All the necessary steps have been taken to make of this event a bright success, as the previous edition. The artists have been confirmed and the choice is quite vast: more than 60 events are scheduled, scattered around Brussels. It will be a unique occasion for discovering both Brussels’ nightlife and music scene, and to check out new spots hidden around the city.

With so many artists and groups performing, one may feel lost and indecisive about where to go and what to check out first, so Brussels Express is guiding you through, offering some suggestions on the events present.

The very first day (the 13^th of October) the festival will start with a concert in one of the new venues acquired for this edition, Studio 4 in Flagey. The venue will host Fennesz, Austrian artist famous for his luminous installations: he will propose an audiovisual piece animated by Lillevan. Studio 4 will also host the musical project Beton (FTRSND), who will perform the electronic reinterpretation of the track “In C” by Terry Riley.

On Saturday 14^th BEM will host two great event: the United night at Fuse, that will reunite several prominent authors of the Belgian electronic scene (such as Initiate, Norite, FTRSND, Lessismore, Beyond, Terminal Techno, Deep In House, High Needs Low, Brussels Alternative Show, Echoes_, Theory, Circadian et Form & Function) and the Beat Battle at Recyclart, judged by the members of Beatchronic, Full Colorz, FTRSND et Cosmic Pop.

On Sunday 15^th Café des Halles and La Belgica will host two more parties, starting early in the afternoon and finishing late at night.

During the marathon there will be talks and expos to discover more sides of the electronic world: for instance, on Friday la Maison des Music will host a workshop on “Beat-making”, on Saturday La Vallée will have several workshops and activities opened also to children and on Sunday, you may relax with a docu-film at Marivaux or participate to a showcase at Crevette Records.

During the festival (and even few days after it), seize the occasion and visit the Palais de Coudenberg: besides being an incredible building overflowing with art, it is also the scenario for a new, temporary expo called Synesthetics, dedicated to the decomposition of music and its association with different senses.

#BEM17 will be a lively and incredible experience, that will cast a new light not just on music and art, but to the city itself. A must-go!

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The opening concerts of the Brussels Electronic Marathon will take place on Friday 13 October at Flagey with an audiovisual performance by Fennesz & Lillevan and Bétøn‘s electronic rendition of the famous piece « In C » by Terry Riley.

Fennesz
Christian Fennesz is an Austrian musician recognized as the key figure and one of the most distinctive voices of electronic music today. His lush and luminant compositions resemble sensitive, telescopic recordings of rainforest insect life or natural atmospheric occurrences, an inherent naturalism permeating each piece.
His wide international reputation has been consolidated through his substantial overall contribution to new musical expression. In the beginning of the 1990s, Fennesz became involved with Viennese techno scene. Though formally educated in guitar and ethnomusicology from an early age, Fennesz decided to pursue composing and developing his own sound difficult to mistake for another’s.

Lillevan
Lillevan is an animation, video and media artist. He has performed and collaborated with many artists from a wide array of genres, from opera to installation, from minimal electronic experimentalism to dance and classical music; performed and exhibited all over the globe, and at all the major media festivals.
Lillevan recontextualizes, combines, and politicizes existing film images and fragments. The images are a communicative medium that interact with the music. The selection of the images can either support the sound or work against it, the aim being to achieve a dialogue. He sees his work as a multilayered process, giving each viewer the opportunity to focus on different details and moments. Human perception remains the final interactive element of live video composition, creating new and unexpected relationships between non-related imagery.

Bétøn
Bétøn is a modular music project emerging from artists of FTRSND collective. Its members are neither fixed nor defined allowing them to travel across many musical aesthetics. Bétøn’s artists are versatile and have performed in many well-known places such as Ancienne Belqique, Botanique, Dour, Fuse, MIMA, Recyclart and TEDx.
For this opening concert they decided to play for the first time an electronic reinterpretation of Terry Riley famous « In C » piece.

Good to know:
Friday 13 October 2017
Studio 4 – Flagey

20:00 – Doors
20.30 – Fennesz & Lillevan
21.30 -Break
22.00 – Béton
22.45 – End

Tickets

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The festival is at its second edition: it started last year with around 27 venues and 44 events, shaking up the city and introducing the electronic music culture in all its multifaceted aspects to the citizens. Among the venues, there were Fuse, MIMA, Beursschouwburg, L’Amour Fou and Bonnefooi, which are going to be present once again in this edition, together with many more. This year the event is richer and even more eclectic: it holds more than 30 locations scattered around the city, and offers more than 60 events.

“The BEM aims at showing how rich and diverse the electronic music environment is, while underlining the cultural abundance and creativity of Brussels’ nightlife. It also offers a great opportunity to discover new urban spots, bars and venues all around the city, to seize Brussels’ pulsing life and surprising secrets”, confirmed the co-creator Brice Deloose.

He underlined the importance of reinforcing Brussels’ cultural and nocturnal life, making it more appealing and known to the citizens and to the visitors.

“When you talk about electronic music, people think about Berlin or Amsterdam. We have great artists, Belgian and international, who play in the city and spice up the nightlife. Offering the a platform to perform and visibility is a great opportunity: it brings up the eclectic cultural and musical scene of Brussels and it fights bias related to electronic music”.

One of the main objectives of the event is, in fact, presenting the evolution of the genre and detach it from negative and old-fashioned bias. Electronic music is not just an 1980’s creation, forgotten in the underground scene and related to drugs: it is lively, modern, multifaceted and rich in influences; it reflects, in a way, the multicultural and quickly-changing character of Brussels.

The event does not just stop at concerts and amazing parties: it offers a range of workshops and conferences to find out more about electronic music and its applications, and it is also related to a multi-sensorial exhibition hosted at Palais du Coudenberg called Synesthetics (from the 12^th to the 20^th of October). As the title suggests, the expo focuses on connecting music to the senses, making the experience more complete and enjoyable. The pieces are from Belgian and Dutch artists and combine everyday objects.

“The idea is to suggest that music and art are deeply connected and are not distant concepts from reality or everyday routine. The two subjects are a part of our day and they are linked with our lives, with the things we come in contact with, with our experiences”, stated Laurent Quillet and Martin Marique from Balaise, the curators of the exhibition.

The exhibition, as the Brussels Electronic Marathon itself, aims at giving a new perspective on art, challenging bias and prejudice and combining the pieces of the palais with music. “It is a new concept, a new way of collaborating”, confirmed Frédérique Honoré, director of the Palais de Coudenberg, “it enhances Brussels’ cultural heritage, presenting it under a new light”.

Don’t miss the chance and see Brussels under a new light!

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