This week we head to Berghain and Radialsystem for a series of concerts running through the festival week.

Highlights include Bendik Giske's body-and-soul performances, where the artist's mastery of circular breathing turns the sax into a perpetual motion machine, exhaling pulsating hypnotism. Joining Giske that same night are pioneering Norwegian experimentalists Runhild Gammelsæter and Lasse Marhaug, as well as Caterina de Nicola who will play with dramaturgical conversion between feedback drones and harsh noise.

Nídia and Valentina continuously meet »on the road,« sharing a sonic adaptation to the urgency and context of different environments. Their work »Estradas« born from the Sicilian heat and refined under English rain, transcends cultural and environmental barriers, showcasing the duo’s rhythmic expertise and connection through intricate beats and infectious melodies.

Emme’s debut project »Heaven Help Me« is a 30-minute solo opera that delves into the raw emotional terrain of surviving an abusive relationship. Her performance will take place as part of a double-bill that includes a massive lineup behind »STACK,« a live film experiment that blends live cinema, screenplay, choreography, and experimental sound, curated in partnership with Sydney-based festival and production powerhouse SOFT CENTRE.

Soundscape is an object based audio platform by d&b audiotechnik which can open a new dimension in our listening experience. A series of workshops by Ralf Zuleeg, Brigitta Muntendorf, and Andrew Rahman, and concerts by Bella Cosmos, Eve Aboulkheir, and Younger Sibling will allow participants to immerse themselves through the Soundscape system and gain firsthand experience. Additionally, CTM concerts at Volksbühne featuring »CORTEX« by Kianí del Valle (KDV) Performance Group with Tayhana and Hamill Industries, Ellen Arkbro and Microtub, claire Rousay with Martina Basta, and Zola Jesus will be presented using d&b Soundscape.

Taking over the multiple spaces of Alte Münze for the first time, we'll be presenting an early evening concert featuring the explosive polyrhythms of Takkak Takkak (the duo of screwball producer Scotch Egg and Raja Kirik's Mo'ong Santoso Pribadi), the raw post-industrial haemorrhages and glitchy hyper pop of femtanyl, and the new dynamic collaboration between Slikback and Aïsha Devi, AKA HEX.

We suggest opting for a combo ticket that offers access to a club night starting immediately afterwards, where you can let loose all of that concert energy over three floors spanning a Surf Gang takeover where the NYC collective's founders evilgiane and Eera will unleash a night of debauched aural pleasures—all guts, no gloss. The Cage Floor features dance floor-friendly sets from Jamira Estrada, Modulaw, Tati au Miel and Hassan Abou Alam, raw annihilation from industrial/punk group PΞB, and an emulsion of reggaeton, baile funk courtesy of Loto Retina. NYC collective Dadabots take over the Tresor Floor to run an entire night of prompt jockeying. Live neural net pirate radio generated straight from the GPU.

Saturday 1 February we return to RSO.Berlin with a club night featuring three dynamic b2bs—Deena Abdelwahed with rRoxymore; oldyungmayn with Van Boom; and softchaos with River Moon—as well as a live album premiere by Marie Davidson with visuals by Nick Verstand, rounded out live sets from gyrofield and Karina Utomo x Joshua Wells x R. Rebeiro.

The Summer Floor hosts a lineup co-curated with the cutting-edge Australian arts organisation SOFT CENTRE, with affiliated artists SOLSA and Thick Owens, R. Rebeiro, and NERVE joined by Latin Grammy winner Tayhana, known for her productions for Rosalia, Venus Ex Machina, and CTM's own Born in Flames.

We continue with more highlight concerts under the thematic strand Resynthesising the Traditional.

New York-born, Tamil Nadu-raised, ganavya wields a voice that's equal parts lullaby and lightning bolt, drawing from a deep well of spiritual blueprints passed down through generations and letting the lines between past, present, and future blur into something beautifully unrecognisable. Sharing the same bill and presenting a live album premiere, Jordan Deal connects to gospel, blues, folk traditions, and avant-garde techniques in a performance as haunting and fragile as it is defiant.

Closing the festival will be the Abdullah Miniawy trio, who create deeply resonating works that blend dark sonic palettes with evocative singing. A multi-talented poet and performer, Abdullah Miniawy’s performances are haunting and cathartic, mixing sediments of Egyptian heritage with ideas of artistic freedom and civil diversity of the modern individual.

Running Tuesday 28 Jan – Sunday 2 Feb the CTM 2025 Discourse programme will weave through multiple thematic strands within this festival edition.

Under the title »Stranger AI« we'll look at the wilder sides of AI with inputs from the Wilding AI lab hosts on theoretical and hands-on aspects of artistic creation, writer and editor Michael Salu and Subtext label head James Ginzburg will reflect on their literary and sound anthology Cybernetics, or Ghosts?, while Dadabots will lead a workshop on how to hack your own AI.

Artist talks with ganavya and Adela Mede, Marta Forsberg, and Nindya Narewsari will explore different artistic attempts at (re)connecting to traditional sounds and ideas as framed by »Resynthesising the Traditional.«

Yara Mekawei will speak with sound studies scholar Gascia Ouzounian on her commissioned work under the theme of »Affection,« and multidisciplinary artist softchaos will give a lecture and reading exploring a fundamental question of who is permitted to be experimental, as part of her investigation into the aesthetics of the Black radical tradition.

Our yearly Research Networking Day talks by junior and senior scholars and independent artists will dive into all three thematic strands on the festival's second weekend.

Discourse programme overview

Funded by
Senate Department of Culture and Social Cohesion | The Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media | Goethe-Institut | German Federal Foreign Office | Creative Europe Programme of the European Union | Pro Helvetia | Embassy of the Netherlands | Embassy of Norway | Embassy of Sweden

In Cooperation with
transmediale | Alte Münze | Berghain | Morphine Raum | MONOM | OXI | radialsystem | RSO.Berlin | silent green | Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz

Programme Partners
4D SOUND | Berlin Technical University | Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) | Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD | Dancecult | Deutschlandfunk Kultur Hörspiel / Klangkunst | Freie Universität Berlin | ORF Ö1 Kunstradio | SHAPE+ | SOFT CENTRE | Somerset House Studios | tekhné | Trust

Media Partners
Deutschlandfunk Kultur | RBB radioeins | Refuge Worldwide | The Wire 

Supported by
d&b Audiotechnik | SAE | Berliner Pilsner | Tanqueray | Don Julio