Image Credit: Vivien Gaumand

From immersive live sets to bold sonic experimentation, each name reflects the MUTEK’s ongoing commitment to boundary-pushing performance and diverse electronic expression. Let’s take a closer look at some of the artists shaping the 2025 lineup.

Following their recent collaborative album The Universe Will Take Care of You, British electronic artist James Holden and Polish clarinetist Wacław Zimpel are expected to bring their trance-rooted, genre-fluid dialogue to MUTEK. After an inspired meeting at Rewire Festival in 2018, the duo has since been merging modular synths and alto clarinet into immersive, improvisational soundscapes. Notably, their new album expands their sonic vocabulary, introducing violin, percussion, harmonium, and Indian flutes, with both artists crossing instrumental boundaries. Together, Holden & Zimpel offer a transcendent encounter between contemporary jazz and electronic exploration.

Accompanied by some of Montréal’s finest musicians, Gayance, Haitian-Canadian artist, makes her debut at MUTEK with her upcoming album roaming. Her set includes selections from the rest of her discography promising a deeply felt sonic journey through joy and spiritual renewal. Drawing from her roots in the LA beat scene and the UK’s broken beat/bruk movement, her sound blends jazzy house, UK garage, alternative R&B and Brazilian-inflected rhymes. More than just a performer, Gayance is a storyteller who channels her narratives through music with vibrant intensity.

Italian drummer and composer Valentina Magaletti, based in London, shares her distinctive percussive vision with MUTEK, with sounds sculpted by hand and shaped by intuition. Known for transforming rhythm into a tactile, narrative experience, Magaletti uses contact microphones, found objects, and modular setups to construct sonic spaces that feel both intimate and expansive. With past projects ranging from the dub-drenched Holy Tongue to the experimental psych of Vanishing Twin and the electroacoustic abstractions of Tomaga, her work continually redefines the vocabulary of percussion. Her solo releases Batterie Fragile and A Queer Anthology of Drums explore themes of identity, materiality, and introspection with raw, physical energy.

Also part of Holy Tongue with Valentina Magaletti, South-London producer and DJ Al Wootton will take part in the festival presenting his dub-techno, percussive psychedelia and experimental bass music. Formerly known as Deadboy, he rose to prominence in the late 2000s with emotive garage tracks that captured the urgency of the UK underground. Deeply rooted in London’s vinyl culture and club circuits, Wootton gradually evolved his sound, drawing from 2-step, post-punk, ambient, and beyond to create minimalist yet resonant compositions. With releases on Livity Sound, Berceuse Heroique, and his own Trule and Amidah labels, Wootton has refined a spacious, bass-heavy aesthetic marked by dub echoes and sharply defined percussion.

Selected for MUTEK Montréal’s 2024 Incubator program, i+eo debuts Portals, a world premiere performance that blends AI-generated imagery and vibrant aesthetics inspired by Southeast Asian street culture with deep bass and evolving textures. The duo consists of two Vancouver-based artists, ephemeral objects (Michelle La) and IHA (Apple Cabrera). Both bring distinct perspectives: ephemeral objects, an interdisciplinary artist and curator with roots in sociology and anthropology, explores light, memory, and perception through audio-reactive visuals that evoke fleeting emotional states. IHA, a DJ, producer, and founder of NAGA, channels cultural memory and sonic experimentation into richly layered sets that traverse atmospheric dub, techno, and futuristic bass.

These artists bring bold new perspectives to MUTEK’s 26th edition — from jazz-inflected improvisation and introspective percussion to vibrant hybrid performances shaped by cultural memory and sonic experimentation. These voices reflect the festival’s commitment to experimentation, dialogue, and deep listening. More announcements are on the horizon, but the journey starts now, so hurry and get your passport before the next price jump!

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