiossane in Dakar, Senegal. “... Another example is her more recent work: both audio pieces titled Imposer le Savoir and Je Wanda. These were presented at Still unresolved and very much ongoing, a group show curated by Christine Eyene in London in 2017, by bridging Cameroonian sonic heritage, voices, acoustic music with digital sound, Elsa M'Bala addresses the protests by the English-speaking part of Cameroon against their marginalization by predominantly Francophone structural systems in place: a linguistic and political legacy of French colonisation. Now based between Berlin and Yaoundé, Elsa M'Bala aka A.M.E.T. is one of the rare female sound artists of African descent. By using technology as an empowering tool and through her own keen observations, she explores further the interconnections between race, gender, technology and spirituality. Specifically in times of acute racial crisis in Europe and in the US, while the dominant discourse reproduces the patterns of disconnected narratives, exclusion, and invisibility. Elsa M'Bala shows us that marginalized bodies and voices can be (re)connected through shared collectivities.” Text written by Aicha Kaleko for the Berlin biennale 10

www.soundcloud.com/elsambala IG: anabambalaelsatatiana www.elsambala.com

David MengChuen Chen (they/them) is a Chinese-Canadian saxophonist and multidisciplinary researcher, based in Berlin. Their musical practice revolves around improvisational discoveries, via collaborations with human and more-than-human collaborators.   

Trang (she/her) is a vietnamese-german singer and filmmaker based in Berlin. As a musician she explores improvisational spaces while being influenced by jazz, Rnb, Soul, Hip-Hop and spheric house music.

David and Trang met in the context of a somatic and improvisational workshop, where they discovered their shared affinities in musical practice and co-creation.