Thanks to everyone who came to Clandestino Festival 7 December! Here’s a little souvenir in video format, an interview and concert film featuring Hailu Mergia, made by filmer Damien Priest. We hope to see you all again next year, information about Clandestino Fetival 2014 will be published here.

Ethiopian lofi jazz, Dadaist dance punk and loop-based ice sculptures in audio format: Welcome to Clandestino Festival’s winter edition, which is also our official housewarming at the arts center Oceanen!

Clandestino Festival Winter Edition
Ocean, Stigbergstorget 8, Gothenburg | Opens 19:00 | Tickets sold at entrance

HAILU MERGIA (WITH TONY BUCK AND MIKE MAJKOWSKI)
He belonged to Addis Ababa’s musical elite and played with legends such as Mulatu Astatke. A regime shift changed everything, and in the eighties Hailu Mergia found himself in Washington DC, where he took a job as a taxi driver. Music was the link to his homeland Ethiopia, Mergia recorded lots of cassettes with accordion, synth and drum machine – basically jazz as known from the “Ethiopiques” compilations, but this strangely futuristic and taken out of context, which aired it out from a single satellite in the universe. Current Album at Awesome Tapes From Africa. | Read more

ORCHESTRA OF SPHERES
Orchestra of Spheres – Channeling ancient future funk from the IS! Warping spatioelastoplasticity with sound! Born out of Wellington’s Frederick Street Sound and Light Exploration Society in 2009, the Spheres have developed a cult-like following in New Zealand. Playing house parties, dance parties, DIY shows and opera houses, the Spheres have built a reputation for musically and visually ecstatic live shows. | Read more

LAU NAU
Lau Nau is the pseudonym of Laura Naukkarinen. She is a Finnish musician and artist who gained international acclaim for her original and minimalist compositions produced on everything from electric guitar and loop pedal to wine glasses and megaphone. The style is sometimes reffered to as Psych Folk, but it is impossible to determine the genre Lau Nau works in, a music that is as playfully simple as it is original. | Read more

BLACK DOUGH
Black Dough mixes Peter Brötzman-like skronky jazz with voodoo rock and punk. Deep down in the engine room, upright bass and drums are blaring out cymbal attacks and tritone chords. Malin Wättring’s baritone sax is many nautic miles away from the smooth jazz sailors: screaming along with Miranda Bjerking Raeder’s vocals. | Read more

ELENA WOLAY
A dj who organizes Jazz Är Farligt, a club, management, fanzine and record label. She also works with clubs and live venues like Fredagar på Marie Laveau, Mother and Elena Presenterar, Tantklubben, Cosmic Hysteria, Pådrag and others. She prepares herself for Clandestino Festival Winter Edition by digging deep into their sound archives for East African groove, rituals and bebop. | Read more

LES GLANEUSES
Insects, jellyfish, video loops of dance steps … just to name a few of the things the artist group Les Glaneuses presented during this year’s Clandestino Festivals. Materials are available everywhere. Les Glaneuses borrow them and put them into another world – and then again let them plunge into freedom. | Read more

Clandestino Festival Winter Edition 7 December
Oceanen, Stigbergstorget 8, Göteborg | Öppnar 19.00 | Full program | Tickets

Our program for the 7 of December was sort of full already, but when we heard Gothenburg band Black Dough, we just had to rethink and squeeze them in to schedule. Finally, the fuse to Gothenburg’s first punk jazz bomb is lit!

Black Dough mixes Peter Brötzman-like skronky jazz with voodoo rock and punk. Deep down in the engine room, upright bass and drums are blaring out cymbal attacks and tritone chords. Malin Wättring’s baritone sax is many nautic miles away from the smooth jazz sailors: screaming along with Miranda Bjerking Raeder’s vocals. | Read more | Tickets

PROGRAM CLANDESTINO WINTER FESTIVAL 7/12 OCEAN LANE MOUNTAIN SQUARE GOTHENBURG
19:00 Opens
20:30 Lau Nau
21:30 Black Dough
22:30 Hailu Mergia
00:00 Orchestra of Spheres
01:00 Elena Wolay

From 2001 and until last year the Festival au Desert – Desert Festival – has been a significant cultural event in Mali, focused on Tuareg music and desert blues. The festival has attracted artists, audiences and media from around the world. Until the violent conflict in the country made ​​it impossible to continue. Now, Clandestino Festival has the great honor of presenting a one day version of the same festival in exile, on our home turf in Gothenburg:

LE FESTIVAL AU DESERT IN EXILE on November 7
Musikens Hus, Djurgårdsgatan 13 , Gothenburg. Opens 18:30. | Tickets are sold at the door

* FILM: THE LAST SONG BEFORE THE WAR
Magic live performances under the starry Sahara night sky frame this tale of desert festival – a struggle against political and economic difficulties – as told by founder Manny Ansar. We also get to meet artists and visitors during the 2011 edition. | Read more

* TALKS: ALMOU ANSAR
Almou Ansar is one of the founders of the desert festival. He will be interviewed on stage by Lars Lovén, freelance journalist and music critic, specializing on contemporary African music. | Read more

* CONCERT: VIEUX FARKA TOURÉ
His new album “Mon Pays” is a tribute to his homeland Mali in light of the recent conflict. “For me, the songs make up a statement that this country belongs to Mali’s sons and daughters, not Al Qaeda and other militant organizations. This country stands for peace and beauty, rich culture and tolerance. It is our heritage, which we must always defend so best we can – for me, that means to make music that reminds the world about who we are.” On stage around 21:30. | Read more

We would like to extend a warm thank you to everyone who participated in making this year’s Clandestino Botnik to one of those special and most magical memories that we carry with us a for a long time. Artists and poets, of course, but also volunteers, sound and lighting technicians, everybody hwo helped cook, build stages, making video installations, textile art, decorations, driving artists; and to our friends living at Botnik Farms for a great collaboration – but most of all to all festival visitors who went out in the Bohuslän country side for a memorable weekend of great music, poetry, food (and unfortunately also mosquito bites). We hope to see you all again next year. Until then, we recommend you subscribe to our newsletter for the latest news from Clandestino Festival and Clandestino Institut. Our photographers Nora Bencivenni and Anna-Lena Lundqvist were at Botnik, see their pictures here.

On Saturday, it’s finally time for our festival excursion to the small artist-run farm Botnik Studios right inbetween the sea, the wood and Bohuslän granite. Camp, eat tasty organic and locally produced food, dance under the summer sky and enjoy a two-day festival unlike any other you have experienced. This year’s artists come from Thailand, South Africa, Lebanon, Congo, Japan, Belgium, Guinea-Bissau and from Värnhemstorget in Malmö amongst others. But as usual in Clandestino context, it is not nations and ethnicities that are interesting, but the content, personal expression  – and the struggle to break the boundaries between genres, nations and cultures. A struggle that seems more important than ever in Europe today.

TICKETS
We will sell a limited number of tickets at the entrance (cash only) but advance purchase is SEK 50 cheaper and easier for everyone. | Tickets

FOOD
There are several different eateries serving organic food (cash only).

DIRECTIONS
Botnik Studios, Hamburgsund. | Map

FESTIVAL BUS
Departs from Shell at Nils Ericsson terminal in Gothenburg 12:20 on July 27 and drives back the next day around 17:30 when the last concert ends. 295 SEK. | Book here

PARKING
Valet parking is available adjacent to the festival site for a fee of SEK 20.

TOILETS
Available at the festival site. Not showers. Beaches for swimming in the vicinity.

OVERNIGHT
Camping spots are available on a field adjacent to the festival site and camping is included in the ticket price. The region has a number of hostels. | Tourist Info

AGE-LIMIT
Everyone is welcome to Clandestino Botnik regardless of age. Children under 16 get in for free.

CONTACT: info@clandestinofestival.org

SCHEDULE: SATURDAY 27 JULY
18.00 Lowdjo
19.00 Nazarenes
20.00 Amina Hocine
21.00 Baloji
22.00 Mazaher
23.00 Shangaan Electro
00.00 Daito Manabe
01.30 Lowdjo

Just one week until the summer’s best festival excursion Clandestino Botnik (July 27 to 28) to the fair Bohuslän coast. High time to announce the last three bookings:

Three White Soldiers: A research installation on Clandestino Botnik by Anders Paulin & Johan Forsman from the experimental performing arts group Skogen. The work explores the computer technology which today controls 25% of the transactions on Wall Street without any human intervention: The monolithic, algorithmic machine is operating in speeds beyond human perception, making this cube of financial immanence a vehicle with no throttle or steering wheel. This super computer is today’s Holy Grail. | Read more

Mara Lee: Her books revolve around issues of power, sexuality, alienation, desire and the construction of femininity. She has received Svenska Dagbladet’s prize for Literature and the P.O. Enquist prize. | Read more

Lidija Praizović: She has published a novel (Spegelboken) and a collection of poems (Porr för Vlada), and has been active in the queer feminist publishing company Dockhaveri. Also works as a literary critic at Aftonbladet. | Read more

We’re getting closer to our festival excursion to the idyllic Botnik Farms in Bohuslän – Clandestino Botnik 27-28 July. Time to present our latest booking – we give you Dj Lowdjo directly from Brussels: Thai beat, Turkish psych, tropicalia, Syrian techno, Arabic chaabi, cumbia, Iraqi Choubi, Balkan bass … the world is a juicy, danceable oyster about to overflow and splash down all of Clandestino Botnik festival in a deliciously salty dance afrodisiac. Strange sounds and rhythms mixed together in a highly contemporary, electrified plastic explosive. Or as Lowdjo himself puts it: “I like a lot of different music.” | Read more

FESTIVAL BUS
The best way to travel to Clandestino Botnik is with Festivalbussen. The bus departs from Shell at Nils Ericsson terminal in Gothenburg 12:20 on 27 July and leaves the next day around 17:30 when the last concert ends. Cheap, environmentally friendly, the best atmosphere and plenty of space for tents, sleeping bags, and other stuff you need. NOTE: Return ticket only 195 SEK if you buy a ticket before Sunday, July 21. After that the price is 295 SEK. | Book here

Contact: info@clandestinofestival.org

This year’s line up for Clandestino Botnik is bigger than ever – especially Sunday 28 July is expanding into a very impressive and super exciting festival day, if we may say so ourselves. The show will go on until late in the afternoon – new bookings are added continually!The dates are 27-28 July, at the beautiful Botnik farms in Tanums kommun, Bohuslän, Sweden.

NEW BOOKING: KIMI DJABATÉ (Guinea-Bissau)
Griot is the name of a music tradition in West Africa that stretches hundreds, even thousands of years back in time. A griot is a kind of troubadour with the mission to entertain and at the same time a storyteller and oral historian. Kimi Djabaté was born in Guinea-Bissau, but lives in Lisbon, where he still focuses on the musical traditions he grew up with but with his ears open to his contemporaries and the world that surrounds him. With delicate guitar playing, balafón sounds and a rare musical sensibility not least noticable in his singing, Kimi Diabaté is a contemporary edition of the ancient griot, aware of the fear and the dreams that drive the flows of global migration, while faithful to the traditions of the village where he and his ancestors grew up. Kimi Djabaté recently released his second solo album ‘Karam’, where he talks about Africa today: Of social and political conflicts, of the fight against poverty, the fight for freedom and for the rights of women. | Read more

Another exciting booking for this year’s festival excursion Clandestino Botnik, 27 to 28 July: An icon of the Arab underground music, with a phenomenal new solo album on Crammed Discs.

Yasmine Hamdan is a singer, songwriter and actress of Lebanese descent, currently based in Paris. She rose to fame with the duo Soapkills while she still lived in Beirut. The band quickly became a soundtrack for the young art scene in postwar Lebanon, and today Yasmine is an undergound icon in the Arab world. Two of her songs were featured in the award winning film “Divine Intervention” by director Elia Suleiman. | Read more