Berlin-Budapest Express: Loraine James (UK) | Powell (UK)

The first-ever Berlin-Budapest Express will kick off the summer with a two-day, predominantly electronic music festival, showcasing artists and forward-thinking music from Berlin and Budapest (and other places). On the opening day, Friday 2 June, the UK bass Hyperdub star Loraine James and one of the greats of industrial techno, Powell, will take to the stage; while on Saturday 3 June we will see the Budapest premiere of German contemporary composer Sven Helbig as well as one of Berlin's most exciting electronic musicians, Grischa Lichtenberger. Both days will close with free open-air concerts: on Friday, the traditional Németh András-Istvánfi Balázs bagpipe band will perform, and on Saturday, Norbert Oláh and his band will play traditional gypsy café music. The Berlin-Budapest Express is organised by the House of Music Hungary in cooperation with the Berlin-based cultural organisation Digital in Berlin. The idea behind the weekend, as simple as it sounds, is to connect two culturally vibrant European capitals – preferably with a train journey in the classical sense – and to create a forum for cross-genre exchanges and innovative musical activities.

Day tickets and combined season tickets are available.

Loraine James

One of the UK's most outstanding electronic music producers of recent years, Loraine James is building a very complex, yet absolutely signature musical world with her releases on Hyperdub, a bastion of forward-thinking music. Fascinated from an early age by her mother's eclectic musical tastes and the diverse multiculturalism of her native North London, it is no surprise that her compositions, which revolve around UK bass, idm and deconstructed club music, mix jazz, dance music of all kinds (ambient techno, future garage), drill, grime, trap, ambient, weightless, progressive electronica in an elusive but compelling way. Her first album, Detail, (2017) brought her to the attention of just a small circle, but she then signed to Hyperdub and became a globally recognised name in electronic music with her albums For You And I (2019), Reflection (2021). Her most recent album, Building Something Beautiful For Me (2022), which pays tribute to the work of contemporary composer Julius Eastman – who died in 1990 – with progressive electronica and ambient tracks. Last year she also made a debut under a different name – Whatever The Weather – with a specifically ambient sound.

Powell
For a decade now, Powell has been a key figure in industrial techno and contemporary electronica and is a major figure on the scene with his own Diagonal Records label and releases on XL Recordings (including the excellent Sports album). Powell has twisted countless synth forms into shapes that explore and expand the boundaries of post-punk, techno, noise and software-based music. He has also released four albums of hi-def abstractions that were all inspired by the musical formalism put forward by legendary composer Iannis Xenakis. In 2021, Powell's strangely emotive new LP of synthesized computer works, Piano Music 1-7, was released on the Editions Mego label, continuing his expansion into electro-acoustic instrumentation. His most recent 2023 release is based on an invitation from the London Contemporary Orchestra to compose and perform with the orchestra at their 2022 event at the Barbican in London, a recording of which has now been released as 26 Lives on the Diagonal label. 26 Lives is not a simple mashup of electronic music and Orchestra, but an album on which the fusion of soundscapes is complete with no clear boundaries between the two, and on which it is difficult to determine whether the sounds are created acoustically or digitally as they create a living dance between synthesis and true instrumentation.