UH Fest
33 (DE/NL/US); Lénok (SK); Stian Westerhus & Maja S.K. Ratjke: Die Elektrische Oper (NO); Noise'n'Roses Ensemble (HU)
33 (DE/NL/US)
“33-69 is a skilfully crafted electroacoustic dance album distended with hedonism and high drama, a lavish soundtrack to the brutality, sensualism and stink of this new dark age.” – The Wire
33 is a Berlin-based music ensemble founded by its core-members, Alexander Iezzi and Billy Bultheel. With their experimental pop debut "33–69", the duo, along with a constellation of talented musicians, explores the fusion of machine gun techno, bone-chilling industrial, and baroque voices. Their approach exemplifies a dynamic, evolving constellation of collaborations that transcend traditional musical boundaries, from experimentalists to classically trained performers. Beyond the studio, 33's live performances, often held in non-traditional spaces, take on a performative and installation nature, engaging audiences in a multisensory experience that pushes the limits of conventional music.
“Disrupting disciplines and paradigms in each cut, they enact a ravishing rush of dancefloor drama and tormented cabaret that feels like the 1920s rushing into the 2020s, resulting in a time-sick and urgent avalanche of ideas from Leider or Baroque barbed in noise and hardcore rave alacrity, like a performance art piece held in the midst of Berghain or Kit Kat club’s most spangled, gloriously messy moments.” – Boomkat
Stian Westerhus & Maja S.K. Ratkje: Die Elektrische Oper (NO)
„Non-acoustic non-composed non-opera not-sung and not-played by two non-singers with non-instruments.”
Norwegian voice and sound performer, and composer Maja S.K. Ratkje and also Norwegian guitarist, jazz, avantrock and noise musician, and composer Stian Westerhus are long time collaborateurs, their Die Elektrische Oper project is though as far from their previous acoustic chamber collaborations as they could come. As high from low and as brutal from tender, but still loving. Nuanced, cracked and pulverised from the smooth and cold. Chaotic roaring firesome from the harmonically well tended. Explosively potent from the kept and controlled. But is it opera? Armed with just their voices and heaps of interconnected wiring the fearless duo seeks to redefine just that. Both play on electronics, effects and hardware and Maja with voice.
