LES EMPIRES – Guillaume Coutu Dumont & Line Katcho UK Premiere Guillaume Coutu Dumont makes retrofuturist music, where electro synths meet the high-drama piano of house music, soundtrack from a parallel world where the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s happened simultaneously. Line Katcho’s visuals are a breakneck tour through impossible empires, mythologically inspired scenes of congregations worshipping at oil platforms and workers toiling in the shadow of gothic cathedrals that invite viewers to reflect on the fragile foundations upon which civilisations are built. A brilliant collision of the psychedelic and the transcendental, where optical illusions meet music that has to be heard to be (dis)believed. Supported by the Québec Government Office, London. Co-presented by MUTEK, with the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec. Hymnal – Alif Hilal (fka Lyra Pramuk) Alif Hilal’s new album Hymnal draws on childhood experience of singing in church choirs and her later immersion in Berlin’s nightclub scene: two environments in which music unites and empowers. Though possessing the transcendent beauty of devotional music, these are not traditional songs of religious praise but more broadly inspired and directed. Whether composed in collaboration with poets or through observing the movement of slime moulds, these pieces are united by her exquisite and unmistakable vocals. Accompanying visuals from artist and filmmaker Lucy Beech reflect Alif Hilal’s obsessions: weather, technology, corporeality, beauty and transformation. Supported by Goethe Institut Glasgow and Kultur Ensemble.

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