大象传媒

Jennifer Lucy Allan celebrates the left field and experimental corners of this summer’s festival circuit. Recently back from the fields of Oxfordshire’s Supernormal festival, Jen reflects on some of her favourite performances and moments from this year’s edition. And we look ahead to some of the most exciting experimental festivals taking place in Europe on this final weekend in August.

For adventurous listeners there’s plenty on offer, from Burd Ellen’s workshop on Ghost songs and Revenant Ballads at Birmingham’s Supersonic, to performances from DO U WANT TO MOVE BACK TO LDN, Kamilya Jubran and 狈í诲颈补, at Belgium’s Eupen-based Meakusma festival. Expect sonic fireworks from Jason Kahn at Switzerland’s improvisation-focused La Fête à Bruit, and Sofia Jernberg gracing Field Notes in Berlin.

Elsewhere in the show, we step into a cool church, to hear better the cloud-like echoes of a lone voice, singing into the cavernous space, and its organ, played by artist Allan Gilbert Balon. There are synths and barked vocal vibrations, from cult band Liaisons Dangereuses' side project CHBB, and we press play on some old tape recordings made in 2005 in Dusseldorf by two Chinese art students, who later formed a free improvisation duo, MTDM (from the Chinese name mei tui de ma, “horse without legs”).

Produced by Cat Gough
A Reduced Listening production for 大象传媒 Radio 3