Alex Zhang Hungtai
claire rousay
Natasha Moreno
Misonica

ALEX ZHANG HUNGTAI (US)

Zhang is a multi-disciplinary artist focused on improvisation and its correlation with the unconscious. After retiring his project Dirty Beaches, Zhang has been focusing on explorations of improvised music, free jazz, and his role as a composer. His newer compositions predominantly work with saxophone and drums, delving into electronic music.

Besides his solo work, some past collaborators include : Tashi Dorji, Che Chen, Chris Williams, Sam Shalabi, David Maranha, and Gabriel Ferrandini. Zhang currently works as a composer for film soundtracks, along with acting in independent films.

He has appeared in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return alongside Dean Hurley and Riley Lynch under the fictitious band Trouble. His latest film score “Godland” by Hlynur Pálmason was in competition at Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard.

He currently lives in New York City.

CLAIRE ROUSAY (US)

claire rousay is a singular artist, known for challenging conventions in experimental and ambient music forms. rousay masterfully incorporates textural found sounds, sumptuous drones and candid field recordings into music that celebrates the beauty in life’s banalities. Her music is curatorial and granular in detail, deftly shaped into emotionally affecting pieces. sentiment is a meditation of the poignant emotional terrains of loneliness, nostalgia, sentimentality, guilt, and sex. The album’s narrative arc is guided by delicate musical gestures and artistic vulnerability, audaciously synthesizing disparate and unexpected influences. rousay crafted the songs in various homes, bedrooms, hotels, and other private places, the feeling of time and energy spent alone radiating from each passage. The album is a collection of heart-rending, incisive pop songs that explore universal feelings with subtlety and remarkable vision.

rousay’s vocals and guitar take center stage on sentiment. Her intimate, diaristic lyrics contrast with her mechanical-inflected vocal effects, emphasizing a powerful desire for connection, a deep yearning and a lingering sense of separation. The spare guitar playing and laconic tempo both drive the songs and exude a sense of resignation. Her delicate mastery of nuance draws on her explorative musical past that she, with sincerity and admiration, seamlessly interweaves into her adventurous textures and distinctive compositions. “I want to belong to the worlds and communities I look up to. Same as someone using a Fender guitar or dressing like Kurt Cobain. Emulate your heroes,” says rousay.

NATASHA MORENO (AT/BLR)

Natasha Moreno (born in Minsk; currently based in Vienna) is a live sound artist, creating melancholic noisy soundscapes using modular synthesizers and exploring psychoacoustic effects of repetition. Infusing her compositions with personal narratives, she transforms daily memories into evocative sonic experiences.

MISONICA

Vienna based DJ and producer Misonica, anchored in the European Leftfield scene, is a strong selector across times and spaces. Her sets are highly eclectic and deeply atmospheric, fusing hidden gems and obscure vocal tracks from across the globe with decelerated Techno, Industrial and Post-Punk, Tribal beats, and Cosmic tunes. They engage with a larger narrative, and guide us into imaginary realms, opening auratic spaces that we can walk in. The common vibe is dark and mysterious, and of a certain subtleness, balancing out hard and soft, light and dark shades. In addition to performing in clubs at home and abroad, Misonica has most recently hosted the monthly show Imbroglio on Noods Radio (Bristol, UK), (re)presenting Vienna’s underground scene.