It’s the time of year when the Lunchmeat festival is taking place once again. One of the most innovative audiovisual festivals in Europe will take place in Prague from September 23 to September 27. „Since 2010, Prague’s Lunchmeat Festival has been dedicated to curating an audiovisual festival in the truest sense: adventurous electronic music with new media art, creators from diverse spheres of arts assembled together, at an accessible price. Commissioning distinctive world premieres between musicians and visual artists, with cherry-picked talents from our local scene; no headliners, no support,“ writes the festival team.
What not to miss on this year’s edition? Check out our recommendations below ↷
Friday 25.9. / KMRU & Nick Verstand present: As Nature (AV live)
As Nature is a multisensory mirage, consisting of tectonic ambient sonics by KMRU, a kinetic audiovisual situation by Nick Verstand, and a specifically crafted scent by Mareike Bode.
KMRU’s field recordings blur the lines between the concrete and the abstract, with the Nairobi-born, Berlin-based sound artist masterfully incorporating field recordings into the body of sound, outputting waves of drones, noise, and harmonic structures. With releases on Editions Mego, Touch, and Subtext, his work focuses on listening practices, ecology, and sonic memory beyond conventional auditory frameworks.
Nick Verstand has worked with diverse contexts, from iconic light design of Iris van Herpen’s fashion shows to collaborations with Björk, Doja Cat, Caterina Barbieri, and Marie Davidson, among others. Here, his sculptural approach to light design is manifested through the ever-evolving relation of lights, fog, airflow, and fabrics. Commissioned by Rewire Festival, Barbican, & Lunchmeat Festival Prague.
Friday 25.9. / Buena Tarde & ztaa present: Resonant Mass (AV live WP)
Resonant Mass is an audiovisual performance by a Mexican duo, Buena Tarde and ztaa, that explores the brutalist architecture of Mexico and Europe, as both material and concept, approaching it as a resonant body.
Buena Tarde’s music is inspired by trance states and emotional dualities, blending Dubstep, Ambient, Trip-Hop, and Lo-fi, driven by textures and monumental low frequencies. ztaa’s multidisciplinary practice explores psychic and perceptual phenomena emerging from technologically mediated sensory experience. Utilizing real-time granular sound synthesis and live visuals, the duo works at the intersection of rhythm, sound design, and textural manipulation with austere, amorphous visual languages, generating hypnotic visuals, where architecture is approached not as representation, but as an expanded musical instrument. Commissioned by Lunchmeat Festival.
Friday 25.9. / Miriama Kardošová presents: I Tell Her To Speak (live)
Slovak artist Miriama Kardošová presents the audiovisual piece I Tell Her To Speak that combines a club show with an avant-garde performance, adding elements of cabaret and featuring several international guests. In it, Kardošová tells the story of Victoria Oren, her alter ego, an imaginary pop star on the brink of collapse, whose unsettling appearances often generate situations of discomfort and intentionally disrupt the audience’s personal space. The extreme forms of stylization and bodily modification that Kardošová employs through her handmade masks and costumes reflect the transformation of a world in which a personal crisis becomes political and serves as an indicator of a broader social crisis.
Friday 25.9. / umru (dj set)
Not many producers have influenced electronic music the way umru did. With credits on some of the most important contemporary pop albums, and legendary sample packs that leak into the production of people all over the world, the prince of hyperpop comes to Lunchmeat to present a saturated and fun, CDJ-defying DJ set.
Saturday 26.9. / 15:00–19:30 Label Fair
Support the independent music ecosystem, all the hard-working DIY labels and record-releasing initiatives, and visit Lunchmeat’s Label Fair with electronic labels and collectives from all over the Czech Republic and Slovakia. You will get to browse through their latest catalogues and merch all afternoon and meet like-minded people before the evening shows kick off at Lunchmeat.
Saturday 26.9. / Kevin Richard Martin & Charlie Hope present: Sub Zero (AV Live)
Famously known as grandmaster The Bug to those with a soft spot for heavy sub-bass action, Kevin Richard Martin arrives at Lunchmeat under his legal name, and with possibly the slowest recording of his to date. Glacial, slow-motion excavation of drug-tech, dub, dreamy noise, and frozen ambience, his album Sub Zero delivers hypnotic pulsations and piercing melancholia. It’s still dub, only disappearing in the many layers of its own effects, going through a metamorphosis, reappearing as a sonic environment. He will be joined by London-based visual artist Charlie Hope, who uses light, motion, space, video, and coding as building blocks for creating sensorial images and environments across sound, performance, and installation. Together, they will conjure a heavy audiovisual storm that was informed by their conversations about disorientation, weather systems, and haunted sonic landscapes, implementing Hope’s own custom-built 360° laser system. Premiered at ICA London earlier this year, Sub Zero gets its first reprise at Lunchmeat Festival.
Saturday 26.9. / Isama Zing & DJ GÄP present: Prelude for Light and FogAV live (WP)
Isama Zing and DJ GÄP need little to no introduction on the Central European scene and beyond. Both are accomplished producers, with Isama Zing specializing in songwriting and film soundtracks (for which he received numerous Czech Lions), while DJ GÄP crafts internationally acclaimed gems for the dancefloor. They join the festival with what might be their most Lunchmeat-suited performance to date, Prelude for Light and Fog, a piece that gives voice to the hardware itself. Eight fog machines, four strobe lights, and twelve moving heads become inspiration and co-authors, with their sound amplified and transformed into an immersive, percussive, and tonal soundscape.
Originally presented at PAF at Pioneer Works in NYC as a work in progress.
Saturday 26.9. / Kevin Peter He & FITNESSS present: Passage (AV live)
Kevin Peter He is a New York-based, Shanghai-raised artist and director working across performance, installation, and cinematic media, collaborating with Oneohtrix Point Never, Sougwen Chung, Torus, Flume, and A$AP Rocky among others. His work explores how systems of progress modulate perception, physicality, and human connection. Technical elements like cameras, sensors or game engines become active performers with whom he creates work in which the mediation and translation of those bodies never stop. In Passage, he collaborates with a custom sculptural camera controller that helps him navigate the virtual forest in real time in an hour-long take.
FITNESSS is an experimental electronic performance art project hailing from Los Angeles. Fueled with raw energy, FITNESSS creates situations that challenge the notions of being and communion through movement, electronic sound mass, and post-modern aesthetics. Invited to score the Passage, FITNESSS reacts to the change in the environment, lightning and movement, going through an emotional landscape, from tender, soft moments to fervent rage.
Saturday 26.9. / Zora Jones (live)
Zora Jones is an iconic mainstay of the club scene; while her previous work as co-founder of Fractal Fantasy stood out thanks to an audiovisual approach to world-building and anthemic, futuristic, and club music-inspired tracks, she’s currently focused on her solo project, with the voice as the centerpiece.
Saturday 26.9. / Safety Trancepresents: Destrucción (AV live)
Existing at the intersection of techno-forward energy as Cardopusher since the 2000s, Venezuelan producer Luis Garban carves out an expansive sonic world, rewiring the DNA of Latin music as Safety Trance. He’s offering an experimental take on reggaeton with an occasional touch of euphoria, collaborating with GRAMMY-winning producer Arca and placing himself at the forefront of a new wave of Latin experimental electronica.
His new album, sacrificio, is about a transmutation of the sacrifice we make every time we go to the club and offer sadness, grief, and desire to purge it all out via sweat.
Saturday 26.9. / Bitter Babe b2b Lechuga Zafiro (dj)
Bitter Babe and Lechuga Zafiro share a lot in common; from releasing on the iconic TraTraTrax label to a shared selection of tracks that explore high percussive energy and a colorful sound design palette, those two make a perfect b2b match.
Bitter Babe is a Colombian DJ hailing from Miami’s underground scene, cultivating a rhythm-led and club-focused sound, mixing guaracha, dembow, and reggaeton with global electronic music. Her releases graced Club Romántico and SVBKVLT, while some of her music can be heard on the Obsidian Dreams show at NTS Radio.
Uruguayan artist and DJ Lechuga Zafiro prioritizes playfulness and genre-fluidity in his sets, while his music was released on labels like Salviatek, Cómeme, N.A.A.F.I., and others. His work expresses the nuances of Latin American experience through music, expanding the shared knowledge of sounds and rhythms from the Southern Hemisphere, influenced by the drums of the Afro-Uruguayan candombe tradition, Mexican tribal music, and Angolan-Portuguese kuduro rhythms.
Sunday 27.9. / upsammy & Valentina Magaletti (live)
Valentina Magaletti and upsammy have been creating neighboring worlds of their own. Magaletti is an avid collaborator, and her flying, characteristic drumming has intertwined with the works and worlds of Holy Tongue, Nídia, Moin, Nicolas Jaar, and many, many others, including Italian writer and poet Fanny Chiarello.
Upsammy’s production is more introverted, inspired by subtle airy sounds, microscopic sound design, and gentle bass-worthy kicks in intricate drum patterns. Her signature, almost-organic use of digital production and field recordings makes a perfect partner for Magaletti’s drum skills. And with this level of talent comes effortlessness that feels as natural as breathing.
A fluid sonic body of Seismo that was released on the scene-defying PAN label last year teaches us a lesson in spatial attention, with things happening in different layers at the same time, balancing, almost dancing with each other. Spanning from organic-infused footwork patterns to high-pitched piano dueting with glitchy brainrot samples from the Internet, upsammy and Magaletti utilize their best skills in a fun, exciting, and musically masterful way.
Sunday 27.9. / Autechre (live)
Across nearly three decades, Autechre have honed a sound of rich textures and elastic bass, instantly recognizable and uniquely their own. Shaped by influences ranging from techno and electro to hip-hop, their sound spans 14 albums released on genre-defying Warp Records and continues to push electronic music forward. Their pioneering use of generative and algorithmic processes allows them to sculpt rhythms, timbres, and structures that unfold in real time. As founding figures of the genre that shaped independent electronic music, they have inspired artists from SOPHIE to James Blake to Oneohtrix Point Never.
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Read more on the Lunchmeat official website
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