em guide eiko ishibashi: “i don’t believe that music can solve anything. but i can’t ignore the world when i’m making music.”
The music of Eiko Ishibashi has been with me for years—ghosting between reality zones, ducking genre tags, slipping through jazz, noise, pop, and scores like it’s nothing. Her soundtracks alone (“Drive My Car”, “Evil Does Not Exist”) prove she can sketch out entire emotional landscapes with just a breath of melody or a single recurring texture. But it’s her solo work that keeps pulling me back—always a little sideways, a little out of reach.
em guide ellen arkbro: “i love making sound in a room and having people there to experience it”
The Swedish composer, musician and sound artist Ellen Arkbro is known for her very precise productions, for which she works with both Just intonation and Meantone tempering. So far she has released four albums, “For Organ And Brass” (Subtext, 2017), “Chords” (Subtext, 2019), “I Get Along Without You Very Well” (together with Johan Graden, Thrill Jockey, 2022), “Sounds While Waiting” (W.25th, 2023), in the spring 2025 her collaboration with Microtub (Robin Hayward, Martin Taxt, and Peder Simonsen) will be released: “Clouds for Three Tubas”. In the run-up to the performance by Arkbro and Microtub at this year’s CTM Festival, Ellen Arkbro and Thomas Venker chatted via Zoom.
em guide aunty rayzor: »alles begann in der kirche«
»My pen is my razor and the razor is me« – so eine der pointierten Textzeilen, die Bisola Olugbenga (besser bekannt unter ihrem Battle-Rap-Psyeudonym Naija Thugress sowie ihrem Artist Name Aunty Rayzor) auf der Bühne von sich gibt. Die in Lagos lebende Musikerin rappt, beeinflusst von Afro-House, Reggae, US-Hip Hop und Afrobeat zweisprachig (auf englisch und in ihrer Muttersprache Yoruba) gleichermaßen über ihre sehr persönlichen Lebensumstände sowie die größeren soziopolitischen Gegebenheiten ihres Heimatlandes.
