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Two friends on a psychodynamic trip — through the circuits of their gear and soundscapes that think of early electronics, kraut, wave and trip-hop.

The musicians David & Bik combine repetitive machinery with bass guitar, synths and vocals. Expect a table full of wires and a sound that touches various places and moods: from rough sketches to warm timbres.

Pristina-based Elise and Zurich/Sao Paulo based Ayra have a lot in common. Which is probably why they overcame the distance and formed such a strong friendship. Both come from a background of architecture and design, but have since emerged in to a wide range of creative disciplines and community engagement.

Focusing on the relationship of sound and space, highlighting the potential of sounds invisible and disrupting qualities and developing narratives that question the status quo. And of course as passionate music nerds & dancers their sound will certainly get you moving.

He has put on his magic boots and addresses the audience to make fun of their tiny feet. Bobby narrates the story of a robotic pea princess who lives in a toilet paper castle. Another storyteller also lives on Bobby's butt and interplays a sweet song taken from the film written by Francis Lai for the film Le Petit Poucet.  

In this micro-theatre piece, Bobby seizes on fairytale references to mock them and make fun of artistic pretensions. He moves from one character to another like changing rooms in a house. Bobby is a character who asserts himself in a stereotypically masculine way, close to what a drag king might play. The identity of the characters is at the heart of this play, as is the way in which identities and entities are created.  

Through a reappropriation of the Jamaican term “ Batty Bwoy” (litteraly, butt boy), slang for a queer person, the work twists and turns myths to invoke demonic sensitivities and charming cruelties, unfolding vulnerable possibilities in an interplay of consciousness and naivety. The horror and joy of Batty Bwoy, inherent to queer blackness, is unmasked. Scrutinizing the absurdity of a queer monstrosity, Batty Bwoy articulates the porosity of bodies and languages, their mouths swallowing and regurgitating the corporal fictions projected onto their skins.  

Batty Bwoy attacks and embraces sedimented narratives around the fear of the queer body as a perverse and deviant figure. The expression "Batty Bwoy" is used to evoke an ambivalent creature that exists in the threshold of the precarious body, liberated power, joy and batty energy. The work has found inspiration in mythologies, disgusting stereotypes, feelings and fantasies of the queer body and identities, homophobic dancehall lyrics, 70s Giallo films from Italy, resilient “gully queens” and queer voices in Norway and Jamaica that have visited and taken part of the process.

A Strange Wedding is a mysterious agglomeration of polychromatic influences. Bringing together tempos and sonorities from different horizons into a single cosmic and ritual music, it is constantly rewriting a magician's grimoire containing a multitude of spells that open up as many breaches in space-time.

Whether they consist of shimmering soundscapes or are stretched out constellations of inner worlds, A Strange Wedding ventures into the liminal fringes of his fetish musical forms from experimental leftfield dub to intimate deep-techno.

Rebekka Jamila, better known as DJ Rakita, is an artist whose sound defies labels. Her style blends HARDtrance x EMOcore & SOFTcore x HARDstyle. Expect a high-energy, emotionally charged sound with captivating vocals and hard-hitting bass music.

Her sets are heavily influenced by her experiences with depression and are crafted to reflect her personal journey towards finding moments of lightheartedness. When you attend one of DJ Rakita‘s sets, be prepared for a euphoric surprise. She will take you on a dream trip that you won‘t forget about anytime soon.

In the Live Set of Basel-based producer and DJ Endobliss, elements of breakcore, ambient and experimental club music intertwine to form an opaque pop dramaturgy. The name "Endobliss" describes the isolation that can accompany euphoria. It is about the ambivalent feeling of loneliness that resonates with cathartic experiences of happiness when their cause cannot be put into words or externalised. 

The foundation of the musical transformation of this feeling is materialising throughout intuitive archiving of samples according to subjective categories, references to formulaic pop, but also the spontaneity and vulnerability of live performance.

Open/Closed is a performance guiding the visitor through an intimate research, exposing the body inside-out and outside-in. To the sound of organic textures, composed by Simone Aubert, Pierre’s vulnerable and multi-layered dances are releasing a powerful sensitivity. Within a complex sensorial space combining perfume, light (imagined by Marek Lamprecht), wind and sound, the boundaries of the self fade away as an invitation to become Open/Closed to our surroundings.

Performance: Pierre Piton
Music: Simone Aubert
Light Design: Marek Lamprecht
Production Management: Maxine Devaud
Costumes: Marie Bajenova
Dramaturgy: Romane Peytavin
External Eye: Lucia Gugerli
Dramaturgical support: Jessica Huber

"Fè bri" means make noise in Creole. As the name suggests, things get loud with the DJ from Zurich. Loud in all senses, because from a city that has been characterised for years by the need for autonomy, resistance and originality also prevail in the music. 

FÈ BRI combines punky rebellious music with minimalist percussion and cheesy chansons in various languages. The young artist is always up for a surprise. The beautiful things of two cultures are brought into symbiosis by mixing them.

Herlander, with roots in Seixal, Portugal, brings forth the influences of his neighborhood and the city of Lisbon, which uniquely manifest in his music. His musical journey is one of self-discovery and artistic evolution, reflecting the artist's personal growth over the years. Moreover, his ability to create an experimental sound that transcends labels and musical genres has been a distinctive feature of his work. His music is a celebration of diversity and artistic freedom, challenging the conventional norms of the music industry.

Herlander is also known for his passionate delivery on stage, providing memorable performances that captivate the audience and create a deep connection between the artist and his spectators. This emotional connection is a fundamental part of the musical experience he offers. Now, Herlander is about to complete a new project after finishing what he describes as a trilogy in 2021 and 2022. This new project is announced as his "highlight project," marked by honesty and transparency. With a rich background of experiences and a unique artistic vision, Herlander is destined to continue surprising and inspiring the audience with his innovative and authentic music."

Hirsute is a band that believes that cheap is beautiful as long as it’s fun and loud. 

Product of falsely precarious youth and cosmonauts in their spare time, the Hirsute crew have found some gear that can make a loud noise and, why not, get lost souls who love dark spaces, delay and glitter dancing.

rowm nr. three is part of a series of dances in which Sophie Germanier connects with the worm inside her. She listens, she takes in, the spine digests, a movement happens, a lot of movement happens, stop. still… listens and digests again. rowm nr. three explores ways of listening and reading a space, how such processes find form in a dance and how the dance can give something back to the space`s visible and invisible layers. In other words: The dance is actually a song that sings to things that are here and to things that are not.

Sophie Germanier's work explores strategies of how to deconstruct the concept of the autonomous human individual. Therefore she creates sensorial narratives that offer alternative perspectives on the human and on how it relates to things around it.

Costume: Dustin Kenel
Dramaturgical Support: Lan Perces
Sound: Andrea Des

"rotten flowers, shiny shoes" is a new musical performance by the Swiss-Colombian duo SOLAND ANGEL which deals with concepts around free improvisation, classical and contemporary music, installative concert settings and graphic scores. For their musical performance at Backslash festival 2023 they explore different forms of indirect communication using tools like mirrors — all set around an arrangement of electro-accoustic instruments and flowers.

SOLAND ANGEL is a duo consisting of Marianna Angel and Yanik Soland. Angel is a pianist and improviser using various keyboards and voice. Yanik Soland is a musician and artist with a focus on self constructed instruments, electric bass and electronics. Their collaboration began in 2019 at a concert in Rotterdam, where initial improvisational approaches were explored. Since then they played concerts in the context of exhibitions, performances and clubs. The duo‘s musical interests are the intersections of free improvisation with open compositional concepts based on self-developed notational forms.

Prepare to embark on a sonic odyssey with Infoline Live, where Audino and DJ Web converge in a live set that pays homage to the raw, untamed spirit of 80s proto music production.

Broken field recordings, naked sound, cut into pieces and clipped to squares, embrace sliced noise, together they lie in a bed of nails that stab them in the back like the transients of what is yet to come. Will you lie down with them? They cover themselves with dust of digital ash, hiding and waiting to be pushed aside by the up and down beats of a future music, music composed for dark spaces and sweating bodies, but at the same time resisting the expectations of today, resistant like sand in the wheels of a patriarchal and colonial environment. This is what queer music of the day after tomorrow sounds like — tomorrow we will rest.

Lua Jungck lives in Zurich during the day and in her underground bunker studio at night. her solo performances are the continuation of what started as goodnight playground — daily sessions with Ableton Live before going to sleep where she mangels and messes around with recorded sound, samples, beats, breaks and dark thoughts about naked bodies dancing.

Nuevo Prohibido, a Mexican-Swiss artist, is deeply immersed in the electronic music scene in Berlin and Zurich. Their unique style blends nostalgia for the 90s and 00s rave scene with influences from genres like Guaracha, Tribal, Raptor House, Jungle, Breaks, and UK Bass. They're known for curating Metarave, focusing on electronic Latinx music to support diversity within the community. Additionally, Nuevo Prohibido is set to debut a hybrid live set at Backlslash Festival, representing two years of research and experimentation in club-oriented music, creating a diverse and textured sound that's both unusual and familiar to their audience.

sch_tsch is a project of Zurich-based Polish multidisciplinary artist and musician Magdalena Szczesna. Using synthesizers and analog machines, she shapes obscure soundscapes on the fringes of post-industrial, body music and noise. She's been active in Swiss underground as a DJ, live act, organizing parties and releasing music as a part of Kashev Tapes collective and currently running her own dark electronics event series SCHOEN.

She released her tracks on labels such Crave Tapes, Sons Of Traders, Oramics, Tales Of Psychofonia and more, ranging from experimental dark electronics to heavy dancefloor-oriented EBM. Her live sets oscillate in between industrial, noise and body music, mixing raw machine sounds, brutal basslines and analog synthesizers with her obscured vocals, combining intensity of a noise show with relentless energy of 80s industrial on stage.

Open-circuit video-installation. An accessible feedback of light, giving the involved devices the freedom to reveal their beings whilst possibly being disrupted, played on or performed by creatures.

IN H-MOLL is part of a series of short modular performances that can be combined with each other. Other parts of the series were "Sebastian" at the Helmhaus Zurich and Palp Festival, "Becoming" at the Fotomuseum Winterthur and Centre Culturel Suisse, "Skulpturengruppen" at the Secession Vienna, "When it rains" at the Kunsthalle FriArt, "Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis (BWV 21)" at the Shedhalle Zurich, "Can't take my eyes off" you ETH / GTA Zurich, "Cry" at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld.

Nils Amadeus Lange works as an artist, performer and lecturer in Zurich. After studying theatre at the Bern University of the Arts he has expanded his practice to various media, while still keeping a focus on dance and performance, and developing numerous international projects. At the centre of his practice is the body, which functions as a means of deconstructing social conventions and gender stereotypes.

Deriving from Youtube Tabloidism, NO BIGGIE DEAL deviates the hyper-masculinity of rapper The Notorious B.I.G.. Adding and twisting on the narrative of his lifestyle, this work poses the question "was Biggie Bisexual?". With the radio and leaning on the car seat, this ride will guide you through cities, boredom, lack of space in an unusual car make out session.

– How you livin Biggie Smalls?
– Imma tell you. Let me open the door for you, jump in and let's drive around while I drop my secrets.

Marga Alfeirão uses dance to carve spaces for the exploration of intimacy and sexuality. Heavily influenced by dance genres and sound textures from the African diaspora disseminated through Lisbon’s social tissue, she attempts an active claim of womanhood, making room for lesbian sensualities.

NTI-MA is a multi dimensional and sensorial experimentation in dance, movement, sound, music, sculpture and storytelling blurring and blending the boundaries between music, theater, and visual art. The project emerges as an exploration of the dynamics between noise as a non representational aspect of nature, the immaterial legacies embedded in music, the shifting hierarchies of the senses, spaces for non human intersubjectivity and the use of symbolism as vessels that the invisible can occupy.

Music and dance are used as codified science, decoding and recoding ancestral musical traditions and spiritual technologies for a contemporary music experience. While tuning into the living archives of various interconnected indigenous spiritualities and cosmic nature through synesthesia and elements of ritual and ceremony. Most mystical traditions emphasize the importance of connecting with the invisible realms in order to heal and transform oneself and society through communal participation and the blurring of boundaries between performer and audience.

Through performativity we will be sensing these spiritual technologies embedded in the music and question how to keep them alive. The Ancient Kongo traditions are characterized by a belief in the interconnectedness of all things and the importance of community and collective well-being, these have been important notions in the development of contemporary Pan-Africanism (Ubuntu, Kimuntu).

Movement direction/Dance/Performance: Jazmon Voss
Sound/Performance: Nkisi