Sonica announces its 2024 programme

The world of music and art collide in Glasgow’s ambitious biennial festival Sonica, which returns this autumn (19-29 Sep) for its eighth edition. The audiovisual art festival will take place in an eclectic array of venues across the city, from places like Tramway, The CCA, and The Glad Cafe, to more curious arenas, like the giant IMAX at Pacific Quay, the Burrell Collection and the intimate Govanhill Baths.

Sonica kicks off on 19 September at Tramway with the Scottish premiere of Nati Infiniti from modular synthesizers genius and Nine Inch Nails member Alessandro Cortini. The show is described by Sonica as “moving from blissful drone music to skewed synthesiser melodies and towering slabs of noise,” and they say that this one-off event will “meld the almost familiar with the distinctly alien.” Sign us up!

We love the sound of Echoes of the Burrell, a new collaboration between Sonica and the Scottish Ensemble, which is described as "a fusing of sound and space" with an afternoon of live music at the Burrell Collection (22 Sep). Curated by violinist Jane Atkins, this free performance will take audiences through ancient and contemporary melodies inspired by the Burrell's environment, exhibits and architecture. There’s also the UK premiere of Celine Daemen’s virtual reality installation Songs for a Passerby, which won the Immersive Grand Prize at Venice Film Festival 2023 (Offline [Formerly GAMIS], 19-29 Sep). Described as a VR opera, it sees audience members travel through a surreal musical dreamscape by donning a VR headset and following an animated avatar of themselves through a shadowy cityscape filled with wild dogs, a dying horse and a choir of murmuring people. 

Another must-see (and hear) will be the world premiere of Alex Smoke’s Wind of the Sun, which is described as Smoke’s “vision of the most colossal powers in creation wiping out life in a single devastating stroke.” Heavy stuff. The Glasgow electronic musician will perform this piece on 21 Sep at the Govanhill Baths, which should make for a memorable venue for a performance that’s "a pummelling rush of noise and sensation that peels the hair from our scalp and leaves us feeling lucky to be alive.” Smoke also helps close the festival on 29 September at Tramway with Tapemoana, the musician’s collaboration with French artist Paul Duncombe. The show blends visual data taken by Duncombe from deep seas expeditions exploring endangered coral reefs with a dreamy, ethereal score from Smoke.

Other Scottish-based artists to look out for in the Sonica programme include Glasgow’s Becky Šik, who’s investigating what it is like to be a bat, drawing together their investigations into bat echolocations, satellite tracking and the practice of magnet fishing (Romano Lav, 19-29 Sep); Scottish Album of the Year nominee SHHE presents new immersive multi-vocal work The Moving Tides, inspired by Rachel Carson’s book on the climate crisis, The Sea Around Us (Tramway, 20 Sep); and Harry Gorski-Brown, who’s exploring the limits of the bagpipes in Elephant you shake your sheep, a collaboration with French electronica artist Annabelle Playe (Tramway, 26 Sep) – to name just a few.

There’s a Sonica takeover of the huge screen of the IMAX on 28 September with a curious double-bill. Glasgow’s Konx-om-Pax will be dissolving the boundaries between what we see and hear in a show that we're told will be a “thrillingly synaesthetic experience” and there’s FEMINA, from Italy’s Riccardo Giovinetto, which takes visuals from Renaissance paintings and combines these with contemporary electronica and visuals to explore traditional notions of beauty.

As ever, Sonica are bringing many international artists to Glasgow and you’ll find some interesting collaborations afoot. There’s the first-ever UK performances from Myanmar’s cosmic electronic artist and genre film aficionado Heft (Tramway, 26 Sep). Danish music ensemble NEKO3 and German multimedia composer Alexander Schubert combine for a pop concert of the future (Tramway, 21 Sep). And expect some warped queer pop from No Plexus – aka Dutch artists No Compliments and Bec Plexus – who’ll be performing together in the UK for the first time (Tramway, 28 Sep).

This year’s Sonica also marks the 30th anniversary for Cryptic, the Glasgow-based promoters who put on the festival. “Sonica 2024 will be the culmination of our celebration of an incredible 30 years of Cryptic, which began life in Glasgow in 1994,” says Cryptic’s founding Artistic Director Cathie Boyd. “It showcases everything that Cryptic has gone on to become known for: bringing cutting-edge, internationally-renowned artists to Scottish audiences and giving an ambitious platform for Scottish artists to stand alongside them.”

Sonica Glasgow 2024 Promo from Sonica on Vimeo.

The above is just a taste of the Sonica 2024 programme. For the full lineup, head to sonic-a.co.uk

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Tickets for Tramway and Govanhill events go on sale from 29 May. Tickets for all other live events go on sale from late June