On the first weekend inNovember, Europavox Vienna will be taking place for the third time at WUK. It’s a pro-European sign in the form of music that brings some of the continent’s most interesting acts to Vienna. “This year we have the opportunity to finally show more bands from our continent and to illuminate different facets and genres of European music creation on two days”, says Hannes Cistota, head of the WUK music program and co-initiator of the project.
In the face of rising nationalistic tendencies, the Europavox festival is a celebration of transnational European identity with the strongest weapon there is: words and song. Europavox Vienna brings together voices that sing in Serbian, Russian, German, French and English – and that play punk, rock, hip-hop, soul, black metal and jazz.
In Austria, Yasmo & the Klangkantine is a shining example of this attitude. Yasmin Hafedh has been on stage since her youth and started her career doing Poetry Slam. For years she has been considered one of the most interesting and multi-layered female MCs in the German-speaking world. She is socially critical and tackles the major issues of our time: migration, politics, and feminism. Yasmo not only fits in perfectly with the Europavox project, but generally with the pop culture landscape of 2018.
The social awareness of Zeal & Ardor is less obvious, but present nevertheless. The project of the American-Swiss musician Manuel Gagneux would almost not have happened, would he not have been bored one day and asked in the online forum 4chan which two genres he should unite in one song. The experiment of combining African American spirituals with Black Metal soon became a successful music project.
Although they are from Belarus and therefore not from the EU, the story of the band Super Besse sounds like that of a typical European success story. Founded in Minsk in 2013, the Postpunk / Coldwave band is named after a French winter sports center. “We love France, we sing in Russian and we play gigs with punk spirit all over Europe,” says vocalist, guitarist and songwriter Maksim.
The “most ill-tempered rock band this country has to offer right now” (DIE ZEIT) has released their new album FAKE on April 20 via Glitterhouse Records. FAKE was created in rehearsal rooms, studios and on theater stages in Stuttgart, Leipzig and Berlin.
Helsinki-based linguist View, a.k.a. Juuso Ruohonen has already made waves in his homeland with his special form of gloomy, intoxicating beats and incisive lyrics. With his focus on minimalism and soft tones, View focuses on personal themes that give his music an authentic element of realism and truth.
Repetitor is a garage rock / post-punk trio from Belgrade and clearly one of the most impressive live bands in Europe to be seen on club and festival stages across Europe and even played in China and Moscow.
Farveblind, dubbed “the Chemical Younger-Brothers” by Clash Magazine, realize with their sound exactly what their name promises: deep, dark beats as insistent as the black night. The Danish duo remains eager to experiment and also mixes classic pop vocals with the otherwise so hard-working basses.
Scryss and Apollo are two rappers from the French department of Allier. Always supported by their producer Symbiose, whose sounds vary between boom-bap and newer influences, they have been traveling together for 3 years.
