For a decade-and-a-half, Elevate Festival has been bringing challenging music, political discourse, and fierce all-night clubbing to Austria’s second city of Graz. Centred as always in and around the hilltop fortress in the centre of the city, the fifteenth edition of the festival looks set to celebrate the milestone with an aptly forward-facing lineup of young talent and lesser-known artist, littered with a few special guests of course. This year’s edition takes place in Graz between the 27th February and 3rd March.
Longtime friends of the festival, and the consistently busy womb of electronic music’s future, Hyperdub will be well represented at 2019’s edition. The Hyperdub crew are hosting a full nightlong party featuring Kode9, Ikonika, Okyzharp & Manthe Ribane, plus Lee Gamble, all performing in the cavelike belly of the mountain fortress, the ‘Dom Im Berg’. Other nights have the party kept in full swing with the likes of Miss Red, Paula Temple, and Dorian Concept headlining various stages.
The festival’s experimental side continues to thrive with a sets promised from Norwegian vocal magician Stine Janvin, Aussie AV artist Robin Fox, Warp Records pianist Kelly Moran, Danish noise beast Puce Mary, and the mercurial Peter Broderick, and plenty more all on the bill.
A tQ-approved stage will also be hosting Polish DIY electronics pioneer Ewa Justka, French sound wizard Kassel Jaeger, beardy modular synth stalwart Keith Fullerton Whitman, plus more in the appropriately named stone innards of the Dungeon.
Two monsters of avant-garde rock tie it all together, with Sunn O))) playing ahead of their new Steve Albini-produced album, and seasoned electropunk pioneers DAF closing the entire festival on Sunday 3rd March.
The discourse programme always has plenty to offer too, and this year’s star guest is none other than actress-cum-activist Pamela Anderson! So, Elevate 2019 has the distinction of perhaps being the only festival to feature Sunn O))) and the former-Baywatch star as co-headliners. For more Elevate information, please visit the festival website.
