KNM Berlin – welcome

listening cities

Listening cities is the name of KNM Berlin's new sound magazine, dedicated in 2023 to music from three very different metropolitan regions of the world: Kyiv, Lima and Taipei.

Listening to a city does not only mean perceiving its acoustic signatures. The city is first and foremost an organism of human activities and social-cultural agreements.
listening cities therefore asks current composers and artists from the above-mentioned metropolises about the geographical, social, political and historical context of their art. Kyiv, Lima and Taipei are currently in the media spotlight. Whether the Russian war in Ukraine, the violent unrest in Peru, which is primarily based on the social discrimination of the indigenous rural population, or the threatened invasion of mainland China in Taiwan - it is always also about the violation, rejection and erasure of cultural identities.

In listening cities : kyiv, we learn from PR & communications specialist Nataliia Druhak how cultural identity and diversity are not incompatible in Ukraine. We discuss about beauty in times of war, listen to impressive sound experiences of the composers Albert Saprykin and Maxim Kolomiiets and hear how Alexandre Babel (perc) and Theo Nabicht (bkl) (re)interpret them.

Nataliia Druhak, guest (live)
Rebecca Lenton, flute (live)
Thomas Bruns, host (live)
With music by Maxim Kolomiiets and Alvin Lucier as well as video recordings.