C2C FESTIVAL 2023

ITALIAN EXCLUSIVE

Caroline Polachek has already lived an extraordinary life in music: her previous band Chairlift formed in 2006 whilst Caroline was still in art school; and in 2008 the band was thrust into the spotlight when “Bruises” was synched in an iPod commercial as the Brooklyn indie scene peaked as an international export. Caroline’s idiosyncratic vocal style and synth textures quickly became their sonic trademark, and continued to evolve through their three critically acclaimed albums into a new, more modular kind of pop experimentation. Caroline expanded into production in 2013, landing her first credit writing and producing on Beyonce’s grammy-nominated self-titled album. Chairlift disbanded in 2017 and Caroline feverishly began writing for her first solo project, releasing ‘Pang’ under her own name: it is the most ambitious, hardcore and beautiful album of her career to date. With her signature “organic autotune” and liquid lyricism finally center stage, the record positions her firmly as one of the most singular and captivating singers of a generation.

ITALIAN EXCLUSIVE

It’s impossible to examine the music of the 2010s without considering Steven Ellison, aka Flying Lotus. A creative of many mediums, Ellison is just as likely to appear at Sundance with a film as he is to headline a music festival. His run of six studio albums, featuring collaborators like Thom Yorke, Erykah Badu, David Lynch, and longtime friend Thundercat, solidified him as one of the decade’s driving musical forces. So renowned is his aptitude that everyone from Kendrick Lamar, who recruited Ellison for the landmark “To Pimp A Butterfly”, to Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim turns to him for inspiration. Pitchfork designated the LA-based artist an icon of the past 25 years, while the Recording Academy nominated him as Producer of the Year at the 63rd Grammy Awards.

ITALIAN EXCLUSIVE

English musician Archy Marshall, whose performance name is King Krule, incorporates many derivatives of Jazz, along with punk, darkwave, and rap into his soulful swinging music. King Krule’s vocals seem like somber howls that tend to stick with you even after they are over. Lyrics take poetic and literary influence, like the thoughts of any lonely soul in a big city set to a subtle drum line, the hum of a saxophone, and the glitter of a guitar. King Krule’s ensemble truly does sound like the next modern iteration of jazz, taking inspiration from many sub-genres of jazz while adding new layers and inspiration to further the genre. King Krule also adds visual aesthetics to his work, pairing it with photography, and meticulous works on music videos as well.

Tracing a timeline of Lucrecia Dalt’s sonic trajectory is an elusive endeavor. As a musician, sound artist, performer, and composer, Dalt has traversed a myriad of musical portals, relaying innate sensory impulses and excavated references into luminous constellations. Shimmering with modulation and the incandescent tones of her voice, Dalt’s compositions summon magnetic atmospheres in her distinctive, and ever-expanding, universe of sound. Following the acclaimed releases of “Anticlines” (2018) and “No era sólida” (2020) as part of the RVNG Intl. family, Dalt returned in 2022 with her eighth solo album “¡Ay!” – conjuring a new realm where her signature experimentation and treasured early influences meld together. Glimmers of her musical origins, also diffused through her previous records, are cast by specters of growing up in Colombia, where a spectrum of tropical music genres formed a part of her surrounding environments.

Maral’s sonic palette incorporates a collage of Iranian Classical & Folk samples and explores genres of experimental electronic production such as noise, punk/post-punk, and dub. Maral has released two critically acclaimed records, ‘Ground Groove’ (2022) and ‘Push’ (2020) on Leaving Records. She has collaborated with artists such as Lee “Scratch” Perry, Panda Bear, Penny Rimbaud of Crass, Anika and more.

Marina Herlop sheds the classical trappings of her accomplished previous albums “Nanook” and “Babasha” to emerge in vibrant, polymorphous form on her hypnotizing new album “Pripyat”, out via PAN. With “Pripyat” the Catalonian, conservatory trained composer, vocalist, and pianist channels her environment in truly posthuman form; Herlop performs alien vocal acrobatics, drawing inspiration from Carnatic music of Southern India, while planting a diversity of sonic seeds which blossom brilliantly in her sumptuous garden of chimeric compositions, produced for the first time exclusively electronically.

An outspoken voice in the normally non-confrontational world of electronic dance music, Moodymann (Kenny Dixon Jr.) is committed to keeping a distinctly black imprint on techno and house. Utilizing classic soul and jazz samples, low-slung bass lines and an approach to drum programming that is diametrically opposed to the tendency to push the tempo faster and faster, he has achieved classic status thanks to gems like “Sunday Morning”, “Shades of Jae”, and his remix of Innerzone Orchestra’s “People Make the World Go Round”.

Nick León’s dystopian club music samples the sounds of Florida’s diverse ecosystem, but his style has varied fearlessly along the way. Finding his way into the rap world at a young age, he collaborated with some of the biggest underground rappers in South Florida. As of recent, Nick released his highly anticipated “Xtasis” EP on TraTraTrax which featured DJ Babatr and remixes by Doctor Jeep and Pearson Sound. He also started 2022 on a high note, claiming a production credit on one of the most well reviewed albums of the year – ‘MOTOMAMI’ by Rosalía. With coveted spots on Miami’s III Points festival, various film scores, and further production for a slew of artists, Nick León’s hands are full and his music is teeming with real life.

ITALIAN EXCLUSIVE

UK electronic duo Overmono are known for their infectious, club-ready sound, informed by their love of hard-edged ‘90s rave, breakbeat and trance. Over the course of the last year, Overmono have firmly cemented their position as one of the most influential and prolific new electronic acts: after a breakthrough 2021, which saw them named Best Live Act at the prestigious DJ Mag Best of British Awards, the duo have taken their live show to the most credible festivals across the globe. Their recent debut headline tour across UK, Europe and the US saw them perform ‘Walk Thru Water’ alongside “Blind Date”, their second joint release with Joy Orbison; a “mesmerising dance track” (The Times) and one of the year’s undisputed anthems. After a year of giving life to the dancefloor, the duo return to wave an emotional goodbye to 2022 with “Walk Thru Water”, a track which lays the foundation for 2023, which will be their most monumental year yet.

ITALIAN EXCLUSIVE

The low-slung dembow beat is the musical lingua franca of the Latin world, a musical innovation that’s crossed over into mainstream charts and arenas. Yet within traditionally open-minded club and experimental spaces, reggaeton is still viewed as a novelty. The three artists comprising Sangre Nueva (‘New Blood’) —Florentino, DJ Python & Kelman Duran— have now formed an ad hoc alliance combining respective, strikingly original takes on the genre. Florentino mixes UK-rooted club music with Perreo, crafting invaluable club tools as well as massive, mainstream-threatening tracks with the likes of Bad Gyal & La Zowi & Kaydy Cain. Python, meanwhile, looks back to his teenage years in Miami from his position as a breakthrough artist in the New York club scene. Duran practically innovated a new form of experimental music. The London-based, Caribbean artist reassembles bits of dialogue, music and Reggaeton riddims for an ethereal poetics that has brought him on an unlikely journey from the experimental scene to Beyoncé.

ITALIAN EXCLUSIVE

Established in 2019, BLTNM is a trailblazing independent record label based in Ramallah (Palestine). With a roster of impressive Palestinian musicians, BLTNM empowers and promotes its artists across the Arab World. Their definitive sound has attracted broad popularity and a formidable reputation as a central pillar of MENA’s burgeoning hip-hop scene and their uncompromising commitment to creative autonomy makes them the go-to place for Arab artists to create and release music without the restrictive demands often made by big labels. BLTNM has released hits such as Shabjdeed’s debut album “Sindibad” and Daboor’s iconic single “Inn Ann”.

Manchester UK’s Space Afrika make music of what they term “overlapping moments” – oblique mosaics of dialogue, rhythm, texture, and shadow, half-heard through a bus window on a rainy night. In January 2021, they announced their signing to Dais Records. “Honest Labour”, the duo’s first full-length since 2020’s landmark “hybtwibt? (have you been through what I’ve been through?)” mixtape expands the project’s palette with classical strings, shimmering guitar, and visionary vocal cameos, leaning further into their enigmatic fusion of ambient unrest and cosmic downtempo. It’s a sound both fogged and fragmented, at the axis of songcraft and sound design, born from and for the yearning solitudes of life under lockdown. “Honest Labour” subsequently went on to receive critical acclaim from international outlets such as Pitchfork [US], The Guardian [UK] and Libération [FR]. The duo went on to be nominated twice by DJ Mag for Best Live Act and Best Album as well as picking up Resident Advisor’s Album of the Year 2021.

ITALIAN EXCLUSIVE

Yves Tumor shifts, alters, and plays with the boundaries of contemporary art and culture in a boundlessly visceral and authentic sonic signature. With an arc that effortlessly graces rock, psychedelia, and electronica in a constant re-invention of pop music, comparisons only serve as limitations intended to define that which cannot be. Yves Tumor melds restraint and chaos in a soulful clarity; diluting reality by giving meaning to the abstract and allowing for dissonance to be seen and heard as harmony. Throughout the impressive and ever-expanding trajectory, Yves Tumor has been praised by The New Yorker as “unmissable” and a “quintessential performer” by The Austin Chronicle, and has been compared to the likeness of musical and cultural force Prince by The Washington Post, Grace Jones by The Austin Chronicle and Joy Division by Variety. Yves Tumor embodies and controls the unique and influential power to redefine pop music as we know it, with much more to come.