Inside the sonic ecosystem of Le Guess Who?

Holley is one of eight guest curators for this year’s edition of Le Guess Who?, contributing to the festival’s vast line-up alongside fellow curators Amirtha Kidambi, Asher Gamedze, gyrofield, Edna Martinez, Tianzhuo Chen, Valentina Magaletti, and Ziúr. It’s this style of programming that has kept the Utrecht event the forefront of innovative new music discovery among European festivals over the last twenty years, upheld by the motto “Listening is the way forward”.

Across the city, there’s an undercurrent of restlessness and exhaustion with injustice. Keffiyehs are worn openly in solidarity with Palestine, a march for Sudan takes place in the street, there are flyers posted in educational buildings from students looking to make a difference. The events of LGW don’t overshadow this, or employ the notion of dancing to forget what’s going on in the world around us. In fact, it is facilitated in a way that prompts us to pay attention in a multitude of ways.

This year, LGW is taking things a step further by hosting its first-ever Sound & Culture Summit, a series of talks, workshops and keynotes held at Stadsschouwburg Utrecht. The Summit offers an open space for knowledge exchange across various topics, inspiring audiences to engage with diverse perspectives in favour of initiating change.

Holley — the Alabama visual artist and musician known for his sculptural work with discarded materials — offers his own inspiring workshop independent of the scheduled series. Outside of the theatre, he admires a figure of a mother and child that he’s made out of objects found in the area. He explains that his craft was nurtured through his upbringing, as he observed his grandmother collecting things from landfills to sell. This act of survival ultimately became Holley’s artistic medium. He urges us to consider discarded things not as just scraps, but different components that can be pieced together to create a bigger picture. When a garbage truck roars by, he is filled with glee as he exclaims, “I’ll let the trash make joyful noise!”

As we walk with Holley, we are reminded to observe the ground closely. In the light of early afternoon, a baby mat tossed into the bushes becomes a canvas. Sticks, feathers, seeds, cups, and empty packets are the materials. We use the glass of a broken wine bottle to cut into the mat, inserting objects that are bound by strips of plastic. When the final piece is held up, it is reflective of a group effort to carefully consider the earth beneath us and recognise beauty and purpose in what has been discarded. “We learn to collaborate by looking through the drain, adding to the drain, and watching how it runs into the other one,” Holley tells us.

It feels as though symbiosis is inherent to the infrastructure of LGW through deliberate curation. The festival operates as its own ecosystem — a collaborative space free from the constraints of borders — in which both artists and audiences are able to explore connections that might not otherwise arise elsewhere. What Holley teaches us with found objects is that beauty, artistic freedom, and healing can manifest from the intentional integration of combining disparate elements to create new dialogue, in hopes of piecing together a bigger picture.

This is a consistent thread from the beginning of LGW, up until the very end. On opening night, SUNN O))) deliver a performance that sees them characteristically cloaked, their figures barely visible through dense clouds of fog. Despite their visual obscurity, the Seattle drone metal duo assert a physically overwhelming presence. They stretch low-frequency notes to maximum effect, disseminating vibration like an endurance test. It demands visceral awareness; a return to the body. In its theatricality, the performance is trance-like, a quality also possessed by more spirited performances from Omar Hayat and Assiko Golden Band de Grand Yoff earlier in the evening.

Hayat moves the room with traditional, ceremonial sounds from his homeplace of Morocco, while Assiko Golden Band de Grand Yoff achieve a liberating, ritualistic groove through the interplay of West and Central African percussive rhythms, as well as compositions from Senegalese poet Djiby Ly. Despite the form of presence being starkly different across these acts, there is an undeniable impact that sets the tone for what transpires in the coming days.

At the Sound & Culture Summit, one of the first speakers is performance artist and activist Naomie Pieter. Drawing upon her work as the organiser of Pon De Pride — a party in Amsterdam which provides a safe space for LGBTQ+ people of colour to enjoy dancehall music — Pieter delivers a 45-minute lecture titled The Black Queer Body Remembers — From Tambú to the Club. Through spoken word, Pieter honours the Curaçaoian dance tradition of Tambú, exploring how Black queer bodies carry history, pain, and joy through movement and sound. She identifies the importance of preserving spaces in which traditional dance can be celebrated rather than vilified, explaining that she started Pon Di Pride because she didn’t want to ask her community to fight. Rather, she wanted to promote remembrance. “People call the club escapism, I call it a return,” she says in her performance. “We don’t dance to be seen, we dance because we are home. We gather to remember what the world tries to erase when the lights come on.”

“I am not new. I am remembered, I am continuation.” When the conversation opens, an audience member notes that grief and joy do not exist as opposites. Rather, the opposite is numbness. It becomes clear that LGW has been cultivated as one of these spaces, enabling gathering as an act of remembrance, where joy, resistance, and grief can be intertwined, and continuation is nurtured through collaboration.

One such example became evident in English saxophonist and poet Alabaster DePlume. Perched politely on a bench near Tigers Gym, which has been repurposed as a venue space for the festival, DePlume tells me that he’s waiting to join his friends Ibrahim Owais and Yara Asmar for a Sounds of Places: Cremisan Valley, a sound gathering which transports the audience to Cremisan Valley, one of Palestine’s last remaining green spaces. “Usually if I want to see my friends, I have to cross the border. It takes work to go to Palestine, but today, my friends are here,” he says. DePlume is something of a LGW veteran. He was first welcomed to perform in 2018 by founder Bob van Heur, but has also attended the festival annually just to experience the music. “People are scared to advocate for fresh things until they’re given permission by other, bigger authorities,” he explains. “Bob brought me here, he welcomed me before I had an audience. And I felt welcome as myself. I found that it’s a space where the abundance of different cultures challenges me to be myself.”

“You can tell that these things have been chosen for a reason,” he continues. “A more real reason than just selling tickets. People come here because they know what’s going on. They trust the curation. Every moment, we concern ourselves with how we will be seen. But it’s impossible to know how you’ll be seen. All we can really concern ourselves with is, ‘Where am I coming from?’l He recalls the time that he’s previously spent at LGW, smiling softly when he speaks. “I’m here for the rascals. The people who are a bit rough, but it’s because they have noble hearts. It’s going to take rascals to save this world.” Later on in the evening, during his set, DePlume wields his saxophone like a weapon, an armoured voice that he utilises to strengthen his own. Thanking the audience for his place at LGW, Palestinian keffiyehs draped around him, he announces, “At the time, I didn’t know that I was fashioning a weapon against fascism. I see that I was, and I see that we were.”

One of the most poignant displays of communion at the festival continues with DePlume who, alongside Assiko Golden Band de Grand Yoff, joins Lonnie Holley for a performance that night. Holley’s improvisational spirit truly comes to life with the blending of cultures on stage, utilising music as a transcendent language. Grounded by Senegalese polyrhythms, Holley speaks with rootsy wisdom, making a point to invite each musician to contribute their unique voice with appreciation. He addresses the audience with warmth, identifying a congregation among us. When he closes with a broken ballad to his grandmother, admitting: “Grandmother, I can’t sing you any love song. There’s too much going on,” the pensive, scattered percussion echoes the wry quiver of the saxophone in a way that excavates the grief, pushing it to the surface in its aching composition. In this moment, beauty and pain converge.

Yet, facing the dismay seems to bring about a lightness. It’s transmuted into jovial bodies in a constant state of flux. A generous pit opened for a packed-out secret set from Irish post-punks Gilla Band, and the night was kept alive with a number of DJ sets, including expansive picks from Fatima Al Qadiri and Djrum. This is not to discredit the ease and togetherness found within the calmer corners. When seats fill for the tender psychedelic stylings of Tomo Katsurada at Museum Speelklok, attendees spread out across the open area. Some are lying down, eyes closed, while others quietly observe the space. Katsurada’s vocals whisper against the high walls, with the cello carrying a sleepy grace that washes over the room.

Beyond the music, the programming for LGW features a rich film schedule. One of these screenings is Bixa Travesty, a documentary which follows the life of Linn Da Quebrada, a Black transgender performer and activist living in the outskirts of São Paulo. In the documentary, Quebrada finds community and identity through her brazen yet deeply vulnerable work. She explores her relationship with her body and her inner self as a transgender woman, revealing that she battled testicular cancer — which she does not frame as tragedy, but rather, her body demanding life so intensely that her cells overproduced. As part of her performance, she is armoured with a metal glove customised by her friend and fellow artist, with the accessory described as her “amulet”. When Quebrada takes the stage at LGW, it is seven years after the release of Bixta Travesty. “I am a person with a lot of fears, and this music talks about that,” she announces. Watching her, you’d never guess that this is the case. She rules the stage with the confidence of someone who has worked relentlessly to earn it, and she is without the glove. Coursing through scathing rock textures and jumpy pop numbers, she commands a space in which the armour can be shed, and she can fully come into herself without requiring defence.

Another screening that runs throughout the festival is Wael Shawky’s Drama 1882, an operatic rendition of the Urabi Revolution sung in classical Arabic, in which the Egyptian army revolted against increasing European influence before being suppressed by the British, who would then occupy the country until 1956. The historical events unfold as a play, in which the actors move slowly, tentatively, moved by the tension of what’s happening around them. It toys with the meaning of “drama” in its presentation of theatre and catastrophe, compelling thought about how history gets written — and how it aligns with the state of current politics.

The films operate as a core part of the LGW’s overarching goal to distribute global knowledge, in addition to furthering resistance against erasure. They offer a different means of storytelling, deepening the exploration of complex narratives rather than minimising them. Some of this is partially supported by the composition of the venue spaces. While some are scattered throughout the city, many performances take place simultaneously in the multilevel TivoliVredenburg hall, enabling attendees to move through sonic worlds, delving into different contexts in a naturally occurring manner to find unexpected connections.

Such is the case with visual artist and producer 33EMYBW, who brings strips back her experimental club music for an improvised performance with noise/experimental guitarist Li Jianhong at Jacobikerk (St. James’ Church). Both influential members of the Chinese music scene, when they come together, they are an unlikely force. As red-light visuals bounce against the church walls, 33EMYBW’s eerie ambient notes merge with the razor-sharp guitar melodies for an arrangement that feels striking and hypnotic with intentional discord. While 33EMYBW has collaborated with Jianhong on “Anthropods Continent” from her 2019 album Arthropods, they become another entity entirely when they rely on one another’s improvisational abilities. Watching them bridge enables a unique musical conversation demonstrating markedly different expressions of the same geography. When 33EMYBY later presents her music with the multimedia installations of Joey Holder at Cloud Nine in TivoliVredenburg, her sound becomes completely decontextualised. It’s bigger, devouring, a compilation of deconstructed sounds that fulfill a maximalist vision.

Similarly, Nicolas Jaar’s abstract ambient production treads carefully beneath Ali Sethi’s recitation of Sufi mystic poetry. They hold considerate, conscious space for one another’s craft, careful not to overstep. In the complete stillness of the crowd, it feels overtly serious — though largely necessary to uphold the integrity of the words and instrumentation.

Beyond the collaborations, independent sounds do still thrive on their own. Caxtrinho’s endearingly shadowy samba draws an eager queue, followed by Ghanaian pop icon Ata Kak who is all smiles as he dances across the stage — which the audience can’t help but to mirror. Norwegian duo Smerz embody an effortless cool and present a subdued drama when they invite us to the world of Big city life, one of melancholic yet ethereal electronic pop. They harbour a sophisticated intensity under the reflected light of a spinning disco ball, but the spirit in their music is resonant — as indicated by the shriek of happiness that emerged from two audience members when they began performing “You got time and I got money”. Devendra Banhart appears solo, just him and his guitar, but is met with a slew of excited requests when he asks the crowd to choose what he plays. While curator and percussionist Valentina Magaletti is involved in a few performances throughout the weekend, her contributions as one-third of the London-based band MOIN sees her talent sent into full drive during the band’s phenomenal closing performance — including spoken verses from artist Sophia Al Maria. Yet, the festival’s momentum comes in encouraging the acts that they host to stand together.

At one point, a volunteer mentions that she suffers badly from FOMO, almost apologetically stating that there’s too much good stuff to see. But she also says that she is learning to embrace the joy of missing out due to the abundance offered at LGW. It’s in part what makes it special. By trusting the curation, whatever you choose will inevitably connect you to something else.

Like Holley’s metaphor, Le Guess Who? peers into multiple drains. Whether it be genre or geography, there is consideration of what is being added and how one element will run into the other. Through this integration, there is healing that can coexist with fracture. For four days, the drains run into one another — screaming joyful noise.