Text by CLOT Magazine
Phonetics is a new digital festival focused on sound art and avant-garde musical practices with a strong focus on the exchanges with the Arab artistic community and cultural scene. Their first edition took place in November 2018 in Algiers. Then pandemics hit and derranged all the exciting plans for this newcomer to the experimental scene. The project was created by the French not-for-profit association Grand Angle, and it explores a simple concept: using sound as a vector of communication between artists, audiences, cultures and geographical areas.
After two countries and many date changes, they are back for good this September with a programme curated in collaboration with Rabih Beaini, aka Morphosis and the head of the experimental record label Morphine. The Lebanese-born producer has imprinted the already exquisite festival’s curation with his unmistakable signature.
Phonetics seeks, among other things, to disseminate the work of the participant artists while bringing an international audience to consider the Arab world and its living forces in a new light by means of artist collaboration and exchange. From September 8 to 19, 2021, in Saint-Denis, the area on the outskirts of northwest Paris, with its marked character, will become the exploration terrain for these artists and sound trailers. Phonetics will give Dionysians and Ile-de-France residents the opportunity to discover their territory through a sound trail with free-to-pay concerts, installations and performances. From the 8th to the 15th of September, the sound residence will take place, where artists will pair and experiment with new creations, while the music festival or sound trail will hit the streets from the 16th until the 19th of September.
The participating artist this edition include heavyweights of the experimental scene such as SunO)))’ss Stephen O’Malley, Rabih Beaini himself, Hieroglyphic Being, Waclaw Zimpel and a list of many other very stimulation names: Hasan Hujairi, Jessica Ekomane, Aya Metwalli, Rehab Hazgui, 9T Antiope, Youmna Saba, Zoe Mc Pherson, Tony Elieh, Territoires & Sylvie Blocher, Visio Aesthetica, Fethi Sahraoui, Visio Aesthetica, Fethi Sahraoui and Clarice Calvo-Ponsolle.
You can also read our previous interview with Grand Angle founder Wassyl Abdoun-Tamzali, with some really interesting insights from when the project was in its early days.
