Rewire builds its reputation on the spaces between the beats

A festival known for its commitment to booking ‘adventurous music’, over the course of two trips I’ve come to learn this is a gentle way of describing sets that while being undeniably mesmerising, might just leave you questioning what exactly am I listening to?

This year marks The Hague event's fifteenth anniversary, and like any festival in its teenage stride, they’re offering both a pretty slick and innovative programme; the line-up is a strong mix of industry heavyweights such as Kim Gordon and Oneohtrix Point Never, as well as the kinds of bands you hear once on NTS and vow to get into, plus heaps of emerging and local, underground talent.

Thursday’s opening scene is therefore a buzz of people checking into hostels, guitars slung out of taxis, and sunglasses floating around various lobbies. Rewire's location in The Hague is just a short and scenic train ride from Rotterdam central, and is held across a plethora of music halls, arts spaces and community-run venues, who all seem share the same goal of supporting boundary-pushing work. It’s rare that a city festival achieves such a fluidity in its physical programming – the natural spillage from venue to stage to art gallery to record store and back feels like the perfect way of exploring everything that the location and its adjacent music scene has to offer.

On opening night, punters flood into the festival’s main hub – the Amare Concertzaal – to see Italian composer Caterina Barbieri debut a series of new electronic works in collaboration with ONCEIM (the Orchestra of New Musical Creation, Experimentation and Improvisation) and visual artist Marcel Weber. The work is followed by another pioneer of electronic music composition Suzanne Ciani and producer J. Cunningham, aka Actress. The crowd is silent, focused fully on the performance, on the tangle of wires and modular synthesisers cast across the stage and the augmenting effects of each pulsing beat. It’s a bold way of kicking off a festival, but one seemingly celebrated by its audience.

Something else unique to Rewire is their desire to question what exactly makes a festival ‘good’? On Friday, the first full-day programme commences with a series of talks at local bookshop and independent publishers ‘Page Not Found’. I find myself in an especially interesting discussion on the intersection of gender and music technology, during which, inexplicably, there is a vocal performance in the style of an ‘ice bird’ by Yugoslavian artist Katalin Ladik, which rouses even the construction workers outside into temporary awe.

The music kicks-off shortly after with a band I’ve been listening to for a while, but have yet to see live. Coming fresh out of Copenhagen’s Rhythmic Music Conservatory scene is Fine aka producer, songwriter and ex-CHINAH vocalist Fine Glindvad Jensen. Their stage is set up with the intimacy of a rehearsal in mind, the effect of which (in addition to the haze of red smoke the band are cloistered in) is to make you feel like you’re witnessing something especially intimate. I watch with the kind of reverie akin to seeing some nineties vocal heroine (think Mazzy Star or Dolores O’Riordan) live in their prime – the set and its shifts between twinkling shoegaze, ambient electronic and even country, is a definite highlight of the weekend.

The next portion of the evening is spent room-hopping at concert hall PAARD, between smaller acts like the wryly named weed420 and then Scandinavian duo Smerz. Vocalists Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt waltz across stage in jewel-toned office wear, unfathomably cool as the crowd sways and mumbles along to last summer’s hottest jam ‘Feisty’, and other equally compelling numbers like "You got time and I got money". People then rush back to the venue’s smaller room to catch London’s bass thumping dance duo Tracey, who begin perhaps a little timidly, but by the end of the set have everyone in the palm of their hands, for their 2025 breakout single "Sex Life".

I end the night with the oddly pleasurable tonal whiplash of seeing both Armand Hammer and Oneohtrix Point Never, two leading figures in their own distinct genres. Producer Daniel Lopatin (OPN) arrives to particular anticipation off the back of his Marty Supreme score and critically acclaimed album release Tranquilizer, the latter of which is played out to trippy visuals, and another enraptured crowd.

There’s a sense at this festival that everybody knows each other, not in an elitist or excluding way, but rather in the kind of genuine community-driven way that supports a programme with such variety and a definite taste-making culture. On Saturday evening, there are many floating conversations about who to see, which lead to crowds flocking together in the direction of Melbourne outfit Acopia. Appealing completely to fans of guitar-fused trip-hop and bands like The xx or a.s.o., the trio perform their latest album Blush Response to a packed-out room. It feels like we then all rush straight back over to James K, who delivers another standout solo set of ethereal synth and vocal loops, complementary to the dream pop/trip hop sound permeating the night.

Honourable mentions of the evening go also to Raisa K (another NTS regular) and Hilary Woods (who are playing in the highly atmospheric location of a dark church). There’s also an odd moment where I accidentally stumble in on a 1,200 person capacity cinema, where Xiu Xiu are live scoring a visual tribute to Eraserhead – it’s stunning, but admittedly difficult to fully appreciate within the chain of bands I’m currently shifting between.

The late-night slot is given to Kim Gordon, whose glitchy bangers and ambitious visuals (at one point some anthropomorphised noodle pots bounce around on the big screen) pave the way for the more electronic portion of the evening. First class DJs like mi-el and Batu (b2b with JASSS) take the crowds home till sun-up through an eclectic and bass-driven range of tunes, providing a necessary space for attendees to become further integrated in the live soundscape and Dutch clubbing community.

By Sunday, I’m a little fatigued but quite markedly inspired, and am gradual for anther moment to reflect, wandering through the city via the festival’s continued collaboration with Proximity Music. I attend a final panel session on the future of music journalism chaired by The Guardian’s Laura Snapes, which encourages a fascinating deep-dive on topics like ‘the death of the middle ground’ and whether old-school music journalism can survive a social media epidemic. It’s excellent food for thought.

In the afternoon, I then make one final trip out to see an hour-long special performance by ØKSE featuring Billy Woods, who jokes on stage that he’s not accustomed to rapping when it’s still light outside. The ensemble of experimental jazz musicians features NYC-based drummer Savannah Harris, Danish saxophonist Mette Rasmussen, Haitian electronic musician Val Jeanty and Swedish bassist Petter Eldh. The result is nothing short of extraordinary, and sees Woods’ most potent tracks transformed into spluttering, fizzing, eruptions of live sound. It’s a testament to a festival that in its desire to be ‘adventurous’ encourages that very same trait amongst all artists and their performances, passing along infectiously back to its audience.