TERRAFORMA

Paris-based artist Aho Ssan will present his latest project “Rhizomes”, soon to be released on Nicolas Jaar’s Other People label. The artist collects different sound materials to create a musical rhizome, a concept that links back to ideas of horizontality, collaboration and cross-disciplinarity, at the core of the new edition of the festival. 

Aho Ssan is supported by SHAPE+.

Dj and producer Batu plays with weightless experiments and intense, precise beat-driven cuts, testing the limits of club music. His forward-thinking, Bristol-based signature style returns to Terraforma after the release of “Opal” (2022), a stand-out debut album.

Avant-garde, electronica and experimentation will be key ingredients in the live performance by London-based electronic musician Beatrice Dillon and British tabla player and composer Kuljit Bhamra. Among the pioneers of bhangra, a popular musical style of the Punjabi diaspora in the United Kingdom, Bhamra shares with Dillon an interest in rhythmic patterns, synthetic and acoustic percussion.

Dawuna, alias of singer and instrumentalist Ian Mugerwa Byenkya, will bring New York free jazz vibes to the festival. His music is tainted by R&B, gospel and experimental electronic overtones, further explored in his lyrics, referencing religious existentialism and invoking biblical scenes of death and divine supplications.

Barbados-born reggae guitarist, bass player and record producer Dennis Bovell has earned himself the reputation of Britain’s Reggae Maestro. From pioneering early developments in the genre over 40 years ago to producing classic hits, he is unquestionably one of the leading historical and contemporary dub scene producers.

Few DJs and producers are as universally acclaimed in techno circles as the legendary Donato Dozzy. This year, he returns to Terraforma b2b Marco Shuttle, among the most dazzling and crystalline talents that blossomed in Italy in the last years.

Multidisciplinary artist Kenichi Iwasa and musician and visual artist Naima Karlsson form the duo Exotic Sin. Improvisation and live recording are at the core of their collaborative process, integrating acoustic instruments and simple electronics to play with the contrasts and cohesions of natural, digital and intuitive sounds. The duo collide piano, trumpet, flutes, percussion and two of Don Cherry's "zen saxophones". At Terraforma, Exotic Sin will be joined by singer, songwriter and performer TYSON, co-founder of Ladies Music Pub (LMP), a non-profit organisation for women, non-binary and gender variant people working in and around music.

This year, Terraforma sparkles with sugar together with Scottish-American producer, composer and dj, Hudson Mohawke. Mohawke’s third album, “Cry Sugar”, features soul samples, gospel choirs and scat-sampling, glowing in a fractured and colorful approach to electro and hip-hop.

Down the streets of London, Josey Rebelle's name is synonymous with underground. Her heavyweight cross-mixing selection blends acid house, techno, tropical disco and more, and has earned her a solid reputation across the world. 

From Honduras to Paris, Low Jack’s sets move fluidly between dancehall, sound art and techno. At Terraforma, his distinct club constructions will take the stage B2B another PAN artist, STILL, founder of Hundebiss and Invernomuto, and a well-established name in Milan, and beyond.

Terraforma welcomes back its resident Paquita Gordon, one of Italy's most fussed-over selectors. Last year, she guided dancers through a sonic journey that started from dub, touched hedonistic peaks of house and techno and ended up in a well deserved reggae contemplation. This time, her set will be infused with spiritual jazz overtones.

Patrick Belaga is a cellist and composer. His distinctive style, considered contemporary classical music, often uses improvisation and includes a range of influences from Western classical, Middle Eastern classical, pop, new-age, Jazz and Folk. At Terraforma, he will perform together with saxophonist and electroacoustic musician Tapiwa Svosve, whose practice explores the relations between sound and space and the electronic and/or physical manipulation and abstraction of acoustic sounds.

Still House Plants are Jessica Hickie-Kallenbach, Finlay Clark, and David Kennedy. Using a bare-bones, litecore set-up of guitar, drums and vocals they create “sharp, fractured music with a melting pop heart”. Their recordings are constructed and deconstructed at the same time through elements of sampling, slowcore, and R&B.

Legendary dub reggae vocalist Paul St. Hilaire, aka Tikiman, will soon release “Tikiman Vol. 1” via Berlin imprint Kynant Records. He lands at Terraforma together with Scion, an integral part of the Berlin techno scene for almost two decades. Scion are René Löwe (aka Vainqueuer) and Peter Kuschnereit (aka Substance / DJ Pete).

As electricity blossoms and leaves glisten, dutch dj and producer upsammy creates interpretative space, cleverly paradoxical in its concurrent comfort and desolation. Soon out on PAN, her narrative approach takes cues from trippy electronics, experimental DnB and oddball techno.