Avant-Garde, Experimental & Improvising Guitarist

Born in Zagreb, Croatia, and still based there, Vlatko is an avant-garde guitarist dedicated to constant innovation and originality. His playing draws on highly unorthodox techniques – drumming on the guitar body, sliding and gliding across strings, striking with a lighter, exploring unusual chords and melodic lines.

For him, art is always a direct connection with the divine, with the source of everything. Each performance is an attempt to channel that source and share it with the audience.

Vlatko’s music has already gained international recognition. He has performed in Munich and Budapest, and in September 2025 he will bring his work to Paris and London. His upcoming composition Space Drummer will further showcase his unique vision and approach.

HiNoGar’s ReSearch At, released on August 29, 2025 via attenuation circuit, reworks fragments from their earlier Search At into something both harsher and more expansive. On Dragan (HiGer version – by ROBotron), metallic loops grind against a backdrop of drones, the texture swelling until it collapses in distortion at 9:10. Prayanagar (Distant View version – by HR+) stretches over thirteen minutes, a vast drone field where shimmering overtones drift like bells through fog, inviting the listener into a meditative trance. Rewinding (Takes it Further version – by HR+) turns inward: oscillating tones spiral into abrasive feedback, surging at 8:20 before dissolving into near silence. What binds the album together is its tension between ritual stillness and eruptions of noise, a balance that feels both physical and spectral. The sound design is meticulous—layers of processed samples are placed with a sculptor’s precision, yet the results remain raw and visceral. At times the music recalls Biosphere’s arctic ambiences, at others the seismic pressure of Ben Frost, but HiNoGar’s approach is more collective, shaped by multiple hands and ears. This multiplicity gives the record a fractured but coherent identity, like different perspectives on the same landscape. ReSearch At is less an album to be consumed than an environment to inhabit: patient, abrasive, immersive. It demonstrates how drone and noise, when refracted through collaboration, can carve out a sonic terrain that is at once hostile and deeply compelling.

HiNoGar is based in Hungary

Genre

Ambient / Drone / Experimental Electronic with strong Noise and Techno influences

Strengths

• Layered soundscapes that shift between meditative spaciousness and abrasive density.

• Dynamic pacing: long, suspended atmospheres contrasted by sudden surges.

• Distinct personalities of the contributors (ROBotoron, HR+), each track carrying its own sonic identity while staying within the HiNoGar frame.

Formal Aspects

• Dragan (HiGer version – by ROBotron) (10:25): Built around hypnotic pulses, glitch textures, and metallic drones; intensifies mid-track with distorted rhythms.
• Prayanagar (Distant View version – by HR+) (13:31): Expansive drone layers, wide stereo panorama, field-recording-like ambiences; stretches time, evoking distance and ritual.
• Rewinding (Takes it Further version – by HR+) (10:00): Oscillating tones and feedback loops, slowly morphing into abrasive noise walls before dissolving.

Standout Moments / Key Points

04:32 (Dragan) – metallic percussive loop cuts through the drone, shifting the track’s energy.

09:10 (Dragan) – sudden overload of distortion, then a fade into silence.
06:50 (Prayanagar) – shimmering overtone cluster, floating like bells in fog.

08:20 (Rewinding) – noise surge peaks, followed by a thinning texture into near silence..

Comparisons / References

Biosphere – for spacious ambient and drone expanses.

Ben Frost – in the noise-saturated crescendos.

Ellen Fullman / Phill Niblock – long-form textural developments and immersive sonic fields.

Bandcamp link to HiNoGar ReSearch At

Epignose’s Désincarnation, released in on July 18, 2024, is an uncompromising plunge into analog chaos. Recorded live with the Lyra-8 as the sole sound source, the pieces reject polish in favor of immediacy, electricity in its most primal form. Désincarnation III is a short, violent arc, Désincarnation V shifts downward, its low-end surges at 1:05 rattling the listener before a piercing oscillator slices through like a scalpel. By 2:20 the track disintegrates into crackling distortion, refusing resolution. The strength of the album lies not in structure but in texture—the sheer volatility of analog circuitry pushed to its limit. References to Puce Mary or Maurizio Bianchi make sense, yet Epignose’s sound is more stripped, more naked, as if the machine itself were performing. What remains is not music in the conventional sense but an act of sonic violence that is at once intimate and confrontational. Désincarnation insists that noise is not backdrop but flesh, and listening is an act of endurance.

Epignose is based im Lyon, France

Genre

Noise / Industrial / Live Analog Improvisation

Strengths

• Raw analog power of the Lyra-8: snarling oscillators, unstable drones, and visceral feedback.

• Improvisational immediacy: each gesture feels physical and unpolished, like electricity embodied.

• Textural contrasts: moments of near-silence collide with sudden eruptions of saturated noise.

Formal Aspects

• Désincarnation III (02:53): compact burst, starting with high-pitched feedback, morphing into a grinding wall of mid-range noise; ends abruptly without resolution.
• Désincarnation V (02:36): darker timbre, heavy low-end pulses; midway a piercing oscillation slices through before collapsing back into distortion.

Standout Moments / Key Points

00:05 (I) – the pieca (and tha album) start with the tpical and beautiful full sound of LYRA osc's.

01:43 (I) – shrill oscillator peak cuts like a knife through the texture.

01:56 (V) – typical LYRA oscillator sounds shrills in.

02:20 (V) – collapse into distorted crackle, piece ends unresolved.

Comparisons / References

Puce Mary – in the tension between fragility and brutality.

Maurizio Bianchi – raw industrial edges, unapologetically abrasive.

SOMA Lyra-8 improvisers (e.g. DEXBA – the unmistakable organic instability of the instrument.

Bandcamp link to Epignose Désincarnation 

M B U F (Belgium) SNAP, released on April 17, 2024, is a 25-minute descent into electroacoustic turbulence. From the opening moments, the piece establishes a fragile hum that soon buckles under surges of distortion. At 6:45 a faint percussive crackle suggests rhythm, but it quickly dissolves into a shifting haze. The midpoint of the work, around 12:20, detonates in a searing blast of high-frequency noise, a reminder that silence here is only ever temporary. By 18:40 the sound mass has swollen into a suffocating wall that engulfs the stereo field, immersive and merciless. Yet *SNAP* is not monotone—its tension lies in the delicate balance between microscopic detail and overwhelming force. The spatial play is remarkable: layers drift, collide, and scatter across the spectrum like particles in flux. Listeners may hear echoes of Kevin Drumm’s austere noise slabs or the granular shimmer of Fennesz, but M B U F pushes further into a volatile in-between space. What results is not a composition in the traditional sense but an environment, one that refuses stability and thrives on rupture. SNAP is demanding, abrasive, and ultimately absorbing—a sonic landscape that tests the limits of endurance while rewarding deep immersion.

 

Genre

Experimental / Electroacoustic / Noise-Improvisation

Strengths

• Strengths

  Extended duration (nearly 25 minutes) allows a slow evolution of textures, from fragile crackle to overwhelming density.

• Dynamic contrasts: sudden spikes of intensity keep the ear alert, even within long static stretches.

• Stereo space: shifting layers move across the field, giving the impression of a constantly morphing environment.

Formal Aspects

• Structure is episodic, with overlapping layers that rise and fall rather than a linear progression.
• Long drone passages dissolve into fractured noise, then regroup in new combinations

Standout Moments / Key Points

06:45 – subtle rhythmic crackle emerges, almost percussive, underneath sustained drone.

12:20 – eruption of high-frequency noise, piercing and destabilizing.

18:40 – dense wall of sound spreads fully across the stereo image, peak of intensity.

22:55 – texture thins out into scattered fragments before fading.

Comparisons / References

Kevin Drumm – long-form noise structures balancing fragility and force.

Fennesz – in the layered granularity and shifting stereo fields.

Helm – for its abstract narrative, moving between ambience and abrasion.

Bandcamp Album link to M B U F - SNAP

Davixo Berimbá’s música para performance, released on August 30, 2025 by Colegio extraterrestre Records in Valparaíso, is not a collection of tracks but a series of sonic environments designed to accompany the body in motion. Cuerpo Frontal (2016) opens the album with twenty minutes of shifting layers, where whispering samples and fractured noises dissolve into sudden surges of distortion. The piece feels less like composition and more like a choreography of air, tailored for the gestures of Marla Freire’s performance art. Ni una más II (2019), stretching over thirty minutes in mono, is even starker: extended passages of near silence make the explosive interventions of metallic scraping and guttural resonance all the more unsettling. These dynamics place the listener inside a fragile balance of tension, as if each sound could cut through space like a blade. The work recalls the immersive austerity of Francisco López or Christina Kubisch, yet carries a political and corporeal urgency that is entirely Berimbá’s own. What stands out most are the ruptures: at 3:12 in Cuerpo Frontal, noise floods the ear without warning, while at 22:50 in Ni una más II silence collapses under the weight of distortion. This is music that insists on presence, demanding attention to texture, body, and breath. Berimbá offers not background music but a radical environment—both unsettling and strangely intimate—where performance and sound merge into one field of perception.

Formal Aspects

Cuerpo Frontal (2016) (20:54): episodic structure, layers of processed samples gradually building and dissolving. No stable meter, but recurring pulses emerge.

Ni una más II (2019) (30:16): more narrative; long, quiet beginnings followed by stark, almost violent surges of sound. Mono format emphasizes focus and intensity.

Standout Moments / Key Points

03:12 (Cuerpo Frontal): sudden intrusion of distorted noise cluster after a delicate texture – shocking rupture.

12:40 (Cuerpo Frontal): a rhythmic, breath-like loop emerges, giving temporary pulse.

08:15 (Ni una más II): layers of metallic scraping textures fill the space, raw and visceral.

22:50 (Ni una más II): near silence collapses into a sharp, distorted outburst – dramaturgically striking.

Comparisons / References

Christina Kubisch – use of extended textures and electroacoustic field material.

Francisco López – focus on immersive, reduced, yet overwhelming soundscapes.

Diamanda Galás (unsure, textural association) – in the visceral, almost bodily expression of some sound layers.

Bandcamp Album Link zu música para performance

Czech republic based noisounds' producer. Active since 1994. Operated in wider range of electronic music: noise to downtempo electro industrial to glitch electronics to electroacoustic metals to whatever more. All recorded one take live

RDKPL is also running a Harsh Noise compilation, with 6 editions already released as of September 1, 2025.

Every third Thursday of the month jazz meets free improv. Act one features a mix of jazz standards interpretations with wild improvisation. Act two is all about collaboration where musicians are invited to bring their musical ideas into an ever changing exchange. Join us at Kulturcafé Max, where tradition and daring creativity cross paths.

Outdoor music by the Danube Canal or the Vienna River or something. Nothing specific is known yet, but I'll be playing myself on August 20th, and I'll know more then.

Every second Thursday of the month (except July and August), formidable musicians and dancers meet at v.e.k.k.s. to freely improvise on equal terms, following a unique philosophy. Learn more on the Free Forms of Arts website.

Born in Taiwan, ChiaoHua Chang has been living in Vienna as a freelance musician and erhu teacher since 2013. Before moving to Vienna, she had already gained 12 years of teaching experience by teaching erhu in Taiwan. To date, she has performed with many local and international musicians and ensembles in many countries. Here is a small selection: For example, she took part in the play “Don Quixote” at the Haag Summer Theater and has performed with Hans Tschiritsch and accordionist Otto Lechner at the Porgy and Bess jazz club. She is currently involved in the “Three Continents” project with Przemysław Strączek, the reading “Der West-Östliche Artmann”, the Orchestra of Cultures under Adrian Werum and “Colores” by Eldis La Rosa. She has also played her instrument at various international free improvisation festivals.

The erhu is a two-stringed Chinese string instrument with a snake skin stretched over its resonating body. This is where the characteristic sound of this instrument comes from. According to historical records, the erhu was first mentioned around 1000 years ago in the Tang Dynasty.

Die in Taiwan geborene ChiaoHua Chang lebt seit 2013 als freiberufliche Musikerin und Erhu-Lehrerin in Wien. Vor ihrem Umzug nach Wien sammelte sie bereits 12 Jahre Unterrichtserfahrung als Erhu-Lehrerin in Taiwan. Bis heute ist sie mit zahlreichen einheimischen und internationalen Musikern und Ensembles in zahlreichen Ländern aufgetreten. Hier eine kleine Auswahl: So wirkte sie beispielsweise im Theaterstück „Don Quijote“ im Sommertheater Den Haag mit und trat mit Hans Tschiritsch und dem Akkordeonisten Otto Lechner im Jazzclub Porgy and Bess auf. Aktuell engagiert sie sich im Projekt „Drei Kontinente“ mit Przemysław Strączek, der Lesung „Der West-Östliche Artmann“, dem Orchester der Kulturen unter Adrian Werum und „Colores“ von Eldis La Rosa. Darüber hinaus spielte sie ihr Instrument bei verschiedenen internationalen Festivals für freie Improvisation.

Die Erhu ist ein zweisaitiges chinesisches Saiteninstrument, über dessen Resonanzkörper eine Schlangenhaut gespannt ist. Dadurch entsteht der charakteristische Klang dieses Instruments. Historischen Aufzeichnungen zufolge wurde die Erhu erstmals vor etwa 1000 Jahren in der Tang-Dynastie erwähnt.