Meet the Participants of Red Bull Music Academy’s 20th Anniversary Edition

In September 2018, the world-traveling Red Bull Music Academy returns to the city where it all began in celebration of its 20th anniversary. A total of 61 music-makers selected from across the globe will converge on the German capital for five weeks of lectures, studio sessions and one-of-a-kind music events. This year’s edition will take place at the Funkhaus, a historic recording studio complex in East Berlin and one of the largest in the world.

Every year, the Academy receives thousands of applications from artists hailing from around the world. A jury carefully reads – and listens – through each and every submission, resulting in a class that reflects the diverse styles, methodologies and cultural backgrounds of the applicant pool. This year, artists representing 37 different nationalities, including Kenya, South Korea, Mexico, Canada, the Philippines, Russia, New Zealand, Spain, Turkey and Brazil, have been invited to attend the Red Bull Music Academy in Berlin, which takes place from September 8 to October 12.

Among the many sounds and styles championed by the incoming class of 2018 are evocative electronica from Japan; IDM from Iran’s underground club scene; new-school UK jazz; Afro-future dance music from South Africa; experimental hip-hop from Germany; Nigerian neo-soul; Georgian drone; industrial techno from Poland; post-punk from the US, and much, much more.

Every Academy is a world of its own, offering new insights and perspectives on sound. During their time in Berlin, the participants will attend lectures and workshops with some of music’s brightest lights and work on music together in a custom-built, state-of-the-art recording environment. Concurrently, Red Bull Music will present a month-long festival of public concerts and club nights across the city. It all makes for a place where influential musicians meet a new generation, in a setting where both sides can learn from each other and celebrate music’s past, present and future.

Akemi Fujimori // Akiko Haruna // Akkor // Anna Vs June // Anxo Ferreira // ArtSaves // Astro Children // Atariame // bear // Benjamin Sallum // BRUX // Camille Mandoki // Carga Aérea // Caroline Lethô // chawood // CHINO // Cornelius SA // Dj Heroin // FAKETHIAS // IARAHEI // Impey // indi // J Colleran // Jacob Stoy // Jakinda // Jakob Herber // Jeannel // Katarzia // L CON // Lindsey Abudei // Loradeniz // lullahush // Maqueta // Mess_Montage // metabora // Milan W. // Mira Aasma // MORPSIS // Mulherin // nami sato (JPN) // NewRa // Nick León // OG LULLABIES // Perel // Quinn Oulton // ramsha // robogeisha // Sasha Vinogradova // Sequoyah // Shelly // Sichangi // similarobjects // Sneaks // Solid Blake // Soul Of Hex // Svetla V // vōx // VTSS // Wasted Fates // Yakamoto Kotzuga // Ylia

French songwriter Akemi Fujimori spent years gaining formal training in classical music academies as a singer and pianist, and more recently she’s branched out to the world of nightclubs and cover bands. Making her living as a live performer and studio musician, she spent much of 2017 hitting the road as a member of the backing bands for innovative pop acts La Féline, Corine and Broken Back. She’s also been busy producing, singing and playing guitar, synths and drums for electronic duo dismaze, alongside fellow musician Léa Moreau. Their 2016 debut single, “Plastic Snakes,” shows their love for both formal technique and cosmic reinvention, with the crisp electronic beats and pulsing chords offering a backbone for crystalline, multi-tracked vocal harmonies. Other tracks go even further, incorporating elements of sound design and the influence of artists from the Knife to Arvo Pärt.

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From the refined piano of Chilly Gonzales to the elegance of modern dance icon Pina Bausch and the precisely engineered music of producer Alva Noto, there is a certain delicacy connecting the influences of Brighton-based artist Akiko Haruna. Trained as a pianist, violinist, flautist and dancer, she is fluent in the rules of music and composition, which she now breaks with her experimental noise output. Akiko’s current project comes after two years as a professional dancer, during which she appeared in music videos for artists including AlunaGeorge and John Newman. Now a full-time music student, Akiko flexes her myriad abilities in her own work, including the 2017 video for “i, omega,” a surreal black-and-white pastiche in which she dances, stretches and smiles eerily at the camera over the glitches and fuzz of her far-out soundscape.

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The best performances enhance an artist’s music, adding a dimension which they can only hint at on a record. Istanbul-based producer Üstün Lütfi Yildirim, AKA Akkor, tailors his compositions for his captivating live shows. An MD who also works as a freelance composer for short films and sound installations, Yildirim’s music is, fittingly, cinematic and expansive. For the best sense of how his music works in a live setting, watch the 2017 video of his performance for Istanbul Bilgi University’s “Sound Picnic” series. Here, Yildirim and his collaborators perform behind a geodesic half-dome lit by projections of immersive film clips and entrancing, psychedelic lights. Throughout, you can hear and see the intricacy of Yildirim’s dark, almost orchestral electroacoustic suites.

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Anna Papaioannou has a knack for bridging together seemingly different things. Musically, she combines Greek folk and techno music with both digital and analog tools. She has extensive musical knowledge, having studied composition in Edinburgh and piano at a conservatory in Athens, and her professional background is in music and sound design for theater and film. As Anna Vs June, Papaioannou’s experimental instrumentation and soft yet steady vocals provide a sonic journey into the extreme boundaries of pop. Not one to shy away from layers and complex textures in her sound, it is the simple things from which Anna draws inspiration, such as travel and her friends. She was drawn to music as a simple escape and in her sound she comes full circle to recreate that same safe space.

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There is no rule against working in vastly different genres, but if there were, Madrid-based producer and instrumentalist Anxo Ferreira would gladly break it. His 2016 EP Mästra, produced as Nistra together with Adrián Canoura, is a brilliant work of ambient techno, finding the middle ground between open, thought-provoking soundscapes and dance-inducing beats. Over six tracks, he pulls sounds from virtually everywhere, tempering tropical rhythms with ominous synths and punishing percussion while maintaining an undeniable cohesiveness. Additionally, Anxo plays with Galician pop-rock band Novedades Carminha and works on his own solo projects. With such a chameleonic sound palette and penchant for experimentation, there’s no divining what he’ll release next.

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Born and raised in Tehran, where nightclubs are prohibited by law and the streets are often plunged into silence after midnight, Iranian producer ArtSaves made his initial musical marks behind closed doors, DJing at intimate house parties in the city. Speaking to his experience, his sound in many ways embodies the dark curiosity that draws one out at night in search of that which is lost. With pulsing rhythms and a slow build of delicate yet ominous sounds, ArtSaves takes the listener on a sonic night ride to the unknown. Currently residing in Canada, he released his album, Seuil, in 2016 through Kopi.

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The frontwoman for Dunedin-based duo Astro Children, New Zealand’s Millicent Lovelock commands your attention, whether she’s playing aggressive chords on her Fender Telecaster or singing with a delivery that oscillates between angst-ridden and blasé. On songs like “Boys Encourage Female Rivalry” and “Play It As It Lays,” Astro Children carves out a space between alternative and shoegaze, their fuzzy, distorted melodies the perfect complement to Lovelock’s incisive feminist lyrics. A devoted reader who plans to pursue a Ph.D. in English Literature, Lovelock also records as Repulsive Woman (an affectionate nod to one of her literary idols, Djuna Barnes). For that project, in addition to earnest, poignantly rendered guitar covers of One Direction songs, she composes original material on guitar and cello.

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As Atariame, Natalia Salmina draws emotional intensity out of a fog of obscured electronics and introverted folk melodies. It’s music for times of solitude: Her 2017 album Fear is the World was written over a period of isolation during the St. Petersburg winter, but Salmina’s hermit-like approach to composing makes for the kind of compelling detail you can get lost in, whether the backdrop is the distorted static of “Always the Youngest” or the guitar-based “Fluffy Paws,” where the echoes of the John Maus songs that she loved as a teenager are most evident. Salmina fell into music-making when, at the age of 12, she started strumming a guitar at a friend’s birthday party and got lost in her own world, despite not knowing how to play it; and that same careful exploration of her own headspace informs her work now.

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Heartbreak has prompted much of the greatest art ever made, and Adam Ovletrea knows why. “There’s a purity in loss,” says the 23-year-old producer from Florida, “It’s fueled me at my lowest moments.” Ever since his uncle sat him down at age 13 and taught him how to use Pro Tools, Ovletrea has turned to music in those “low moments,” amassing a catalogue of indie music that’s cracked with sorrow, lit by hope and smoothed over with a lo-fi film. As bear, he released Breadcrumbs and Cruise Control, both proudly emo in a lasers-and-lightshows part of the United States. A touch Drake and with a dash of ’80s new wave, Ovletrea’s songs are sweet, lovesick and danceable, with gently harmonized pleas atop plucky acoustic guitar riffs made silky with synths. They stick out, but in the best possible way.

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You could say that Benjamim Sallum has joined the family business. The São Paulo-based DJ/producer was first exposed to the city’s vibrant electronic underground through his mother, a longstanding event producer. Sallum’s dad gave him a guitar when he was three, and he started making his own music less than a decade later. He now plays festivals and parties throughout Brazil, making acid and techno that’s been released by Mexico’s Quiero Recordings, and has founded his own label, Oxi, specialized in lo-fi tapes. Additionally, he crafts house, ambient and techno with My Girlfriend, a duo featuring 2014 RBMA Tokyo alum Pedro Zopelar. In 2017, My Girlfriend played the RBMA Festival in São Paulo, opening for Theo Parrish, who Sallum – in job training since birth – first heard as a baby.

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Sydney’s Elizabeth Maniscalco, who records under the name BRUX, creates anxious, thumping beats and pitch-shifted vocals that pay tribute to one of her self-professed greatest inspirations, the Knife. BRUX represents a change in direction for Elizabeth, from the infectious synth tracks she used to produce as Elizabeth Rose, to something altogether heavier and darker. Recently, she collaborated with LA producer Madeaux on “The Wave” on Fool’s Gold Records, showing just how she throws down those sorcerous tones in a club context.

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In Camille Mandoki’s strange, uncategorizable compositions, the Mexican singer and sound artist explores the wildest shores of catharsis. Her palette ranges from stumbling, decaying fairground music to menacing flurries of percussion; on her 2016 debut album, We Used to Talk for Hours, Mandoki used her voice as an instrument of choral beauty, but over the next two years began to bend it into warped shapes on cuts like “Priscilla Drums” and “Failure (Sound of an Animal)”. Confrontational in both modes, Mandoki’s drive to push the outer limits of her vocals can be reminiscent of Diamanda Galás and Lydia Lunch, though as a performer – both by herself and with an all-female group she calls a “sound and body confession room” – her work is entirely unique.

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Francisco Marujo’s last name means “sailor,” and the Lisbon producer describes his search for the missing pieces of his musical map as getting “lost in a sea of sound.” It’s a description that suits his William Basinski-inspired ambient synthscapes to a tee. Under the name Carga Aérea, Marujo creates shimmering washes of sound – sometimes warmly nostalgic, at others with a keen sense of drama. And he’s not afraid to push further outwards: His second EP, released at the end of 2017, was Ocorrência Em Aberto, a cinematic 32-minute composition inspired by the forest fires that had raged around the Portuguese countryside that year. It’s a testament to Marujo’s ability to tie the abstract nature of ambient music to real-life topics and locations.

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The daughter of a dedicated saxophone player, Caroline Lethô has emerged as one of the most exciting DJs and producers in Lisbon. Educated at a music academy (and having learned the bass in a jazz-focused program), Lethô eventually gravitated toward electronic music, where she deployed her thorough knowledge of music theory and form in service of something that sounds unlike anything you’d hear in a classroom, something that breaks all of those formal rules. Her music has a slick, intuitive bounce: Jagged, experimental passages resolve into irresistible beats. She finds her own rhythm in the midst of chaos.

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“Dystopian” and “dark vibe” are some of the terms Hyuna Cha, AKA chawood, uses to describe her mechanized, emotionally complex electronic music. Hailing from South Korea, she makes beats alone in her bedroom, wrangling with the problems of the world and expressing her own loneliness and conflicted emotions through murky soundscapes, pressurized dub bass and surrealist synth patterns. After years of taking private lessons online and refining her skills as a bedroom-dweller, she’s honed a unique sound that draws as much from ambient music as it does from soulful innovators like Frank Ocean, embracing atmosphere and texture while exuding strong sentiments and emotional release.


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The Polish producer CHINO describes his music as “sometimes oppressive, sometimes dystopian, but always with a bit of hope.” Artur Oles, as he’s known outside the club, considers his music as CHINO part of the emerging genre “wave,” employing icy synths and pounding kicks in a raw-edged take on techno. Regardless of his genre, Oles’ productions are as tastefully crafted as a nice sans serif – which makes sense, because when he’s not making music, Oles designs sleek posters for festivals and shows. This is music made to be blasted in a chilly warehouse filled with ravers – his beats are minimal and industrial. But, as he says, even on his steeliest tracks a little warmth shines through.

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Cornelius Mashilane, the self-taught DJ and producer popularly known as Cornelius SA, has emerged as one of South Africa’s most talented electronic musicians. With an abiding keenness for hypnotic house, Kenny Dope signed him and released his single “Heaven” in 2016. His subsequent records “Keep Your Mouth Shut” and “Boogie Woogie” are submerged in deep house vibes spiked with soul, Afro-house and just a twinge of techno. Like his emotive and in-demand DJ sets, they’re dark, delicious and deeply satisfying.

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Though DJ and producer Philip Mueller AKA Dj Heroin was born and raised in Rösrath, Germany, his music eschews any geographical label. He draws inspiration from sources as disparate as misty evenings, Chicago drill beats and Autechre. With staticky punches and ominous melodies, Mueller layers unexpected sounds over rhythmic percussion, showing exactly how he brings his different influences together. After a brief stint with the piano in his youth, Philip taught himself everything else through trial and error. It paid off: He’s since played several shows across Europe and in 2016 and 2017 self-released two EP’s, Enemy Territory and Sanguine, respectively.

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Oslo artist FAKETHIAS produces intense and disjointed electronic music, melding industrial textures with punchy basslines, contemplative melodies and stuttering rhythms. He has produced tracks for rap group Sushi x Kobe since 2015, and put out his first release as a solo artist the following year. The first single, “Left,” and subsequent EP, esc, both on Norwegian label Tellé, led to a busy DJ schedule both at home and abroad. His latest EP, Attune, is due out in May 2018 on Ball ’Em Up, the Oslo label and club night co-founded by RBMA alum Drippin. A night owl and lucid dreamer who says he is frequently lost in fantasy, FAKETHIAS’s sounds seem designed for the gray areas of dawn, making for a disquieting dancefloor reverie.

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Iara Espinoza Dos Santos is a student of tarot and astrology, a mystically-leaning education that the Chilean artist channels into her transportive, often darkly dreamy music. But the Santiago-based producer, vocalist and DJ studies the pop realm, too. She melds influences including Daft Punk, Panda Bear, M.I.A. and A Tribe Called Quest into smart and spunky dancefloor tracks, which have seen her supporting Chilean trap princess Princesa Alba and touring South America in support of Chilean indie pop duo Dënver. The full-time musician and DJ has recently added another string to her bow, with her work in the nostalgic synth-pop band Sri Lanka 100.

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Music has always been a family affair for Tommy Impey: Growing up in a small UK burg, his parents made their home a haven of ’80s jazz funk. No surprise, then, when Impey became a rising producer and DJ at the age of 18, after issuing his debut vinyl release, 2014’s Bangclap/4titude. This year he’s launched his own label, Ghost Notes, and hosts a show on NTS Radio of the same name, where he plays sounds that he describes as “post-twilight.” Versatility has been a hallmark of Impey’s production: His more recent work finds him blasting off into the ether with dazzling synths (as on “Midnight in Little Havana”) or crafting taut and clear-eyed industrial grime. Despite the vastly different sounds he produces, however, they all ultimately fall under one heading – blockbuster.

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Between 2013 and 2016, Indira Force was half of Doprah, a neo-trip-hop duo who opened for Lorde and whose debut album, 2016’s Wasting, received international attention. When the band split, Force – who also composes film soundtracks, dance scores and even music for political campaigns – stepped out on her own to become indi. Despite her trepidation at embarking on a project by herself, her first solo album, 2017’s Precipice, was a triumph, performed with saxophonists, trombonists and a violin septet to bring Force’s lush, baroque vision to life. Inspired by the natural world and the dreaming state, there are echoes of Björk and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith in Force’s music, whether stately and ornate – such as on “Airportal” – or tactile, like the gently drifting “Demeter.”

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Born and raised in Kildare, Ireland, J Colleran has a background in classical piano, and his dreamlike soundscapes incorporate both electronic and orchestral elements. Already an accomplished artist and performer, he has shared a stage with Aphex Twin, composed music for Simone Rocha’s SS17 show, and toured the US and Europe. J Colleran’s new record Gardenia will be released on Because Music in 2018 as a body of eight compositions – further exploring the fluidity between the organic and the inorganic in sound.

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Born in a small industrial city in eastern Germany, Jacob Stoy first got into music when he was eight years old, working with his father to build loops using Mixman computer software. As a teenager, he gravitated towards playing guitar in jazz bands. Now, he’s part of a handful of promising projects that stand at the cross-section of dance music and the art world. Whether making his own beats or collaborating with the synth-pop band Room Service and the experimental duo Inkasso, Stoy has a knack for pumping grooves full of odd, gritty textures. He’s released a handful of 12"s on the labels Uncanny Valley, Abstract Animal and Eyes of My Eyes since 2012, and in 2017 he was busy doing DJing at clubs, festivals and radio shows, as well as solo live performances that occasionally saw him accompanied by dancers.

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Producer and DJ Jakinda Boya describes his style as “afro-future electronica,” pitched at the meeting point of some of South Africa’s most vital dance scenes: gqom, kwaito and hip-hop. As half of the Stiff Pap duo with rapper Ayema Problem, he told the story of an Umlazi teenager’s first illicit after-dark experiences on their 2017 debut EP, Based on a Qho Story. From the bass-heavy banger “Dlala” to the frenetic “Live From Eloxion” to the airy, blissful “Stiff Pap Forever,” its range is remarkable for a producer who had only begun his musical education two years prior, mostly self-taught from YouTube tutorials. This Kanye West and Culoe de Song fan, who once harbored ambitions to become a pro surfer, is situated at the heart of one of the most exciting scenes of the 2010s.

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Jakob Herber has an incredible range, encompassed by his work under his own name, the tracks he produces as i don’t tell fairy tales and as the drummer in the band FLUT. With these diverse projects, Herber records twanging, intimate singer-songwriter tunes; lush, ambient soundtrack scores; synth-rock that sounds like something blaring from an ’80s radio; and many more styles to boot. Able to switch between drums, guitar, bass and keys, Herber is a musical omnivore, who lists albums by artists as diverse as Drake and Daniel Johnston as his favorites.

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If there’s one thing Jeanne Kaiser can’t live without, it’s love: “The human soul and the whole universe is made to give and receive love,” she says. As a singer, producer and classically-trained cellist who performs under the name Jeannel, she makes this powerful feeling clear with her dreamy, R&B-oriented pop: Her 2016 single “Mind Tricks” begins as an acoustic guitar strummer only to blossom into a wide-screen dreamscape of electronic beats and swirling synths. Usually backed by a full band, she’s also experimented with stripped-down stage setups involving cello and a friend playing guitar and doing back-up vocals. Whether she’s performing or in the studio, though, she always connects to her audience with a strong sense of compassion.

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The Prague-based Slovakian artist Katarina Kubosiova began making music in her early 20s, because writing lyrics and songs felt like the only way she could fully express herself. As it turns out, her talent exceeded her expectations, taking her from confessional bedroom writing sessions to festival main stages throughout Slovakia and the Czech Republic, as well as to the hallowed halls of the Slovak National Theater, where she has recently worked on an adaptation of Sophocles’ Antigone. Performing as Katarzia, Kubosiova’s music oscillates between toughness and delicacy as her voice floats above both fractal beats and sumptuous analog soundscapes. She and her band toured extensively behind her sophomore album Agnostika, playing the Czech Republic’s Colours of Ostrava in 2017. The biggest music festival in Central Europe, it takes place not far from where Kubosiova grew up, but is nevertheless a long way from her bedroom.

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About two hours north of Toronto, there’s a studio nestled in the woods where you can go to write and record, free from distraction. It’s co-owned by Lisa Conway, a writer, musician and composer who makes kinetic avant-pop music under the name L CON. Conway, who holds both Canadian and Swiss citizenship, has composed music for performance artists, filmmakers and dancers, but it’s her solo work that expresses a vital, singular worldview and establishes her as a compelling artist to watch. Conway will layer seemingly disparate component parts – a violin, sinewy drum programming – highlighting the rhythmic or emotional threads that connect the whole. She also has the vocal chops to carry raw, minimal piano ballads; her work is engrossing, the kind of music that dims all the outside world’s white noise.

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As a baby in Jos, Nigeria, Lindsey Abudei was lulled to sleep by music on the radio. It was no surprise then, when she learned to sing by ear. Her parents poured their diverse musical tastes – Roberta Flack and the Beach Boys, Stevie Wonder and Sarah McLachlan – into their daughter’s eager, outstretched ears, and Abudei eventually shaped the influences into her own sound, neo-soul flecked with acoustic guitar riffs. After performing as the lead singer for the Jazzcats, and featuring on albums by MI and Jesse Jagz, she released her debut EP, 2013’s Brown, which won her third place in Radio France Internationale’s Prix Decouvertes. In 2016, she dropped her debut album …And the Bass Is Queen, spreading her intoxicating blend of a pristine voice, delicate piano melodies and earthy basslines even further into the world, and just in time: Neo-soul needed a new voice.

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Loradeniz is a producer, classically educated pianist and vocalist who has been hailed as a rising indie talent in the Netherlands as well as Turkey. Inspired by traditional and folkloric music forms, and utilizing both electronic and acoustic elements, her sprawling, spacious arrangements are informed by her graduate and postgraduate studies in composition, production and sound design. Currently based in Amsterdam, and performing frequently in Istanbul, she describes her sound as a blend of contemporary classical, minimal and ambient. A certain pop and jazz sensibility shines through as well, as evidenced by the delicate harmonies and triumphant piano lines of 2017’s Mara EP, or the searing soul-imbued vocals of her recent song “Jello,” with lyrics that quote the writing of Charles Bukowski.

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As a young boy in Dublin, Daniel Coughlan was first inspired to make music by seeing the band Focus perform “Sylvia” on the television show The Old Grey Whistle Test. He has since built up his musical experience from “the streets” and from the age of 13 has played in a number of bands simultaneously. These currently include Search Party Animal, self-described as “five best friends having a bop to electro guitar pop bangers;” and indie electronic outfit Æ MAK, whose recent single, “Glow,” he co-wrote and produced. His production style weaves dream-pop vocals and pithy television sound bites into moongaze trip-hop. The lush instrumentation tells a story all its own, in the chords and downtempo basslines, yet Daniel’s ability to align the vocal sampling into a common emotive thread creates a soulfully ambient vibe.

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Ariel Schlichter is an Argentinian artist who most often releases music under the name Maqueta. When he’s not producing local Buenos Aires bands in his home studio, Schlichter makes his own woozy, seductive electro-pop. His songs feature hints of tropicalia and ’80s synth-pop, all overlaid with plenty of reverb; his passionate vocals lend these slick productions melodrama and expansiveness. Just when you think you’ve figured Schlichter out, he throws a curveball, like at the end of his 2017 track “Mientras Miro el Cristal,” which transforms from a standard pop song into something much stranger. The song downshifts into slow motion, Schlichter’s vocals and drums dragging into a strange and ominous timbre, like the seconds before a car crash. Schlichter’s music is easy to enjoy, but with these experimental twists, it’ll always keep you on your toes.

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Tornike Margvelashvili, also known as Mess_Montage, produces melancholic ambient sounds with such a slow build that they engulf you before you even realize it. A self-proclaimed outsider to the mainstream musical universe, inspired by Georgian folk chant harmonies as well as the abstract and expressionist movements in art and film, Tornike has found his niche in layered electronic instrumentals best absorbed sitting or even lying down. At Tbilisi State Conservatoire, where he now teaches sound synthesis, he was one of the first students to attend from a non-classical background, and his studies have also taken him to the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, Denmark. He released his debut album, The Death of Optimus Prime, on Shimmering Moods Records in 2017, on which the shortest track is pushing six minutes. In Tornike’s world, the best things are enjoyed nice and slow.

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When he was a child, Nathan Tulve was invited to the home of iconic Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, who was writing a piece of music for the choir conducted by Tulve’s father. Pärt played his composition on the piano for Tulve and his brother, whose young minds were blown by the stirring minimalism. Years later, Tulve had a similarly profound moment of sonic bliss when stumbling upon a track by Amnesia Scanner. This appreciation for disparate types of music and music-making has carried over to his own work, which Tulve produces as metabora. Incorporating elements of classical, metal, experimental electronic and more, he assembles spatial digital elements into soundscapes that breathe like organic matter. He’s also co-produced Tallinn’s Club Felicity party series, collaborated with vocal ensemble Vox Clamantis and recently wrote an eight-minute track to soundtrack a dance performance. Regardless of the format, Tulve’s goal of blowing minds with music remains the same.

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Milan W. makes music in the tradition of artists like Autechre and Aphex Twin, skirting the edges of dance music while never allowing his listeners to get totally comfortable. Milan W.’s work veers often towards ambient – most of his 2016 release Intact would be perfectly lovely to fall asleep to. His productions are woven through with trills of dissonance, and the soft beats sometimes do make you want to move. His tunes sound like staring up at a brilliantly star-filled sky or walking through a misty city at night. They’re tranquil, but always with an edge of the unknown.

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Mira Aasma has been collecting accolades for her polished electro pop since releasing her first songs on Stockholm’s Birds Records in 2015. A self-taught producer, her music-making has evolved organically, drawing inspiration from her childhood near the forest in Gothenburg as well as from the music of artists such as James Blake, Highasakite and Björk. Her debut self-titled album, released in 2017 on Birds Records, juxtaposes self-assured vocals against guitar, synths, insistent basslines and washes of reverb, to anthemic effect. A self-professed nerd, Mira’s just as happy composing game soundtracks or working in a music store, as she is soldering synths or arranging songs for a four-piece choir.

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Ikagarjyot Singh had been making music under several monikers prior to MORPSIS. Hailing from Punjab state in India, Singh entered the world of music production through internet tutorials and learning from fellow artists. Through his solo guitar project, Infinite Jar Space, he released three EPs in 2017 and also performs as part of the group Astral Doormen. As MORPSIS, he draws inspiration from musique concrète and field recordings to create an ambient soundscape, subtle enough in its layering to never feel too far from reality.

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In 2017, Parker Mulherin spent 11 days driving from his native Memphis to Los Angeles, staying in roadside motels as he left the south for southern California. He stopped in New Mexico, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, exploring the country as one era of his life faded into the next with the same fluidity that his influences – Drake, the Beatles, James Blake – melt together to form Mulherin’s R&B output. Along for the roadtrip was Parker’s twin brother Marshall, a 2015 RBMA alumnus and the other half of their duo, Mulherin. Parker first played music in the high school drum corps, then started making beats while attending Loyola University in New Orleans. He and his brother were noticed with the 2015 release of “Daily,” a demonstration of Mulherin’s spare arrangements and parallel vocals. Now settled in LA, Parker continues making music that bridges his Memphis influences and modernist, millennial approach.

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In 2011, Nami Sato’s seaside hometown of Sendai was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami. Ever since then, Sato has made music in an attempt to create “scenery, fragrance and a special holy place in [her] mind.” When not working as a composer for television and short films, she contributes to local art projects in an effort to console anyone affected by the earthquake and works on independent albums like 2013’s ARAHAMA callings. Drawing equal inspiration from her surroundings and ambient music pioneers like Brian Eno, Sato’s atmospheric suites inspire both calmness and wonder. With gorgeous layerings of synth, piano, guitar, field recordings and more, her songs recreate our world as much as they reimagine it.

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NewRa calls her music “an ode to bass and space,” but it’s less concerned with paying homage to those concepts and more interested in wrestling with them, fighting to gain new ground. While the Swiss-based producer and vocalist is perhaps best known as one-sixth of the deep house outfit Sirens of Lesbos, her solo venture unfolds much differently. NewRa plays with pace and texture in ways that make her music feel both warm and foreign, experimental but never academic. There are times she uses her voice as a song’s main melodic component; at other points, her vocals are merely mood lighting. As she strikes out on her own, NewRa is looking to grow as a producer and to hone her engineering skills, all in the service of fleshing out her already rich recordings.

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Nick León found his place in the world of hip-hop by collaborating with some of the biggest rappers in South Florida – think Denzel Curry and Robb Banks. But as a growing sense of restlessness gnawed at the self-taught producer, he felt compelled to make the jump to the beat scene. The risk paid off. In 2016, the Miami-based León released his lush debut album, Profecía, to rave reviews. Polished, yet humid as a hothouse and bursting with life thanks to the sampled chirps, clicks and hisses of the birds and insects that populate swampy Florida, the album branded León and his endlessly experimental beats as one of the most exciting producers to step onto the scene in years. With a film score, further production for other artists, DJ gigs galore and a label/collective he launched for other producers and bedroom musicians in Miami, Nick León’s hands are full, his heart happy and his beats teeming with (real) life.


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An autodidact on violin, piano, guitar and more, Washington D.C. native Taylor Brooke makes her living as a children’s music instructor. When she isn’t teaching, Brooke performs at local D.C. venues and records her solo work, often releasing her music under the moniker, OG LULLABIES. A spiritually-inclined amalgam of alternative R&B, experimental electronica, jazz and classical, Brooke’s music might be most succinctly described as futuristic neo-soul. Her 2016 EP Intuitive Music showcases the range of her talents, featuring everything from brilliant violin solos to trance-inducing harmonizing. “Water on Mars,” the bright yet downtempo lead single on her 2018 EP cruescontrol, refines her cosmic aesthetic.

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Arpeggiators play a central role in the dreamy electronic soundscapes of German DJ/producer Annegret Fiedler, AKA Perel. Synths pulse up and down over dreamy electronic pads and stripped-down, four-to-the-floor beats, building into subdued kaleidoscopes of color. Fiedler is influenced by punk trailblazers and synth-pop pioneers alike – from Nina Hagen and DAF to Depeche Mode and Kraftwerk – and she’s eager to test boundaries and try new things as she uses her music to wrangle with personal emotions and express an innate appreciation for nature and color. She’s been working as a solo artist since 2014, after playing in a live electronic act called Klub.Mono, and she signed to DFA Records in 2017, working hard in the time since on her debut full-length LP.

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While he’s not yet a household name, Quinn Oulton has already made history. In February of 2017, the jazz instrumentalist and singer performed aboard British Airways’ inaugural flight to New Orleans, setting the record for the highest ever live jazz gig. When the plane landed, it was Mardi Gras and Oulton was thrust into the jazz epicenter’s most famous party. The London-based musician calls it one of the most significant experiences of his life, and an extension of the training he’s been steeped in since picking up the sax at age eight. He has formally studied jazz since childhood, performing in a variety of bands, attending Grammy Camp 2013 in Los Angeles and focusing on jazz saxophone at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Oulton spent much of 2017 producing his self-titled debut solo album, and working with his five-piece band Quinn’s Cars, who perform Oulton’s sumptuous arrangements while dressed as mechanics.

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Inspired by Brian Eno and Pink Floyd, Ontario-based producer and multi-instrumentalist Ramsha Shakeel has spent her career crafting ambient songs that approximate the celestial. When not working as a graphic designer or creating illustrations, she uses guitar, piano, synths and all manner of effects to create music that inspires visions of bright constellations and otherworldly beams of light. On her EP’s Daastanemarg and Veils, she renders space’s boundless grandeur and freezing darkness equally, invoking distortion, swirling atmospherics, reverb and more. Unless you have Elon Musk on speed dial, music like Shakeel’s remains one of the best ways to imagine a trip to Mars.

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On 2017’s rofl EP, robogeisha makes bleeps, clanks and sundry shades of static sound like a voracious living entity, from the squelches and insectile skitters of the title track to the relentless wall of techno that is “But Drowning.” Esra Genç’s journey has taken her from violin lessons as a kid to long hours spent in clubs or sampling audio circuits built on breadboards. Besides music, she also creates installations that engage with society and public spaces; out of the roughest electronic detritus, robogeisha finds unexpected organic energy.

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Alexandra Vinogradova, who performs as Sasha Vinogradova, has a beautiful, versatile voice, a passion for performing live and a gift for writing indie-folk ballads rich with lush arrangements. Since her godfather first handed her a guitar when she was 16, she’s honed her craft by following her intuition, inventing words while she’s singing, taking influence from psychedelic bands like Can and working as a credentialed music therapist to help kids and adults heal from various ailments. Her 2017 album Аласкавль features the five-piece Sirius Orchestra, who fill out her tender compositions with cello, violin, ukulele, trumpet and more. For her next project, Vinogradova hopes to record an album using just the human voice, incorporating lyrics and extended vocal techniques to make an “abstract cloth” of sounds.

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Usually, when someone says that making music is part of their DNA, they’re speaking metaphorically. For Atlanta’s Sequoyah Murray, that metaphor is much closer to reality. The son of a percussionist and vocalist, Murray’s powerful and dynamic baritone is undoubtedly inborn as much as it is practiced. In addition to being a prodigious singer, Murray plays upright bass and produces much of his music. His 2015 debut, True Fun, was both ambitious and genre-bending, featuring experiments with rock, trip-hop, Afrobeat and jazz. Since True Fun, Sequoyah has toured with Atlanta-based electronic artist Pamela_ and her sons and released his sophomore album, 2017’s Dream Sequence. An assured, cohesive album firmly rooted in the realm of electronic pop, Dream Sequence finds Murray deftly incorporating Afrobeat rhythms and grinding guitar licks into boundary-pushing beats. As always, his voice remains the soul-stirring focal point.

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At 16 years old, Joan Cañellas Rodríguez found himself DJing at Sónar Festival in his native Barcelona. After that splashy appearance, though, the producer and instrumentalist put his head back down and began developing his own sound. While studying audiovisual engineering at university, he recorded a soundtrack as well as a handful of minimal, unreleased songs. When working as InnoDB, he tilts towards the drone and ambient end of the spectrum. As Shelly (formerly DJ iTunes10.2), his music is rooted in bass music, pulsing with must-move synth runs and finished with a cosmopolitan sheen, yet it also swirls and swishes with sweet, earthy samples – a pure-voiced recording of a children’s choir, perhaps, or the chanting of a tribal chief. It all makes for a heady blend that would keep you on the dance floor at Sónar – and beyond – until dawn.

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Samuel Namasaka has never been afraid to have a terrible idea. “That’s where I learn all my lessons,” says the producer, DJ and instrumentalist. “It gives me a clearer idea of what I want.” That’s never been an issue for Namasaka. Growing up in Nairobi, his mother made him play the piano. Though it was a difficult instrument, he fell in love with it and after two years of trudging, he finally began to fly, propelled by the “process of creation.” Since then, his passion has led to his working with the likes of Willow Smith and Tyler Cole, who were drawn to his slinky, soul-injected R&B. His soft-pedaled sound is more compelling the longer you listen – rich with instrumentation yet restrained, subtle yet funky, sweetly melodic yet full of sophisticated rhythms. And as evinced on his 2018 debut album, The Project Greatness, those “terrible ideas” are few and far between.

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An electronic music educator at De La Salle – College of Saint Benilde, Jorge Juan Wieneke opened his own music school, Cosmic Sonic Arts, in 2016. When the Filipino producer/DJ is not instructing the next generation of producers, he records and performs under several names, similarobjects chief among them (see also: percentius, den sy ty). No matter his moniker, Wieneke calls his music “neo-polystylism,” a term he believes encompasses his use of disparate sonic elements. His 2016 album Placed into Abyss, for instance, features both the thundering, dynamic percussion reminiscent of music from LA’s famed beat scene and forays into modern funk’s synth-heavy grooves. On the other hand, Wieneke’s 2017 project samadhi loops vol. 1 is a head-nodding lesson in the art of chopping loops from dust-covered jazz records.

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Tewadaj Eva Moolchan keeps her music spare, stripped back and tight – all the better to show off the irresistible hooks that swarm her no-nonsense post-punk vignettes. Under the name Sneaks, debut album Gymnastics set out the New Yorker’s droll, dreamy vocals over spasmodic rhythms and neat, efficient bass melodies. A year later, It’s a Myth refined her aesthetic with hypnotic mantras (“Look Like That”) and discomfiting nursery rhymes (“Not My Combination”). With a musical background indebted as much to Nelly Furtado as L7, interests in Atlanta’s Awful Records and exploring the sounds of her Ethiopian heritage, Moolchan is the natural meeting point of a plethora of disparate influences. It’s to her credit that this manifests itself in music so concise and confident.

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While Emma Blake moved from her native Glasgow to Copenhagen to earn her masters degree, the practical knowledge she picked up came more from the sweaty clubs than stuffy classrooms. A former producer at Glasgow’s influential Subcity Radio, Blake became a key member of Copenhagen’s underground Apeiron Crew, and now makes spare, pummeling techno and electro as Solid Blake. (The name is an homage to the character Solid Snake from the video game Metal Gear Solid.) In 2017, she released a flurry of music on labels Brokntoys, Herrensauna and Outer Zone while playing gigs and picking up fans around Europe. Blake is also a brown belt in karate, making her dancefloor weaponry both sonic and physical.

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Though he’s only in his mid-20s, Gerardo Cedillo has been intimately involved in dance music for over a decade. He got his start as one half of Kry-Lon, a duo that sat at the forefront of the “new rave” scene in his hometown of Tijuana, Mexico. In the years since, Cedillo has grown enormously as a producer, DJ and multi-instrumentalist, and keeps himself busy running the label Vicario Musique Recordings. As Soul Of Hex, he conjures up astral deep house odysseys, drawing from the raw sensuality and restraint of classic house and techno, while incorporating jazzy flourishes and colorful shifts in tone, rhythm and texture. In 2014, Larry Heard himself stepped in to remix the Soul Of Hex track “Lip Reading,” and his DJ schedule has been hectic ever since, including an appearance at Amsterdam’s Dekmantel Festival in 2017.

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Russian artist Svetla V takes a minimalist approach to composing her somber synth-pop, and to life in general. Working on a simple set-up of laptop, mic and controller keyboard, she says she can carry her entire studio in one hand. Currently splitting her time between Bergen and Stockholm, she is an avid hiker, inspired by the grand landscapes and frigid winters of Scandinavia. In 2017 she released her album Mattias on Siberian cassette label Perfect Aesthetics, in which sawing basslines and coolly-delivered vocals in English, Russian and Norwegian compete with dreamy ambient soundscapes and upbeat arpeggiations. Norwegian label Eget Selskap is set to re-release the album in 2018, bringing her sounds to auditory neurons everywhere.

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Sarah Winters, the Los Angeles-based artist known as vōx (pronounced “wokes”) makes hip-hop-influenced spectral pop. She’s widely known for covering songs like Kendrick Lamar’s “i,” with a slithering suaveness, her productions dripping in icy synths and the slow heartbeat of a drum machine. But Winters’ own songs are even more interesting, her breathy voice and delicate vibrato carrying them through untraditional structures. Her use of vocoder makes the comparison to artists like Imogen Heap unavoidable, but Winters’ swagger is all her own, and her tunes contain a melancholy vibe that keeps them grounded to Earth.

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Growing up, Martyna Maja was a singer who wanted to be the next Amy Winehouse. However, a serious throat condition put the blocks on that dream. And so, as VTSS, self-described “lone wolf” Maja draws on her inner strength to produce seriously banging industrial techno instead. Tracks such as “Linked,” to be released in 2018 on new label Intrepid Skin, and 2017’s debut single “Ununtrium,” start relentless and pile on more clanks, more beats and more cavernous machine roars, daring the speakers to buckle under their weight. It’s pounding, peak-time stuff that forces the body to keep moving. Maja’s live sets up the ante even further, if anything, slotting in neatly alongside similarly stern artists like Helena Hauff and DJ Stingray.

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When Octavio Márquez started going to raves as a teenager, he had no idea he would one day orchestrate the scene. But now he is the DJ behind the booth, unspooling hours of skittery Latin percussion and high-powered bass spiced with heavy doses of reggaeton and baile funk – frenetic music that challenges even the most tireless dancer to stay on the floor. His 2016 debut, Data Nomadics, is a fervent, 16-song album that won critical acclaim and saw him joining the ranks of Mexico City’s NAAFI collective later that year. He’s also known for his high-octane remixes of everyone from Ariana Grande to MC Bin Laden. When he is not watching the sun rise, he is probably napping with his cat.

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Giacomo Mazzucato, who goes by the pseudonym Yakamoto Kotzuga, says he mostly plays guitar and bass. Yet his intricate, skittering beats suggest a kinship with many electronic styles, from downtempo to hip-hop to IDM. But that’s not all this musically omnivorous Italian artist does. On his 2015 debut album, Usually Nowhere, squeaky synths provided a backdrop for jazzy compositions in the mold of Flying Lotus, interwoven with whispering samples. His latest album Slowly Fading, released in March 2018, employs ricocheting percussion and reverb-heavy synth lines, on tracks that range in mood from contemplative to melancholic and ominous. Mazzucato sounds like a different artist from song to song, ensuring that listening to his work is never dull.

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Susana Hernandez Pulido fell in love with music as a teenager, sneaking into the room where her best friend’s older brother kept his vinyl and turntables. It’s an affair that has continued, as Susana has become an emerging figure in the Barcelona electronic scene. A classically trained pianist, Susana first established herself playing breakbeat and electro at raves in the south of Spain. Almost two decades later, the Barcelona resident played the city’s taste-making Sónar Festival in 2017 and teaches at two local music schools when she’s not DJing or hosting her monthly Dublab show, La Guarida – “the lair.” She makes music as Ylia, her dancefloor-oriented persona, and Terence, an ambient project dealing heavily in cosmic after-hours vibes. With this all coming after a period when Susana was ready to give up music, her trajectory is proving to be a love story built to last.

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