CTM Festival’s 25th edition will take place January 26 to February 4, 2024. Under the theme »Sustain,« CTM presents the current state of adventurous music, from pulsating dance floors to shared moments of artistic intimacy, and passes through a range of Berlin venues such as Berghain, radialsystem, OXI, RSO.Berlin, and Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. Festival passes are now on sale, and new this year are Weekend Passes which cover four days over the first and second festival weekend, respectively.

For an independent initiative dedicated to experimental and fringe forms of music and art, sustaining over a quarter century is an achievement in itself. Such an anniversary becomes even more profound in light of the many challenges in recent years and the ongoing crises which have called into question and unsettled many, often already false, certitudes – sparing neither music nor nightlife.

Constancy can only be achieved through openness, adaptation, change, and most importantly through support and dialogue with people and communities, local and international. CTM wouldn’t be the same without the countless shared experiences, inputs, and at times also friction, that we’ve experienced with the many voices connected to the festival, be it visitors, artists, partners, or collaborators. We hope to connect with as many faces old and new, remote and in Berlin, as possible this anniversary edition.

We launch our 2024 programming with artists:

· Aïsha Devi (INT) »Les immortelles«
· Anna von Hausswolff (SE)
· Backxwash (ZM/CA)
· Ben Frost feat. Greg Kubacki & Tarik Barri (INT)
· Divide & Dissolve (AU)
· DJ Fuckoff (NZ/DE)
· DJ MELL G & Poly Chain (DE/UA)
· E-Saggila (IQ/CA)
· El Kontessa (EG)
· Elvin Brandhi & DJ Scotch Egg (INT)
· Föllakzoid (CL/MX)
· HiTech (US)
· Infinity Division (CA/DE)
· Jana (EG)
· Kim Ann Foxman (US)
· Malengo (DE)
· Manuka Honey b2b Safety Trance (INT)
· Monolake (DE)
· Nikki Nair (US)
· NZE NZE (FR)
· ojoo (MA/BE)
· Osmium (Hildur Guðnadóttir, Rully Shabara, Sam Slater, James Ginzburg) (INT)
· Pisitakun (TH/DE) – »The Three Sound of Revolution« with Ariel William Orah (ID/DE), C Bong Sae (KR), fatalism (GR/TH), Teya Logos (PH), Wanton Witch (INT)
· Sarj (US/DE)
· Skrillex b2b Jyoty (INT)
· Spekki Webu (NL)
· Yas Meen Selectress (EG)

An Irish Focus throughout the programme featuring:

· Julia Louise Knifefist (IE)
· Moundabout (IE)
· GASH Collective (IE) club night with Baptist Goth, Americhord, ELLLL, ALYXIS, Lolz, Eliza b2b Maeve O’Neill, presented with transmediale
· One Leg One Eye (IE)
· Or:la (IE/UK)
· Shampain (IE)

Read the full announcement

Festival passes are on sale now in limited quantities. Festivalgoers can choose between the CTM Pass, which grants access to most of the festival’s events, or the Connect Pass which offers additional access to transmediale festival programming. New this year, we are also offering Weekend Passes for each CTM Festival weekend respectively. Tickets to specific concerts and events will go on sale in November.

Buy CTM 2024 passes

By Mere Nailatikau, AM Kanngieser, KMRU, Laisiasa Dave Lavaki, Tumeli Tuqota (INT)
Runs: 27.1.–4.2.2024 | 14–21:00 | silent green Kuppelhalle
Opening: 26.1., 18–21:00

»Oceanic Refractions« is an immersive installation featuring testimonies of Fijian, i-Kiribati and Papua New Guinean elders on kinship, self-determination and care in the face of global ecocide. Along with reflections from these teachers, artists, fisherpeople, grandparents and chiefs, we hear field recordings of the reefs of Fiji, the oceans and mangroves of Kiribati, and the shorelines of Papua New Guinea’s Duke of York Islands. Through hyper-detailed soundscape compositions, combined with 360 videography, kinetic seating, and olfactory effects, »Oceanic Refractions« creates an unforgettable sensorial experience. Moved by listening and silence, the installation offers audiences rare insights into the environmental relations sustaining Oceania’s many worlds.

The result of several years of research and talanoa (dialogue) with Indigenous  leaders, scholars, artists and advocates from Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Islands and Nauru, the work is led and produced by artists AM Kanngieser (Australia/Germany) and Mere Nailatikau (Fiji) and who combine their expertise in climate research, education and arts (Kanngieser) and Pacific communication and international relations (Nailatikau), as I they work with sound artist KMRU (Kenya/Germany), filmmakers Laisiasa Dave Lavaki (Fiji) and Tumeli Tuqota (Fiji), olfactory designer Smell Art (Australia), design and fabrication studio Space Forms (Ireland) and projection specialist Algorithm (Ireland).

The themes addressed by the installation will be further explored through talks and lectures at both CTM Festival and transmediale, as well as through specially commissioned texts featured via the festival magazines. »Oceanic Refractions« is co-produced by CTM Festival and transmediale with funding by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds (German Capital Culture Fonds), Creative Australia and with support from the European Commission.

More information

Two winning CTM 2024 Radio Lab projects have been selected from over 350 entries from artists in 58 different countries, which responded to this year’s open call. The two winning projects will premiere at CTM 2024, with subsequent radio broadcasts via Deutschlandfunk Kultur and ORF in spring and autumn 2024 respectively.

The project »MAPS : Electronic Resonances Between Ecuador and Mexico« by Concepción Huerta and Fe Sexta aims to revive audio archives of pioneering electronic music composers in Mexico and Ecuador, active in the 1970s. As the duo User Syndrome, the circuit-bending Beirut-based artist Rhéa Dally and improvising lyricist Freya Edmondes aka Elvin Brandhi will jump from their free-fall of failing reality internalistion to interrogate Sustain with a work titled »IRL IRL IRL IRL IRL IRL IRL IRL.« How would we sustain today?

About the works

The Research Networking Day will assemble nine students, scholars, and artists/researchers from a variety of fields who will present research touching on CTM's »Sustain« festival theme. The session will take place Sunday 4 February 2024 free of charge. This year’s speakers were selected from over 200 applicants to our open call, and will touch on topics of AI-voice explorations, the body in music practice, and sounds & locality. We are excited to hear from:

· Aadita Chaudhury (York University, CA / Goldsmiths University of London, UK)
· Ada Ada Ada (IT-University of Copenhagen, DK)
· Aline Zara (University of Toronto, CA)
· Jaka Škapin (Luminelle, UK)
· Julianne Chua (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, DE)
· Maria Giaever Lopez (independent researcher, UK/ES)
· Mariana Dias (HMKW Berlin, DE)
· Matthias Jung (University of Agder, NO)
· Ragnhild May (Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts/University of Copenhagen, DK)

RND 2024 is presented this year in collaboration with Berlin University of the Arts (UdK), the Institute Art Gender Nature at the Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW, the C:POP. Transdisciplinary Research Center for Popular Music Cultures and Creative Economies of the Paderborn University, and the Berlin-based network and project space Trust.

Detailed RND programme

Leading up to and following the festival, the CTM Magazine will feature articles and interviews delving into the festival programme, plus texts from the following writers, selected via open call:

· Anandit Sachdev (IN)
· David Farrow (US)
· Masha Kashyna (UA)
· oxi peng (CN/DE)
· Sai Versailles & Sean Bautista (PH)
· Ulya Soley & Yelta Köm (TR/DE)

CTM Magazine

We invite you to read a short history of the festival and browse the CTM Festival edition archive from 1999 to 2023, complete with full artist listings, links to selected recordings, plus recent and archival images of performances, spaces, and club vibes then and now.

CTM Festival Archive

In collaboration with Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, this 14 December the synth pioneer and adventurous music composer Suzanne Ciani will appear together with Marta de Pascalis, who is supporting a brand-new release. In April 2024 we are proud to present experimental metal legends Khanate in a rare concert presenting their long awaited new album To Be Cruel. Khanate is comprised of James Plotkin, Stephen O’Malley, Alan Dubin and Tim Wyskida. Together, they make terrifying music. Opening the night will be Caspar Brötzmann with his Bass Totem project.