NAROD NIKI By Heinos, 14 September 2004

NAROD NIKI, the only laptop supergroup in the world! Paralleling Berlin's first "Popkomm" Club Transmediale, Montreal's MUTEK Festival and the Volksbuehne theatre will present the Europe-premiere of the electronic all-star band NAROD NIKI. Also appearing for the first time in Berlin the two newcomers to Montreal's flourishing micro-house scene EGG and The Mole, who swept the awards of this year's MUTEK Festival. Berlin's most outstanding visual-collectives Transforma and Pfadfinderei will round out the show with a live-video environment.

NAROD NIKI is a collaboration project founded by Ricardo Villalobos and Dimbiman that was presented for the first time at the 2003 edition of the MUTEK Festival. The idea of the project is to bring together a number of techno masterminds to do a live jam, hiding their identities behind a collective alias to keep the attention dedicated to their music. Richie Hawtin, Dimbiman, Ricardo Villalobos, Monolake, Akufen, Dandy Jack, Daniel Bell, Cabanne and Luciano got together in Montreal, demonstrating that realtime-improvisation and beat-oriented music don't necessarily exclude one another. No surprise - as all names involved stand for first-class innovative electronic music and feel well at home in all parts of the world with their message.

The exact Berlin line-up will of course stay secret until the end. Still, it should be quite obvious that the list of artists at this event can be nothing but long and extraordinary !

CTM, MUTEK & VOLKSBÜHNE. Ever since their beginnings in the mid- to late 90s, the two festivals Club Transmediale - international festival for electronic music and related visual arts Berlin - and MUTEK have been working on similar goals. Both are dedicated to the promotion and presentation of contemporary experimental electronic music, merging subculture and academic tradition. In addition, they make a strong effort to showcase these kinds of productions and place them in the context of global media culture. Questioning the role of music developments and its share in technological and cultural transformation processes is one of their main interests.

MUTEK and Club Transmediale have been cooperating since 2002 in exchange of content and information as well as presentation of artists, bringing together the scenes of Berlin and Montréal.

The Berlin NAROD NIKI appearance, presented by CTM and MUTEK, will take place independently from Popkomm. Those artificially maintained music-industry trade fairs, that regard music only from the perspective of profit and judge artistic content only by economic values contradict the collaborative idea of this project.

Furthermore, we are pleased about the collaboration with Volksbühne theatre - an institution that has successfully expanded its cultural commission and role in the field of music in the recent years. The event part of the fifth and last of its “Club Neustadt" series.

Address: Volksbuehne am Rosa Luxemburg Platz, Berlin / 10 PM / 10 _ 14.- EUR
Coproduction: Club Transmediale, Volksbuehne and MUTEK
With the friendly sponsorship of Ableton and Smirnoff.
Media partners: De: Bug, INTRO, Radio 1, die Tageszeitung
Links:
http://www.clubtransmediale.de
http://www.volksbuehne-berlin.de