Beat Per Minute will be back at Rewire, the internationally renowned festival for experimental music, which kicks off in The Hague this year between 9 and 12 April 2026. We cherrypick 15 acts to look out for during its 15th anniversary edition.
The language of the drums is a language universally understood. It’s a language used to unshackle from the bondage of oppression, a language of communion and freedom, a language to help your body and mind surrender to some sort of higher power.
This year’s Rewire festival is filled to the brim with artists who wield the drums in a fashion recognisant of their wide-ranging potential. Drums have a way of shocking us out of our system, coaxing us into states of alertness oftentimes neutered by the many menial distractions within this era of late-stage capitalism. An act like Nihiloxica wield their drums with whimsical austerity, somehow sounding both ancient and futuristic in their laborious performances. The legendary Einstürzende Neubauten fuse this ritualistic pounce within the crude geometrics of industrial material.
Two collaborative performances, Sumac & Moor Mother and The Bug & Dis Fig conjure drums at a more lurching pace, a Lovecraftian entity looming beneath some murky surface. Beatrice Dillon and Laurel Halo purvey the drums into spastic abstractions that ooze brainy inquisition and zest. Dumama and Slikback, two artists derived from the African diaspora, meanwhile, express the drums as a more internal voice; one capable of streamlining and disentangling hearts and minds. Their beat abstractions have a way of dovetailing miraculously into something organic and alive.
Some artists, namely Valentina Magaletti and experimental rock legends Tortoise, have mastered grooves that travel within their own headstrong wavelength. The rhythmic assault of Blawan and Mandy, Indiana bring the other extreme: cantankerously swaying from any set pulse to pure chaos, expressing the fight-or-flight dread of a war zone. And then, on the far end of that spectrum, stand Beverly Glenn-Copeland and Oneohtrix Point Never: two artists from completely different eras who employ the drums with an infectious and holistic benevolence.
Long story short, drums are definitely not dead at Rewire 2026. So let’s cherrypick 15 of the many exciting acts for Rewire’s 15th edition.
Los Thuthanaka
The Chuquimamani-Condori siblings hurl ritualistic music through a digitised garbage disposal, scrambling it into it becomes a frenzied, oddly infectious miasma of noise. It’s hypnotic, it’s a little loony, and it has a way of hoovering crowds up like moths flocking towards an eternal flame.
Mandy, Indiana
Visceral, confrontational, and very very loud. This quartet’s brand of noise rock strikes like a fractured expression of trauma, survival and uprise – and at times, can astonishingly unfold into frothing, warped pop music. French vocalist Valentine Caulfield eludes any sort of codified stage hijinks, making each show unpredictable and invigorating.
Armand Hammer
The joint outfit of ELUCID and billy woods develops the duo’s peerless lyrical talents into often groundbreaking productions, compelling even legends like The Alchemist to rethink their well-honed beat making wizardry. Armand Hammer has been taking hip-hop to new adventurous directions record after record, and it isn’t getting boring anytime soon.
james K
Sought-after underground producer james K has helped the likes of Drew McDowall (Coil) and Yves Tumor lift songs into the nightmare realm. Her own music, however, remains rooted in a mesmeric dream pop reverie. Amidst all the wayward experimentation, a good pop hook indeed can strike the purest, and james K understands this bliss better than most.
Beverly Glenn-Copeland with Elizabeth Copeland
When artist Beverly Glenn-Copeland made Keyboard Fantasies in 1986, he said he was making music for a generation that had yet to be born. Like many of Copeland’s works, this turned out to be prophetic, as the album was reissued in the 2010s as a lost classic. It has revitalised Copeland’s music into the present day: his music burrows still novel sounding pathways between folk-jazz, new age, gospel and West-African music. At Rewire, he takes the stage with his longtime partner, theatre artist, playwright and producer Elizabeth Copeland.
Nihiloxica
Nihiloxica is without question one of those seeing is believing type of live acts where it’s more or less ‘all drums on deck’: Ugandan drummers Henry Isabirye, Henry Kasoma, and Jamiru Mwanje, UK-based producer Pete Jones (pq), and Amsterdam-based producer Jacob Maskell-Key (Spooky-J) pour their zest in zeal in a noise abomination that’s equal parts African drum music, punk rock and rave party.
Juana Molina
Imagine a Clarice Lispector novel converted to pop music, and Juana Molina’s music is kind of like that; spectral, macabre, beautiful, and agitating, all often in the same melody. The strange marriage of contradictions manifests seamlessly: a freak folk melody can sound like its from another planet, and a voice can feel as if it grows from your subconsciousness. ‘One of a kind’ is putting it mildly.
Kim Gordon
The former Sonic Youth icon has no intent of coasting on her storied alternative rock legacy, instead conjuring a cavalier clash of trap beats, noise pop, kraut rock and contemporary pop. Wonderfully obtuse, yet performed with Gordon’s signature aplomb and dry-witted humor.
Sumac & Moor Mother
Moor Mother is one of today’s most innovative artists and outspoken voices, and her collaborations are often as surprising as absorbing. Joining forces with freejazz/experimental metal collective Sumac unfolds in the menacing howl into the heavens, where words cut through the instruments and vice versa into a mosaic of fireband noise.
WaqWaq Kingdom feat. VJ Kalma
WaqWaq Kingdom is made out of Japanese cyberfolk siren Kiki Hitomi and producer Shigeru Ishihara (who set Concordia ablaze last year as one half of Takkak Takkak). Together they summon a weird and wonderful concert experience where folk and futurism magically coalesce. The visuals by VJ Kalma create an audiovisual odyssey that invites full immersion.
Milkweed
Milkweed are a realm of their own making: the singular outfit that can employ modern-day hip-hop inspired productions and come up with music that somehow still sounds like it’s unearthed like some archeological relic from ancient times. Their source material isn’t briskly rendered in modern context, but delineated in a way that expresses the slower march of history. Truly special stuff.
Leila Bordreuil
Lou Reed shouldn’t be the only individual to lay claim to the term ‘metal machine music’. Enter Brooklyn based artist Leila Bordreuil, who explores the sonic extremities of the cello with inquisitive vigor and raw, unfettered emotion. Noise can indeed be beautiful when its unraveled from the symbiotic relationship between person and chosen instrument, a sentiment Bordreuil’s performance will most certainly underscore.
My New Band Believe
Oddball outsider pop performed in 4K: that’s more or less My New Band Believe. It’s anyone’s guess how this strange dichotomy between slacker sensibility and virtuoso chops will unfold on stage. But purely on a need-to-know basis: the project’s mastermind is Cameron Picton, who was previously employed by defunct post-punk rule breakers black midi.
Jespfur
Dutch sound artist Jespfur has collaborated with MIKE, and conversely, his music similarly awakens this sentiment of just hanging out in a living room and letting impulse lead the way in thrifty, shoulder-shrugging fashion. The prelude may be ‘a nice hang with some music involved’, but the reality often unfolds in something illuminating and emotionally resonant.
Blawan
‘Demented’, ‘punishing’, ‘ear-splitting’ are often markers attached to Blawan’s noise-laden, screwball take on electronic music. But there’s a deeply emotionally-expressive tangent underpinning to his obdurate craft, often depicting heightened states of disarray, mileage and torment. It’s transposed into some of the most thrilling music you can expect: electronic music with the oomph of a live band… now fully in a live setting to boot. Bring them earplugs.
Rewire Festival takes place in The Hague on 9-12 april 2026. Visit the website for more info.
