Monday 16 November 2026, 7.30pm
The Belgium based label and nomadic concerts organization KRAAK returns with a new artist showcase for Cafe OTO as part of a transcontinental collaboration with Infant Tree. Raw guitar mannerisms, haunted noisescapes and bent electronics queue up for a night at Dalston's centrifuge of experimentalist activity, with three acts from KRAAK's current and future roster presenting their takes on adventurous music and soundmaking.
A former Berlin dweller and now a non-digital nomad, Horacio Pollard continues to corrupt all preconceived notions of what could possibly come next in a tune, relying on drum machine wackery, layers of unhinged samples, demented loops and unintelligible vocalizations for some raucous auricular bait-and-switch. Disruptive, hypnotic and aptly described as “almost danceable”, Pollard’s post-industrial baitings guide the way to brazen new worlds of sonic misdirection. KRAAK has just released a live recording of his show at KRAAK Fest 2024 and will bring out a much-awaited solo LP sometime in 2027.
https://horaciopollard.bandcamp.com/
https://kraak.bandcamp.com/album/split-lives-1
Multidisciplinary artist Kiara Govaert is well on her way to becoming a staple of the Antwerp art scene, be it through her extensive installation work, as part of the iconic Radio Centraal station or with the musical projects she participates in such as Liegenaar, De Kloe and Habba Habba. Her solo output blends field recordings and acoustic resonances as well as feedback loops with speakers and microphones, creating hazy lullabies that resound in their feral containment. She'll be releasing her first solo tape on KRAAK this November!
Ghent-based nomad Benoit Monsieurs has explored all the paths paved by the early folk guitarists and is now blazing his own trail as Venediktos Tempelboom. Using the 12-string guitar as his main instrument, the self-taught musician creates passages that take fingerpicking Americana into the Flanders fields, with winding compositions that distill the essence of giants like John Fahey, Robbie Basho and Jack Rose mixed with the drone melancholia of Funeral Folk/KRAAK stalwarts like Silvester Anfang, Helvete and Ignatz. The results are flamboyant, utterly mesmerizing pieces of vivid sonic imagery, as heard on his KRAAK releases Het Vuil Volkske (2022) and Syne Vuyle Hoeck (2024).
https://kraak.bandcamp.com/album/het-vuil-volkske
https://kraak.bandcamp.com/album/syne-vuyle-hoeck
