Emika Live Haze Night

Emika will show an immersive performance of her album Haze released in 2024. After several sold-out planetarium shows, she continues her immersive journey first time in Leipzig, playing her songs adapted to the 32.2 3D audio speaker system of the ZiMMT.

Emika’s ‘Haze’ sounds like a mix of Thom Yorke, Burial, Nils Frahm, all swirled together in a colourful yet creamy mix; a blend of her neoclassical descending melodies, signature breathy, female vocals, icey pianos, heavy sub-bass vibrations and layered Hazy beats.  Let’s call it Emika’s love-affair with the Future Garage genre.  ‘I’ve had this sound in my head for many years, this record saved my life’ – Emika.

Sat between her life in moving-boxes, wedged between them surrounding her upright piano in an unfurnished empty-sounding room in her in-laws house.  Haze was made with voice-memo recordings of her piano and voice on her phone, edited and mixed on her laptop in headphones.  Little loops in Ableton, lyrics and sadness and melodies, just like Emika’s real-life in boxes.   
The pandemic years made it impossible for Emika to stay in Berlin and continue her Indie-music label business Emika Records.  Having been a key member of the Berlin Electronic music scene for 15 years, she chose to uproot herself and her young family (2022), moving South to Schwarzwald aka The Black Forest, not far from the German border with Switzerland and France. Saying about the transition ‘I could not take the pressure of being a working-mum, with family so far away in South Germany and the UK’, we were all alone and made job-less as musicians during that time.’

Waiting for the rules to change, observing the damage on the live-music and club scene, determined not to give-up on music, Emika built a new music studio and Emika Records label home together with her husband while continuing to work on Haze.  On the rebound from feeling suicidal, rediscoving ‘hope’ like a little light, she began therapy and building Haze beats;‘I will never forget how amazing it was to feel colours again, coming out of the blackness, this was the main concept for the artwork of Haze’.  (Created by Ozge Cone who has made designs for Erased Tapes and Rival Consoles).  During the album creation she became pregnant again, dedicating this album to her son, who she says ‘is like a present baby, a gift following the dark-times’.   
Having lived in Bristol (2004-2009) when Dubstep was growing, collaborating with Pinch (Tectonic) recording music in Jim Barr’s studio (Portishead) and producing records with Horace Andy (Massive Attack), making a record like Haze fits perfectly into Emika’s already solid collection of critically-acclaimed bass-heavy albums.

She’s been sampled by The Weeknd on his debut who said about her “She is sonically out of this world.” and with Thom Yorke as a fan, who said on his BBC6 Music Radio show “I hope she becomes very famous.” Emika is set to gain many new fans with her take on the well-loved Future Garage sound, as well as keeping her long-standing global fan-base of supporters happy with some fresh new music this Spring – many of whom donated money during the pandemic and become Patrons of her work.  ‘This record is really made for my fans, I just tried to imagine them and make what they would like.  I left my Avant-Garde ideas alone for a while and wanted to just enjoy how grateful I was to keep doing music for another year, thanks to my listeners’ – Emika.
Emika is set to launch a new event series, inspired by her memories of early Dubstep in the legendary Black Swan venue in Bristol (now closed) she saw her friend Mala play, with one table-lamp, it was all about this new sound, and meditating on the bass-weight.  Something she plans to continue in her Haze parties, where each guest will be gifted a little Haze Light with their ticket.

About Emika

Emika has her own sound and is following her own path.  Since the turn of the decade she has been producing electronic and neo classical music, combining her skills as a sound designer, classically trained composer, and prolific singer-singer writer, she has released 8 critically acclaimed albums to date and works independently running her own label, Emika Records.
As a postgraduate student she moved overseas to Berlin to work as a Sound Designer at one of the leading global music tech companies Native Instruments, developing products for producers and DJ’s alike.  She collaborated with internationally known Techno club Berghain, to record a library of field-recordings inside the club which were then used for their 5 year anniversary release ‘Fünf’ (2010). She signed her first two albums ‘Emika’ (2011) and ‘Dva’ (2013) to UK indie label Ninjatune which both received critical acclaim in the music media and personal support from BBC Radio 1’s Mary Anne Hobbs and Thom Yorke who played her music said on his BBC 6 Music programme, in 2012 saying, ‘I hope she becomes very famous’. Her bass-heavy, edgy songs with her mix of piano and sultry breathy voice, had now become her trademark.  
In 2015 Emika established her own imprint Emika Records and continues to develop her work in electronic and classical music, embracing the creative freedom which came with such a venture and using this to push new classical music forwards and experiment with the blueprint of being a Berlin DJ. After the end of the pandemic in early 2022, she left Berlin after being a core member of it’s electronic music scene for 15 years and relocated with her young family near Schwarzwald (The Black Forest) in South Germany. She has built her own music studio and Emika Records label office surrounded by trees, and is currently working on a new symphony, creating a film for planetariums world-wide in Dolby Atmos, and music for the film Another End by Piero Messina, starring Gael Garcia Bernal (Berlinale Film Festival main competition 2024).

Tickets:
23€ ermäßigt, 28€ normal

LOUFR · mʊdʌki

Ein Abend voller vibrierender Frequenzen, unerwarteter Klanglandschaften und intensiver Emotionen. Am 12. April präsentiert das ZiMMT im Rahmen der Reihe swim (spatial works and immersive music) 2025 zwei 3D-Audio-Konzerte. Der Komponist LOUFR (Piotr Bednarczyk) sowie die Sounddesignerin und Künstlerin mʊdʌki (Polina Khatsenka) entführen die Zuhörer in eine komplexe Welt des immersiven Erlebens, die von Netzwerken und globalen Umbrüchen handelt.

⁓ continue to the swim series

Uhrzeit:
19 Uhr Einlass
20 Uhr Beginn

QUEER MUSIC FESTIVAL

Das ›Queer Music Festival‹ (24. bis 27. April 2025) richtet das Scheinwerferlicht explizit auf queere Musik und Künstler*innen, die sich als schwul, lesbisch, bisexuell, transident oder non-binär identifizieren. Unter dem Motto ›Identität ist Realität!‹ reicht das Spektrum des 4-tägigen Programms dabei von Konzerten und Clubnacht, über Tanzkurs und Film, hin zu Lesung, Artist Talk und DJ-Workshop. Dabei immer im Fokus: Das Zelebrieren und Empowern queerer Identitäten, queerer Körper und vor allem queerer Musik. Als Veranstalter, Herz und Motor des Festivals will Zacker Musiker*innen aus der LGBTIQ*-Community eine Plattform bieten und einen sicheren Raum schaffen, in dem sie ihre Stimmen erheben können, um ihre künstlerische Vision mit Gleichgesinnten und Allies zu teilen. Es geht darum, gemeinsam laut zu werden – in einer Zeit, in der Schweigen immer gefährlicher wird. Es geht um Sichtbarkeit – in einer Zeit, in der queere Menschen im öffentlichen Raum zunehmend wieder um ihre Sicherheit fürchten müssen.
www.queermusicfestival.de

Bertolt Meyer – Techno(logie), Körper und Inklusivität

Performance & Artist Talk im Rahmen des Queer Music Festivals

Bertolt Meyer ist DJ, Musiker, Label-Owner und kreiert auf faszinierende, außergewöhnliche Art Techno. Denn er bedient sein Modularsystem nicht (nur) ›herkömmlich‹ – er ist vielmehr Teil davon: Meyer wurde ohne linken Unterarm geboren. Mit seiner ›SynLimb‹ – einem DIY-Hardwarehack, den er zusammen mit Christian Zollner von KOMA Elektronik und seinem Ehemann Daniel Theiler gebaut hat – kann Meyer seine bionische Prothese an Synthesizer anschließen und Parameter seines Modularsystems mit seinen Gedanken steuern. Klingt nach Sci-Fi und Zukunftsvisionen, ist aber real und gegenwärtig. Bertolt Meyer wird an diesem Abend im ZiMMT live performen und sein Publikum nah an seine Geräte und Set-Up herankommen lassen – und über sein künstlerisches Schaffen sprechen. Im Gespräch mit der Leipziger Musikjournalistin Nastassja von der Weiden wird es außerdem um die Frage gehen, ob und wie Techno(logie) Inklusivität herstellen und Stigmata abbauen kann. Und natürlich, wie er seine Prothese gehackt hat.

LINE-UP
Bertolt Meyer / live
Nastassja von der Weiden / Moderation

– Veranstaltet von BOUYGERHL – Archiv für queere Musik
– Schirmherrschaft: Sookee
– Präsentiert von frohfroh
– Gefördert durch das Kulturamt der Stadt Leipzig
– Unterstützt von PŸUR und Jägermeister

TICKETS & UHRZEIT
0 Euro: Der Eintritt ist frei
10 Euro: Supporter-Ticket inklusive Spende für die Riccardo Simonetti Initiative
TÜR: 16:30 / BEGINN: 17:00