Text by CLOT Magazine
L.E.V. Festival Gijón has just revealed the latest names for its 19th edition. From 1 to 4 May 2025, live shows including local, national, and international artists will turn Gijón into a reference point for electronic sound experimentation and contemporary audiovisual, scenic, and digital creation.
The headliners are Ryoji Ikeda, Ash Fure, the collaborative projects by Amnesia Scanner with Freeka Tet and Katarina Gryvul with Alex Guevara, plus Iglooghost, Colin Self, Amelie Duchow, Pinch & Lorem, BABii, Mun Sing, Kabeaushé, Jailed Jamie, Lila Tirando a Violeta, Cortical, YESSi PERSE, and performances by Dylan Henner and Mizu.
Teatro de la Laboral will be one of the festival’s most essential spaces, with live shows on Friday, May 2, and Saturday, May 3. One of the highlights of this edition is electronic composer and visual artist Ryoji Ikeda, who will showcase live Ultratronics, released by Codex | Edition and Noton. This work reflects Ikeda’s mastery of combining sound and light with mathematical precision within a minimalist aesthetic.
ANIMAL, Ash Fure’s new work created with architect Xavi Aguirre, is an artistic production that combines performance and sound sculpture. Ash Fure defines ANIMAL as embodied listening in the face of the advance of artificial intelligence in music.
YESSi PERSE will showcase TOP5: Fairytales of Eternal Economic Growth, a concept album that explores the impact of large tech corporations —Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Apple— on today’s society. Amelie Duchow presents her project LOGOS MATER, a sound composition inspired by the phonetic and acoustic elements of languages from around the world.
Colin Self returns to L.E.V. to present ¡Gasp!, the second opera in his Self’s Shadow series. Self’s work expands consciousness by questioning binarism and exploring the limits of perception and communication in a proposal that invites the audience to participate in a collective and interdimensional experience.
Nave de LABoral Centro de Arte, a space where sound and light merge, will showcase Amnesia Scanner w/ Freeka Tet, BABii, Iglooghost, Mun Sing and Cortical. In collaboration with digital artist Freeka Tet, Amnesia Scanner presents their new joint project, HOAX. BABii will showcase her new album, Daredevil 2000, in which she delves into an abstract interpretation of evil projected onto her imaginary vision of hell. Iglooghost joins L.E.V. to present his new album, Tidal Memory Exo, which combines highly detailed soundscapes with a fictional narrative of trilobite civilisations and mutant musical genres. Finally, Mun Sing will showcase his next EP, Frolic, and Cortical will play their debut EP, Wretched Patterns and Terrible Mistakes.
Muséu del Pueblu d’Asturies will host outdoor shows during daytime hours on Saturday, May 3. Asturian artist Jailed Jaime will join Lila Tirando a Violeta, Kabeaushé and Skygaze to take experimental music and performance to a new level. Jailed Jaime will premiere Hyperdrive, a work that blends electro, jungle, and UK garage.
On Sunday, May 4, two outdoor morning performances will be at Laguna Boreal del Jardín Botánico Atlántico: Mizu and Dylan Henner. Mizu builds expansive soundscapes through her unique way of playing the cello. Her compositions fuse recordings of the instrument with electronic manipulation and experimental production. This year, Mizu presents a live show that combines the best of her works to date: 4 | 2 | 3, Forest Scenes and Distant Intervals, resulting in a multisensory experience incorporating live performance and body expression. Dylan Henner mixes synthesised voices, field recordings, and synthesisers, creating symphonies that oscillate between the serene and the desolate. In his performances, Henner addresses philosophical questions about humanity and technology.
Last, from May 1 to 18, audiovisual installations include Robbie Cooper at Centro de Cultura Antiguo Instituto and Ivan Liu at Colegiata del Palacio Revillagigedo. Robbie Cooper creates projects that examine the relationship between individuals and technologies, addressing themes such as media representation, virtual world immersion, and how digitalisation alters our perception of reality. Immersion is a video installation that shows these expressions in the foreground in a format that creates a mirror effect between the recordings’ protagonists and the work’s viewers. In L.E.V. curators’ words, Immersion challenges our way of looking and being looked at in the digital age, where art and technology converge to generate new forms of perception and dialogue.
Ivan Liu’s Echoes of the Land is an interactive installation that explores the connection between human activity and natural phenomena. It addresses how our actions can trigger seismic events and disrupt the planet’s equilibrium. The installation invites us to reflect on our relationship with the environment and the consequences of our intervention in nature.
With this new edition, the L.E.V. Festival once again confirms itself as a leading platform for contemporary creation and experimentation, providing audiences with a look into the future of audiovisual art.
L.E.V. Festival Gijón takes place from 1 to 4 May 2025. Tickets will be available from this link.
