From July 27 to August 12, 2012, a group of electronic musicians and sound artists from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Germany, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka came together for two weeks of creative exchange on Ruskin Island, Sri Lanka. The gathering aimed to share knowledge and ideas, foster collaboration, and build lasting connections. Sri Lanka was chosen as the location because it was the only country where participants from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India could all obtain visas.
The results of their musical collaborations were showcased at the Pettah Interchange in Colombo in 2012. In the years that followed, Pettah Interchange grew into an influential independent festival and became a key space for Sri Lanka’s electronic underground scene. Soundcamp is organized in cooperation with Goethe-Institut Delhi, Goethe Institute Colombo.
NRBLN – BLNRB is a music project that merges the club music scenes in Berlin and Nairobi BLNRB is initiated & organized with Goethe-Institut Nairobi.
BLNRB – Welcome To The Madhouse
In early 2009, three bands from the world-reknown Berlin electronic music scene set out to a journey, their destination: Nairobi, Kenya, in East Africa. The idea ‘Berlin meets Nairobi’, brainchild of Goethe-Institut Nairobi and electronic music duo Gebrüder Teichmann, was as simple as it was complex at the same time. Berlin musicians would come to this vibrant East African metropolis and meet, mix and mingle with artists from the local music scene. The name of the project became BLNRB-NRBLN, a fusion of the colloquial abbreviations of the two cities involved. From Berlin, there were Modeselektor, the hyperactive breakbeat-duo, curious electronic producers Gebrüder Teichmann and Jahcoozi, the multicultural star trio composed of Dubstep, Grime Rave and hyper-sonic Electronica. From Kenya, rappers like Mister Abbas, Kimya and Lon ́Jon or the first lady of Kenyan rap, Nazizi, became part of the joint collaboration. The electropop band Just A Band and blind singer/guitarist Michel Ongaro also contributed their flavors. In addition, six members of the HipHop collective Ukoo Flani from the coastal city of Mombasa were a key part of the body of MCs who would turn up every day and night.
Two studios were established in a townhouse in Nairobi, where everyone in the project worked, performed and lived together. The above-mentioned bands were invited but word spread like fire within Nairobi’s music scene. Quickly there was a frenzy of artists coming and going, the now infamous Madhouse was born. After a first concert in Nairobi in 2009, the Berliners went back to Kenya in spring 2010 for a few weeks, and it was during this period, that the first recordings of the presented tracks were made. In December 2010, the musicians from Nairobi came to Berlin for a concert night that celebrated the collaboration during the Worldtronics Festival at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin with.