Berlin-based festival Pop-Kultur will step into the digital realm for its 2020 edition.

The much-loved event will host its full, sprawling line-up online for the first time. Participating artists have been commissioned for digital performances, works and insider looks into intimate details of their lockdown setups. With an international line-up locked in for the upcoming edition, on 26-28 August, Pop-Kultur are using their platform to reach a global audience, and stay digitally connected.

Ahead of the event, we asked three artists to break down their digital performances. Yugen Blakrok will take audiences to her farm in Spain, and below we’ve got Jessy Lanza and Cartel Madras representing Canada on the programme.

Jessy Lanza © Jenia Filatova

Jessy Lanza

Talk us through your lockdown situation. Where are you? Who are you with? What does your creative setup look like?

I’m in Redwood City, California living with my partner and his family. Right now my studio is set up in a treehouse.

What works have you discovered during lockdown that have inspired you?

We have been working our way through Nicolas Roeg’s trilogy Bad Timing, Eureka and Insignificance which have been really fun movies to watch.

Talk us through your Pop-Kultur performance. Who is involved and what’s the background to the piece?

In the performance I’m playing through a couple of my favourite chord progressions. The first one, Angel of Mine, is one of the first pop songs I learned as a kid. The second is A Broken Heart Can Mend by Alexander O’Neal which is a track that had a big influence on me when I was writing my new album, All the Time.

What exciting opportunities are brought about by working solely digitally?

I don’t really like working alone to be honest. The exciting part for me is sharing my music with friends and collaborators and getting feedback. When I’m working on something remotely with another musician the best part of the process is when I get their email with feedback or with a new file that has changes they’ve made to the track we’re working on.

Yugen Blakrok

What does lockdown look like for you?

I’m in Marseille, France, with Kanif, Ralph and his trumpet. Our creative space is pretty mobile, we set up as we need. We do our rehearsals and work on songs. Recorded and live-streamed performances are a good way to get around travel restrictions and closed venues.

Was isolation and restriction something that fed into your approach before this?

Yes, we do prefer to isolate when we’re creating. There’s something about keeping an energy, letting it build up and then letting it out that works better than trickling ideas and constant updates.

What’s been inspiring you?

The different ways that artists are finding to get deeper into the virtual world. To be honest, I’m still very uncomfortable with the idea of a physically disconnected cyber future but I can’t help but be impressed by innovation and technology all the same.

What can we expect to see from your Pop-Kultur performance?

We shot a music video in France and Spain, contrasting the old world and the new, an inner state of peace and the external physical world. We’ve been having a lot of conversations about this time of restrictions and forced self-isolation and what ways we could make the best out of a disempowering situation. The video was shot by Nat Jones from the UK and Francesca Berselli in Marseille.

What’s been interesting, or encouraging, about this period of creating and performing online?

It’s a different way of expression and has its perks but I’m rooting for us finding answers and a way through this period so we can go back to seeing each other’s faces again. We miss each other.‎

Cartel Madras

What does lockdown look like for you?

Eboshi was in Toronto and Contra was in Calgary. It was tough to be apart but we made it work and made a lot of music. Eboshi was in a high rise with Jide (the producer of Working) and they experimented with a lot of new sounds and techniques, and they ate a lot of food. Contra was in the family home in Alberta and started the lockdown situation in a manic haze of working out, eating clean and obsessively writing. The beginning was extremely uncertain as we had just finished our first US tour with Sudan Archives and we had literally landed in our respective cities and everything was shut down immediately after. We played the last live show at Bowery Ballroom in NYC and had no idea what to expect, if we were going to go on our US tour with Clipping in May, if we were going to tour at all again for the rest of the year (spoiler: we don’t). There was a lot of fear and resentment as the situation unravelled.

As time went on, we made plans for how we were going to continue our year as Cartel Madras and gear up for our next EP. We mapped out some features and collabs and cooked up some new shit during these strange times.

What’s your creative setup like?

A bag of chips, several pairs of headphones, notebook, laptop, beers and tea. An interface, some tears, 100 open tabs and a joint.

What works have you discovered during this time that have inspired you?

24/7 ambient livestream. Rediscovering Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. Saw You For the First Time by Laurence Guy. Tyris White’s discography.

Can you talk us through your upcoming show?

Working is a classic hip-house track. Jide, the producer and member of our music collective, grew up in London and brought that UK house feel to the track; Disclosure was a big sonic influence for him. For us, this was a return to the vibe we wanted to create in Housey from our first mixtape. We’ve always had a deep love for house music and queer dance music; this track feels like a home for what we love in music aesthetics. The music video fits into this: the muted neons and the mood lighting make for obvious visual cues to what this piece is all about. It was important for us to include Jide in the video as well because he was such a key part in crafting the atmosphere of Working and because we are all a part of the House of THOT NATION.

What exciting opportunities are brought about by working solely digitally?

The democratisation of online networking is a big one; instead of going through labyrinthine channels of management, labels and potential peers, people can just reach out and DM each other. Inboxes might get full, but in this new digital landscape you’ll have a better chance of talking to an icon via Instagram or Twitter than by shooting them a generic interest email.

What’s been interesting about creating with a digital-first mindset?

The DIY nature of online content right now feels very familiar to how we grew up showcasing our varying interests. It’s exciting because anyone with a phone or computer can make content and share it with so many eyes and ears. We’ve done very few online-exclusive performances during this time; we still like to craft an online show with intention and make it as close to the live experience as possible and we’ve barely been in the same city, so it has been difficult. The livestream shows and digital festivals can be a cool way to see your favourite act in a stripped back setting, it can feel really intimate.

With all that being said, we have felt a deep loss in the closure of some amazing venues, and in the inability to be onstage and amongst a crowd of sweating people getting fucked up at a show. We built our following and our artistry by having crazy underground shows and parties and testing out all of our music with audiences before we even hit the studio. There’s something exciting about this new crop of exclusively online artists; they have tenacity and they are so in tune with the internet. While we deeply resonate with internet culture and appreciate ease of access to artists in different countries, in some ways we feel like we are part of this currently endangered culture of hip-hop acts and underground shows in packed venues that aren’t quite a bar, nor a stadium; where the act is on stage but still close enough to pass you their doobie or their drink.

We miss stumbling into a dingy Airbnb at 4am after exploring a city that we only spend one night in and waking up at 8am to hop in a bus to get to the next. It is so scary to think that the public enjoyment of art is, in itself, such a fragile and delicate ecosystem. We have a completely renewed sense of gratitude and awe for the shows we’ve attended and put on.

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