| Berlin's unique festival for 'adventurous music and related visual arts' opens its doors tomorrow. We have assembled a small guide to the festival's many highlights. |
  
Club Transmediale is famous for its diverse line-up, dedicating the different nights of the festival to specific genres or topics. With 'Overlap' being the motto of this years 11th edition, the breadth and scope of musical styles on display is as dazzling as ever, ranging from experimental noise and neo-classic to broken beats and disco-pop.
'Overlap' further not only stands for the cross-overs in music itself, but also for the presence of music in other media forms, be it theatre, film, contemporary dance, or video games. CTM.10 dedicates lectures, screenings and performances to each of these areas during the course of its 10 day programme With such an exhaustive schedule and the all-new festival locations it's all to easy to miss something: to aid you in your festival planning for the next 10 days, we have compiled this small guide containing definite must-sees, insider tips and some of our personal favourites.
Presented by De:Bug magazine and zero", the official CTM.10 compilation serves as a perfect introduction to this year's Club Transmediale. Featuring many of the festival's highlight artists (see below), it is available to all zero" users as a free download!
Simply sign up below or start downloading if you already have an account. 
FRIDAY, JANUARY 29
CTM.10 will kick off with a triple performance at Kreuzberg's HAU 2 theatre. Starting at 8pm, works by Jacob Kirkegaard, Transforma and Hiroaki Umeda will explore the interplay between sound, light, image and movement. After stimulating our intellect, we'll be ready for some heart-warming disco pop at CTM's new main music location, the WMF club.
Jersey City's awesome Italians Do it Better label will be hosting an entire floor, complete with Johnny Jewel projects Desire and Glass Candy, and label-owner Mike Simonetti behind the decks.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 30
The opening Saturday is always a special night at CTM, and this time we'll be spending a lot of time commuting between the WMF's two floors: Daniel Haaksman's Man Recordings label will bring on the heat on floor number 1, featuring the booty rocking bass of Vienna's KU BO (a.k.a. Stereotyp) among others.
Floor number 2 will in turn play host to the advanced beat-science of shooting stars FaltyDL, Brackles and Rustie - an all-star line-up for anyone into wonky dubstep breaks.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 31
Braving the arctic Berlin cold, we will first head to the Siegessäule at 3pm for an outdoor performance of Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen along with Amsterdam's Staalplaat sound system.
The rest of the day we'll spend at A MAZE. Interact at CTM's day location, the centrally located .HBC. A festival in its own right, A MAZE is dedicated to diverse aspects of video games, including of course musical ones.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 1
After a promising discussion panel featuring Ewan Pearson and Record Makers' Marc Teissier du Cros (6pm, .HBC) the Pan_sonic guys move indoors, joined by experimental guitarist Keiji Heino for a full-fledged concert at the WMF.
Also on the bill: Experimental pop by Guido Möbius, and a multi-media work of the performance group Apparatjik, taking place 'inside a specially constructed cube'. You have our attention.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2
A MAZE take the video game theme to the WMF on Tuesday with the sublime talents of Patric Catani taking center stage.
Catani (a.k.a. Candie Hank, and performing this time around as 'The Horrible Plans of Flex Busterman') is likely to play his entire set on his open-source game PDA - a sight to be hold.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 3
After Robert 'Monolake' Henke's lecture on in strument creation (5pm, .HBC) we'll visit Japanese electric music legend Ryoji Ikeda at HKW performing his 'Test Patterns' album.
After Ikeda-san's audio-visual onslaught, we'll take it easy at WMF with the ethereal music of Hildur Gudnadottir, the icelandic cellist known for her collaborations with múm and her amazing neo-classical solo works.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4
The weekend (almost) starts early with two highly interesting acts taking the stage at WMF:
Zombie Zombie's Etienne Jaumet, who has been crossing over krautrock-disco with John Carpenter's soundtrack aestetics on his recent albums on Versatile, and Oni Ayhun, a new mysterious ambient project, performing one of its first gigs at CTM.10.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5
Perhaps the most prominently booked night of this year's CTM will surely fill the WMF to its brink. Upstairs will enlighten us to the sound of cutting edge dubstep with Mount Kimbie, Joker, Scuba, and 2562.
The downstairs room will be transformed into an audio-visual cornucopia with gigs by Four Tet, Kelpe and Funckarma, as well as visuals by Transforma.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6
Saturday once again offers two distinct themes for each of the WMF's two floors: The upstairs room will host CTM's obligatory and always popular Raster-Noton night, albeit with some fresh faces this year and headlined by electronic music legend Atom TM.
Floor 1 will be entirly dedicated to 'The Modern Deep Left Quartet & Guests' - none others than Mathew Jonson's Cobblestone Jazz crew, with appearances by The Mole, Deadbeat and Paul St. Hilaire.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 7
It will be on Sunday morning that CTM moves to Berlin's legendary Panoramabar/Berghain for its final chapter, officially - and perhaps fittingly - termed the 'Festival Meltdown',
Techno-house greats like Joris Voorn and Deetron will take over the decks and put the finishing touches to what we hope will have been a great festival! |
The Mole, Hotflush Recordings, KU BO, Berlin, Scuba, Wagon Repair, Mika Vainio, Raster-Noton, Deadbeat, 2562, Joker, FaltyDL, Atom TM, Oni Ayhun Records, Joris Voorn, Funckarma, Cobblestone Jazz, Hildur Gudnadottir, Patric Catani, Guido Möbius, Deetron, Italians Do It Better, CTM, Etienne Jaumet, Paul St. Hilaire, Four Tet
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