The series of educational meetups began in April this year, when KONTEJNER and OTOK organised a gathering of music producers to encourage them to connect with like-minded musicians and producers from diverse backgrounds and with different approaches, and to initiate mentoring sessions with more experienced producers. The evening was an opportunity to exchange experiences, interests and music. Participants decided who they would collaborate with throughout the project, forming new musical duos. Over the following months, they worked intensively on producing and performing their music under the guidance of mentors Kristian Bagarić (varboska), Ivona Eterović (tonote) and Filip Talijić (takav). Through this collaborative process, new compositions, ideas and partnerships emerged, which the participants will now present to the public at the final event. Join us and discover what they have created: music born out of months of dedicated work, knowledge-sharing and a shared passion for sound creation.

PROGRAMME

1. Emil Feriz & Barbara Majnarić: "Upstream"

“The project was inspired by Barbara’s encounters with the folklore of unnamed locations, where tradition, in its attempts to explain the phenomena associated with local water sources, turns to the surreal and takes on elements of fantasy. Water, therefore, through a combination of conventional recordings and hydrophone recordings, provides a range of material for an ambient piece that explores the boundary between the real and the uncanny.”

From a production perspective, Emil’s primary interest lies in exploring the fluid boundary between conventional music production and sound-based composition. Some of his earlier, more experimental works were released under the pseudonym Close Reader.

2. Eva Badanjak & Nikolina Šušak Mandić: "Flickering"

“"Flickering" is an improvisation for flute and guitar guided by a time-based score that determines only the duration and direction of individual sections, while all the sound within this framework is created live. The piece begins with the smallest vibration and gradually builds in density until it spills over into dense, raw noise.”

Eva Badanjak is an independent artist, performer and producer, and one of the driving forces behind the band ŽEN, the ŽŽŽ collective and the SATARAXZ project. Her work brings together music, performing arts and DIY culture. Nikolina Šušak Mandić is a flautist and performer specialising in contemporary and electroacoustic music, as well as a software engineer who develops live-processing and generative systems using Max/MSP and Ableton.

3. Karla Ujević & Donat Radas: "Nacre"

“"Nacre"’ is a collaboration between these two musicians, who have brought their creative worlds together in Croatian-language lyrics and music that follows the pop genre in both structure and duration. The arrangement was further developed by Marko Magerl, who also played bass guitar, and Krešo Avar, who played acoustic guitar.”

Karla Ujević is a singer-songwriter who releases music in Croatian and English under the name Chanter. Donat Radas composes and produces his own music, which has yet to be released.

4. Ana Sičenica & Zvonimir Burazer: "Past Present"

“Expect a delay in wavelength
An invocation of time modulations
An echo of a space that does not exist
The instantaneous transformation of what has already passed

The work explores the interplay and relationship between hypnotic rhythms, unconventional sound design and raw club energy.”

Ana Sičenica / huggwave, is an audio engineer, DJ and producer working across a diverse range of post-genre sounds. A hardware enthusiast, she delves into distortion and embraces synthesisers. Zvone Burazer is a producer, DJ and promoter originally from Šibenik, currently active on Zagreb’s underground scene under the alias Slouch. His musical tastes span a broad spectrum of electronic music, with roots in mainstream EDM.

5. Tomislav Oliver & Jerko Jurin: "Shinji (しんじ)"

""Shinji (しんじ)" is a project in which Jurin and Oliver explore the expressive possibilities of live electronics in interaction with a drum kit equipped with Sensory Percussion technology. At the heart of the project is an Ableton Live session built around Max for Live devices that employ various methods of sound analysis and processing, including onset detection, amplitude following, corpus matching and machine learning. Using these technologies, the performer controls and shapes an electronic sound layer in real time through rhythm, dynamics and playing articulation. This layer consists of samplers, synthesisers and arpeggiators. The drum kit thus transcends its traditional percussive function, becoming an extended musical interface in which acoustic and electronic sounds complement and transform one another. The project explores the relationship between physical gesture and digital sound, opening up space for spontaneous interaction, improvisation and the creation of complex sonic structures in a real-time environment."

6. Antonio Mišurac

“The work presented is an attempt to create bass music using exclusively sounds recorded during KONTEJNER’s workshops, manipulated to such an extreme that they become unrecognisable. In doing so, it explores the idea that any sound can be transformed into any desired sound, regardless of its source."

Antonio Mišurac is a fan of distorted, hard-hitting and abrasive sounds, with a particular penchant for dubstep. For over 10 years, he has been experimenting with sampling, sound design and sound manipulation.