Knistern

Knistern a musical exchange in sound and conversation 12:00 - Doors & Brunch by the Bad Apples 13:00 - Performances & Conversation with Bex Burch & duendita The conversation after the performances is hosted by Tmnit Ghide. Both artists bring questions to Knistern, that they are interested to find out about themselves. Thank you both for the trust to question and experiment in public in the intimate space of Richten25. Bex Burch approaches Knistern with an openness to experiment in public “exploring solo and all this means externally and internally, finding sounds and instruments to play on the themes of intuition, not knowing, gravity, surrender and trust”. Thank you Bex for using our little space to try out a new step .. including building instruments, instruments as partners to play with. duendita will bring questions of vulnerability and expression of radical honesty in their music to Knistern. They have practiced a diaristic and conversational approach to songwriting in the past two years. What happens when a deeply personal process becomes a public ritual and offering? In their set, they plan to reflect on how speaking from your own voice without abstraction can be a form of poetry in itself. Or how music production can be a way of processing emotions. And how honestly speaking about heavy topics can mean a release for others too, when they hear unspoken experiences articulated out loud. * Bex Burch is a composer, percussionist, instrument maker and improviser who emphasises space, repetition and aspects of chaos. These themes characterise an ongoing approach she describes as “messy minimalism”. Bex’s critically acclaimed 2023 debut solo album, 'There is only love and fear' was released via Chicago avant-garde label International Anthem and named The Guardian's Contemporary Album of the Month. She has previously released music as part of Boing!, the Strut-released cosmic Flock, critically acclaimed Vula Viel and has collaborated with a diverse range of artists such as Peter Zummo, Kuljit Bhamra, Evelyn Glennie, Tamar Osborn, Tony Buck and Macie Stewart. Beyond writing and performing music and running her DIY record label, Bex mixes and produces records, curates radio shows and runs ‘Kantine Musik’, a regular live music happening born of the quiet “tradition” of making music that brings people together, for each other. All of Bex’s work embraces uncertainty, co-creation and the potential for music to connect in deep, unexpected and intuitive ways. duendita is a Berlin-based artist rooted in South Richmond Hill, Queens, weaving their Nuyorican heritage into an expansive, genre-fluid blend of soul, jazz, and R&B. duendita blends soul, R&B, jazz, and experimental sound into deeply emotional, genre-fluid music that explores identity, relationships, mental health, and self-empowerment. With their upcoming album existential thottie (2026), they continue to shape a powerful artistic language rooted in vulnerability, healing, and community. Praised by The New York Times, Pitchfork, and The FADER, duendita creates intimate yet expansive live experiences that move between fragility and collective energy. conversation hosted by: Tmnit Ghide is Eritrean, born and raised in Southern Germany. As a DJ, music curator, and cultural worker, she operates at the intersection of art, music, and community.She is the founder of multiple platforms and initiatives, among them Edition Dimtsi (Springstoff), her radio show DiaspoRa.dio on res.radio, the cultural event series bun&beats, which highlights Eritrean culture, and Salon Dimtsi, a platform centered on collective listening. Her artistic practice engages with socio-political questions, approaching sound as an archive through which collective and individual experiences are made audible. In 2025, she was awarded the Kültüregemma Fellowship in Vienna, within the framework of which she develops the Black Music Archive (Vienna). Her work engages with questions of collective memory and cultural heritage, exploring how Black musical histories are preserved, contextualized, and made visible. During her residency at Villa Kamogawa in Kyoto (January–April 2026), she explored listening practices across cultural contexts. ** About Knistern Knistern describes a crackling sound, and is also a metaphor for something that’s in the air between people, be it a crush or an argument. Something invisible that makes the relational space vibrate and spark. Something magical, intangible and not to be pinned down that is happening in the moment of relation to each other. The series Knistern each time brings together two artists and a musical idea they are currently working on. They present their current work in a short set, and then have space to share their musical ideas in conversation with each other, a music journalist, and the audience. What happens in the space between the two artistic approaches, and what happens between people in the room in the conversation? And also, what happens between the sound and the review, the thinking, the tuning in, the conversation? Knistern takes place in collaboration with Richten25, project space for improvised music in Berlin Wedding. What we also like about the idea of knistern is that it’s contingent and ephemeral. It lives in the present, and something amazing may come out, or maybe it’s just a brief moment in time. ** Knistern is a series by Andrea Goetzke, Melissa Perales and Sumugan Sivanesan. Knistern is funded by Musicboard Berlin.