According to Pitchfork, Le Guess Who? Festival announced its main program and lineup for the annual festival’s 2021 edition. Selected artists have been invited to curate the experience. The curators are Phil Elverum, John Dwyer, Midori Takada, Lucrecia Dalt, and Matana Roberts. The festival will be held at venues throughout Utrecht, Netherlands on November 11-14, 2021.
The festival’s official website details the artistic takeover in the heart of the Alps, saying “During four days, Le Guess Who? takes over the city center of Utrecht with over 200 performances set to electrify pop venues, theaters, churches, galleries and warehouses. Satellite events with music, film, visual art, photography and markets appear at cafés, hotels, restaurants, wharf cellars, de Neude square and the hidden corners of the city.”
Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the festival will fulfill the plans for the 2020 festival, which had to be postponed indefinitely. So far, the festival has already filled in its performing lineup with names like Model Home, DJ Lycox and Kiko Dinucci, with more creative talent to be announced in the future.
From its official website, “Le Guess Who? focuses on artists that feel the urge to explore and expand the boundaries of certain genres. The festival features non-western sounds, jazz, folk, ambient, drone, avant-garde, modern composed, as well as contemporary pop and rock culture, and many blended forms of these genres.”
Phil Elverum is an American songwriter, producer, and visual artist based in Anacortes, Washington. He is associated in the musical projects The Microphones and Mount Eerie. Elverum just announced the first new The Microphones album in 17 years this year. The band later supported the new track list with short film.
An icon in the San Francisco garage rock scene, John Dwyer is best known as the primary songwriter for Thee Oh Sees. He has crafted 23 studio albums with that group but has been also somehow associated with a handful of other groups in the past, including Coachwhips, Pink and Brown and The Hospitals. He just formed new band with Kyp Malone of TV On The Radio called Bent Arcana.
Midori Takada is a Japanese composer and percussionist. She is cited as a pioneer of ambient and minimalistic music. She has played in various groups and theatre companies throughout her storied career. Her groundbreaking 1983 album Through the Looking Glass was reissued in 2017.
You can check out the 2019 lineup for Le Guess Who? Festival, and the curators associated with each act.
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