_{COVER IMAGE: Kabeaushe at Le Guess Who? 2024 photo by Rogier Boogaard}

Amsterdam might still be recovering from the beautiful chaos that is ADE, but just a short train ride away, Utrecht is gearing up for a musical marathon of its own. Enter Le Guess Who?, the international music festival that has made a name for itself by championing the unexpected, the experimental and the wonderfully hard to categorise.

Taking place from November 5 to 8, the festival celebrates 20 years of bringing together artists, sounds and stories from across the globe. Guided by this year’s theme, “Listening Is the Way Forward!, Le Guess Who? Invites audiences to look beyond familiar genres and geographies, making room for creativity, different perspectives and the many ways music connects us.

Part of the festival is the U? Programme on November 7th & 8th that focuses on local creative talent as it explores themes of connection, new forms of creativity and ways of making and connecting. 

This year’s guest curators include poet and musician aja monet, Kenyan sound artist KMRU, Bolivian duo Los Thuthanaka and Australian experimental rock group Tropical Fuck Storm. Together, they bring their distinct musical worlds and perspectives to a programme that refuses to sit within any one genre. 

Among the many names worth circling are Palestinian MC, singer and producer Shadia Mansour, the Palestinian Sound Archive, and a multidisciplinary performance by Pitch, Pigeon, Puerta. Full line-up you can see below.

In collaboration with Tabanka Records and FAROFFA, LGW presents Sounds of Cabo Verde and the connection with the diaspora living in The Netherlands. It will take place on November 7th,expect to hear Nancy Vieira, Sima nos é só nos, Grupo Pilon & many more. 

There will be a special programme 24 HOUR DUB that will feature Mad Professor & Sister Aisha, Introspekt,Greentea Selecta and many more.

As part of U? programme on November 8th Fai Aldhukair presents the first edition of Ephemera: Practices of Preservation with lectures, performances & alternative research practices. Some of the events to highlight are Josipa Ivankovic’s Yugoslavia, present tense & holding space, a collective walk by Karmel Sabri in collaboration with a sound work by Alec Mateo.

COSMOS is another part of the festival that is a platform to present music scenes from all over the world. Initiated by COSMOS Embassy ICRN (Independent Community Radio Network), the festival presents Baltic Rehearsals, together with Tīrkultūra & IDA. The project features new music from Tallinn, Riga & Vilnius.

COSMOS x Refuge Worldwide are partners since 2021 & every last Monday of the month they have a radio for 2-hours of sounds. Other embassies part of COSMOS are AKID (Osaka), Tabanka Records (Cabo Verde), OCCII (Amsterdam), Santuri East Africa (Nairobi), Seoul Community Radio (Seoul), Buh Records (Lima) & many more.

Le Guess Who? is waiting for you with one of the best line-ups of the year, so let your listening guide you!