Gordan + El Khat

19.00: Gordan line-up: Svetlana Spajić, vocals; Guido Möbius, bass guitar and electronics; Andi Stecher, drums
20.15: El Khat line-up: Eyal el Wahab, vocals, strings; Lotan Yaish, vocals and percussion, Galor Yefet, vocals, synthesizer, percussion

Each concert runs for 60 minutes, with an interval between the shows.

Gordan
Gordan mirror the mysticism of legends and stories of the Balkan region, creating a music that stretches between expressiveness and abstraction, tradition and the avant-garde. The visceral vocals of Svetlana Spajić (Marina Abramovic, Robert Wilson, Antony and the Johnsons, Lenhart Tapes) are deeply interpretive. In turn, drummer Andi Stecher (STECHER, Billy Bultheel, Orchestre Les Mangelepa) and Guido Möbius on bass, electronics and other sound objects, employ sonic strategies that steer the songs in inspired directions, not limited by rigid formal structures. Tapping into minimalism, noise and the rich singing tradition of the Balkans, the band create something radical, almost dystopian, and entirely their own. Is this what Swans would sound like if Michael Gira had decided to explore Balkan music?
Presentation of the album Gordan (Glitterbeat, May 2024).
 

El Khat
Never has discarded waste sounded so exciting and hypnotic as when repurposed by El Khat, a band led by multi-instrumentalist Eyal El Wahab. Starting in 2019, El Khat began to hone their sound in garages and warehouses. Experimenting with scrapyard instruments has led to creating an endless collection of Arabic tunes of Yemeni origin.
The incessant violence and warfare in the Middle East forced them to leave their native Jaffa and move to Berlin, where they have recently launched their third album mute (Glitterbeat Records). Several tracks feature DIY instruments made from recycled junk objects, which the band members occasionally combine with more conventional instruments, all the while revelling in their unique blend of beguiling Arabic melodies and psychedelia. 
“These songs are about emigrating, leaving someone or somewhere. I don’t think I’ve stayed in any one place for more than a year. For us Arab Jews whose families were forced to leave Yemen, it really began with that big move and our families’ arrival in Israel, a land with a constant muting of the ‘other’.”
Presentation of the album mute (Glitterbeat, September 2024).