On Thursday 8th March, VIVA! lands in Berlin for its first international preview event, presented in partnership with The Italian New Wave. The event will feature sets from Jim C. Nedd (half of Primitive Art) & Palm Wine, STILL, Stump Valley and Caterina Barbieri. The event will kick off at 22:00 with the screening of “Pico: un parlante de Africa en America”. Directed by visual arts duo Invernomuto and produced by Plusdesign, the film is dedicated to Pico soundsystem culture, typical of the Caribbean coast of Colombia and especially of Barranquilla and Cartagena. The documentary was premiered at Unsound 2017 in Krakow.
The collaboration between Jim C. Nedd and Simone Bertuzzi aka Palm Wine took shape during the trip to Barranquilla in 2015 while Bertuzzi was filming the documentary. The set revolves around a recent music genre that is shaking the southern side of Barranquilla in the latest decade: Guarapo. Guarapo is the natural answer of young generations of Afrocolombian producers growing up in Barranquilla listening to Musica Africana from the 70s: each song starts with a sample from a soukous, rumba or related genres and suddenly becomes an obsessive, repetitive beat, built by looping small sections of vocal or guitar and overlaying thumping percussive beats to make a brief and thrilling breakbeatstyle
track. Each cut is short, little more than a stark and hypnotic drop for the right moment, to be liberally sprayed with a hail of placas (drops). A collection of unreleased tracks curated by the two of them released by Honest Jon’s in 2017 under the name “Guarapo! Forty bangers from Barranquilla”.
https://soundcloud.com/elitaradio/palm-wine-jim-c-need-dj-set-yard-sonidoclassics
Shapeshifting through his vernacular worlds of sound and imagery, Milan artist and musician STILL (Simone Trabucchi)’s practice is defined by a unique, nomadic approach. Previously known as Dracula Lewis, he has accumulated a number of releases on various seminal labels, alongside running Hundebiss Records. His new moniker, STILL, follows the unearthing of the histories that connect his hometown of Vernasca to Ethiopia and Jamaica, explored under his visual arts project Invernomuto as an in-depth fieldwork lead to ‘Negus’: a series of sculptures, installations, a book, and a long-feature experimental documentary. ‘Negus’ revolves around a cleansing counter-ritual performed by Lee “Scratch” Perry in the Vernasca square where 80 years earlier, an effigy of Haile Selassie I was burned. The documentary then follows a trajectory connecting Italy’s overlooked colonial past seen through personal history to a reverberation of symbols in Ethiopia and Jamaica. Within STILL, he connects these research threads, evolving their sonic and linguistic aspects further. Using the medium of language, the record is a multi-layered with meanings contemplating the historical weight of words.
After years of collaboration under different monikers, the mysterious Turin duo of djs and producers decided to retire in Valle Ceppi, the Stump Valley that gave the name to the project. Far away from any communications mean they drew from their impressive vinyl collection. Their jazz and ambient contaminated house music is gaining the attention of the international music scene thanks to the carefully crafted arrangements and was released by prestigious labels such as Rush Hours, Off Minor and Uzuri.
Caterina Barbieri is a Berlin-based Italian composer who explores themes related to machine intelligence and object oriented perception in sound through a focus on minimalism. Caterina explores the psycho-physical effects of repetition and pattern-based operations in music, by investigating the polyphonic and polyrhythmic potential of sequencers to draw severe, complex geometries in time and space.
The Italian New Wave is the format devised by Club To Club Festival that promotes the new Italian creativity worldwide with live events and exclusive content. Since 2012 The Italian New Wave showcases, co-presented by the likes of Barbican Centre, Unsound Festival, Romaeuropa Festival, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Castello di Rivoli, Reggia di Venaria, Boiler Room and Red Bull Music Academy were in New York, London, Milan, Rome and Turin presenting shows from the freshest musicians and visual artists of the new Italian creativity.
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The Italian New Wave x VIVA! presents Jim C. Nedd (half of Primitive Art) & Palm Wine, STILL, Stump Valley, Caterina Barbieri LIVE & DJ
Kudamm Karree | Kurfürstendamm 206 – 209 | 10719 Berlin
