COSMO Wild Card: Emir Taha & Keshavara

In the organizer's words:

COSMO Wild Card - an evening with attitude and vibes. In cooperation with the Philharmonie Essen, we present the avant-garde of the global underground. This time with Emir Taha from London and Keshavara from Cologne.

Emir Taha

Emir Taha combines the melancholy of Anatolia with the sounds of tomorrow. He was born in Antalya in 1997 and grew up in Ankara, but also moved all over Turkey with his family. His acoustic guitar was his constant companion, almost like a second home.

The classic singer-songwriter school shines through in all his tender songs, but his romantic-poetic stories are accompanied by very different beats.

He sometimes sounds acoustic, sometimes electronic - sometimes danceable, sometimes melancholic and sometimes sings in Turkish or English. Falsetto vocals in the style of The Weeknd meet Turkish melodies, trap beats, dreamy pop or Anatolian boogie. He landed a number 1 hit in Turkey in 2021 with "B.S.G." and produced three EPs and his red-hot debut album "E.T. phone home" in his adopted home of London.

In his shows, Emir Taha mixes youthful joie de vivre with timeless melodies and fat grooves, an unforgettable live experience - intimate and captivating at the same time.

Keshavara

In their songs, they worship "Indian gods in Sauerland" or ride "In the elevator through quicksand". Keshavara is more than just a band, they are a weird parallel universe in which 80s synth pop meets South Indian percussion, the audience floats on psychedelic funk clouds or meditates to circus music.

The band was founded by Cologne-based Keshav Purushotham, who was introduced to music at an early age by his Indian father and also lived in India as a child.

What began as a solo project in 2017 has now grown into a four-piece band. On the current album "III", Keshavara present themselves for the first time as a playful quartet, jamming around the quirky sound of a squeaky Farfisa keyboard and singing in German, Hindi, English and their own Gibberish.

A concert by Keshavara is a mind-expanding experience, a journey into a funky fantasy world in which space and time stand upside down.

DJ A-Lo

Anne Lorenz aka DJ A-Lo is part of the COSMO music team and a proven digger. She celebrates her broad passion for music with various Cologne crews. In her sets, A-Lo does not stop at latitudes, genres or beats per minute.