Razen: album release of Rain Without Rain (TAL) 
Razen has been around since 2010 and released numerous albums on labels like KRAAK, Marionette and Hands In The Dark. Rain Without Rain is their debut on Dusseldorf label TAL (the label of Stefan Schneider). If there has been increased international interest in experimental music from Belgium in recent years, then this is not least due to musician collectives such as Razen. Thanks to the electro-folkloristic intensity and instrumentation, Raven’s music is quite unique worldwide.

The latest album is the result of a nocturnal field-recording with a mobile studio in an abandoned pedestrian tunnel in Dusseldorf. The finding of beauty by (more) brutal means: recorder, oscillator and reverb, two musicians and four microphones, early electronica versus Old Music, or ”Suicide meets Hildegard von Bingen”, as Stefan Schneider – who recorded the session – describes it.

Kalia Vandever 
Kalia Vandever is an American trombone player and composer who lives in Brooklyn. Her approach to trombone is entirely unique and is defined by her rich, deep sound and lyrical improvisation, whereby patience and melody lead her process. 

Vandever attained her Bachelor of Music in Jazz Studies at the Juilliard School. What’s more, she is a laureate of the 2022 Next Jazz Legacy, a programme established by New Music USA and the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice to create a more inclusive future for jazz.

Aside from shows with jazz cats like Joel Ross, Immanuel Wilkins and Fay Victor, she has also played with popular artists like Harry Styles, Lizzo, Japanese Breakfast, Moses Sumney and Demi Lovato. An artist to keep an eye on.

Stefan Schneider 
Stefan Schneider is a musician and producer from Dusseldorf. For more than two decades, he has been a pioneer of contemporary electronic music. Schneider was co-founder of Dusseldorf’s electronic band Kreidler (1994-1999), and a member of the internationally praised trio To Rococo Rot (1995-2014). 

In recent years, he collaborated with remarkable artists like Joachim Roedelius (Cluster), Arto Lindsay, Bill Wells, Dieter Moebius (Cluster), Klaus Dinger (NEU!), Sofia Jernberg, Koshiro Hino (YPY/GOAT), John McEntire (Tortoise) and Katharina Grosse, superstar of visual art. Schneider has already performed in the EU, the US, Japan, Malaysia, Australia, China, Algeria, Kenya and Siberia.