Utrecht’s renowned globe-spanning music festival is back this week with another dynamic lineup.
As we’re warming up for another Le Guess Who?, there’s no shortage of Moments with a capital M bubbling up. Names that enter the mind are Mary Margaret O’ Hara, Mount Eerie, Beverly Glenn Copeland, The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Selda, Yves Tumor, and Ustad Saami – shows of the ‘you had to be there’ variety, etched forever in memory.
One of my own most fond recollections was seeing this women’s vocal ensemble called Isokratisses perform songs from the isolated mountain nation of Epirus: folk music untainted for centuries, suddenly elevated to a stage where it can be admired in a fresh context. It sounded like completely alien music to me, because there was simply no precedent to its melodies, harmonies and frequencies my brain could latch onto. So without any reference as failsafe, emotions naturally took over… and took hold.
Every edition of Le Guess Who? I experience moments like this at least once, usually more than once. Artists that often get reduced to smaller slots at kindred experimental festivals often get bigger platforms here to fully unpack, whereas bigger names can pop up unexpectedly within a more intimate setting (who could forget Björk’s impromptu DJ set behind some plants).
No festival works as diligently to mess with expectation, and over the years, Le Guess Who? has gained enough trust from its audience to go completely carte blanche. This year, we once again have four Question Mark-gigs for each day: the only way to find out who’s playing is to show up.
Indeed, curiosity and guileless astonishment usually reward the most devoted Le Guess Who?-goers, and it regularly boils down to following the music itself. Le Guess Who? has pioneered guest artist curation before it became a fad for other festivals to follow suit, having pegged the likes of Moor Mother, Suuns, Devendra Banhart, Nicolas Jaar, Mabe Fratti, Iris van Herpen, Shabaka Hutchings and Julia Holter as guiding lights.
This year, the list of curators is substantial once more. Multi-disciplinary Chinese artist Tianzhou Chen, experimental drummer Valentina Magaletti, jazz innovator Amirtha Kidambi, Cape Town percussionist Asher Gamedze, German artist/producer Ziúr, Hong Kong electronic genre-blender gyrofield, and lastly, the great Lonnie Holley.
Aside from some familiar names like SUNN O))), Objekt, Julianna Barwick, Djrum and BIG|BRAVE, there’s plenty of original and obscured sounds to unravel oneself in. So without further ado, let’s hop in and highlight some acts we’re excited about.
Lido Pimienta
Musician, producer and visual artist Lido Pimienta was booked once before for Le Guess Who?, but had to pull out because of pandemic-related fuckery at the time. Thank heavens she will play this year now, because her work is emblematic to Le Guess Who?’s cross-disciplinary spirit. Joyous, cheeky, and genre-blending, Lido’s work closely interrogates themes like ancestry, identity and the often tragic fractures created by colonialism. Her masterpiece Miss Colombia effortlessly travels from baroque electronica to intimate cumbia workouts recorded in a backyard, examining her complex relationship with her birthplace. Now supporting her symphonic new LP La Belleza, Lido will do a special show with Utrecht’s Flare Quartet and marimba player Tatiana Koleva.
Moin ft. Sophia Al-Maria
Souls who witnessed Moin play Rewire Festival earlier this year are already in on this dirty little secret. This is simply one of the greatest alternative rock bands to witness live. Minimalist and poetic on record, once this band is out on stage, they are like all your alternative music faves meshed into one: towering and sensual like the greatest shoegaze acts, yet as spiky and urgent as noise rock’s most fabled names. Fans of Fugazi and Slowdive gathereth here in holy matrimony. Besides, having Valentina Magaletti as your backbone behind the drums instantly make a band more satisfying to listen to, for her grooves have grooves of their own.
Gina Birch
You can chalk up The Raincoats playing at Le Guess Who? in 2019 as another one of those ‘I was there’-moments. Founding member Gina Birch continues to push that mischievous punk spirit forward in heroic and wildly entertaining fashion. For one, she is hilariously overqualified in subverting a Joy Division classic into a feminist electro-punk anthem, and her solo performance promises more of such glorious tomfoolery. This is the kind of troublemaking anyone can get behind.
The Congos
Le Guess Who? lineups contain contemporary instigators as well as the legends that paved the way. It doesn’t get much more legendary than The Congos, one of Jamaica’s most vital and influential bands. Putting on Heart Of The Congos on even a half-decent stereo system should be considered an act of enchantment by default. Reggae spirituals straight from the Black Ark, summoned into the present day.
DJ Haram & Aquiles Navarro
DJ Haram created one of the most exciting records of the year in Beside Myself, enlisting friends like Moor Mother and Armand Hammer with contributions. Aquiles Navarro, meanwhile, busts his chops for Moor Mother’s freejazz ensemble Irreversible Entanglements. Long story short, these two individuals are treading very familiar pastures at Le Guess Who?, and know their assignment when it comes to elevating the room. This is as sure a thing as you’re going to get.
Pram
Every Le Guess Who? edition has to have some cool legacy indie act to get fully reacquainted with. Though the Fiery Furnaces wouldn’t be too shabby to name here, we gotta go with the forever criminally underrated Pram. In a perfect world, their weird and wonderful neopsychedelica would receive as much fanfare as a Stereolab or a Broadcast, hence, Le Guess Who? is the perfect avenue to see for yourself how miraculous this band truly is.
Yara Asmar
Beirut artist, multi-instrumentalist and puppeteer (!) Yara Asmar’s weaves spectral experimental songs that sound like they comes straight out of the Black Lodge. You can’t help be mesmerised by the manner of execution, with Asmar using unconventional tools to achieve highly original sounds, from toy pianos, tape loops, music boxes, to accordion drones. Asmar’s music sounds eerie and playful at the same time, channeling an unworldly yearning through her intricately built sound collages.
Daniela Pes & IOSONOUNCANE
With her album Spira, multi-instrumentalist and singer Daniela Pes exposed her surreal talents to the world: a conjurer of grandiloquent, electronic pop sung in her entirely self-made syntax. At Le Guess Who?, she reunites with producer IOSONOUNCANE to perform a completely original set of music. If this is anything even approximating the brilliance of the duo’s work on Spira, the audience is in for a wild ride. A musical plunge into ocean deep ends.
Alabaster DePlume
No show by Alabaster Deplume and his ragtag rotation of players is ever the same, yet it always feels like a special once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. Expect the usual hierarchy between audience and band to be immediately blurred and expect a little bit of intrusive chaos in the process. By the time Deplume and his friends play their final notes, however, new friendships are usually forged, and the odd tear of joy shed. And if Deplume’s inquisitive poetry doesn’t make you feel anything, his fractured saxophone notes certainly will.
Alpha Maid
Alpha Maid is just magnetically cool. This UK artist meshes discordant elements with catchy pop in similarly mind-bending fashion as close associates Mica Levi and Coby Sey. Woozy nocturnal moods, grimy vocal delivery, and wonderfully impressionistic deviations on grunge, dub and emo – Alpha Maid’s recently dropped album Is this a queue is the perfect backdrop for cosmic daydreaming under the city’s fluorescent lights.
Le Guess Who? takes place in Utrecht on 6-9 november. For more info on the programme and satellite events, go to the festival’s official website.
