Picknick Voices & Noises

In the organizer's words:

On July 6 and 7, 2024, the ALLIGATOR GOZAIMASU KOLLEKTIV is organizing the "Picnic Voices & Noises" festival in the Art Pavilion in the Old Botanical Garden. The two-day festival for experimental music and performance is based on a close network of musicians and visual artists.

ALLIGATOR GOZAIMASU (pronounced: go-sai-maas) is an open field for collective artistic encounters. Klaus Erika Dietl and Stephanie Müller laid the foundations for this international collective in 2015 in the underground scene of the Japanese twin city of Sapporo.

The name ALLIGATOR GOZAIMASU is a play on words, based on the Japanese "arigato gozaimsu", which means "thank you very much", but with a wink and a bite.

During the pandemic, the fluid body of sound of ALLIGATOR GOZAIMASU grew to almost 60 participants worldwide. Sound enthusiasts and artists sent each other melody fragments, soundscapes, noises and beats via a data cloud. So far, this has resulted in nine albums, which are available via the "bandcamp" music platform. A tenth album will be released during the exhibition period. All proceeds will go to civilian sea rescue.

At a time when political and physical boundaries are becoming particularly manifest, the multi-member collective is consciously freeing itself from them: In Alligator Gozaimasu, the most diverse musical genres rub up against each other and thus open up to each other. Electronic music is reinterpreted with hammered dulcimer, zither and accordion, queer dream pop and contemporary vocal performance mix up the raw noise mantra - when in doubt, for the contradiction.

PICKNICK VOICES & NOISES - The festival

The alligators and other artists can be experienced live on July 6 and 7, 2024, when the collective body of sound will be musically presented at the "Picknick Noises & Voices" festival. The two-day festival is financially supported as part of the Munich Department of Culture's pop program funding. Admission is on a donation basis.

The indoor and outdoor areas of the art pavilion in the Old Botanical Garden will be used as a resonance space. Pop meets sound art, classical music, new music, performance, dance and queer-feminist DIY punk spirit.

The powerful in the quiet - sometimes purely acoustic, sometimes delicately amplified - becomes a collective experience at "Picknick Voices & Noises". The central questions here are: What windows open up when pop music works site-specifically with the timbre of the location? How can the predetermined breaking point between historical ballast and contemporary experimentation become a creative area of friction?

"The Witches Of Westend" create each performance anew and adapt it individually to the venue. So every concert is unique. The feminist women's choir was founded in 2013 by Pola Dobler, who is also part of the band "Su Yono".

INGA enchants the Old Botanical Garden with experimental chanson pop. She looks for the notes that are missing and plays with the edges. In her home-recorded melodies, she explores her surroundings and socio-political issues with ease. She releases her albums on the Munich label Trikont.

Andrea Lesjak, founder of the KOLLABS music construction site in the Munich City Museum, gets up close and personal with the historic stone floor and makes it vibrate with her lithophone. Martin Krejci from the Institut für Leistungsabfall und Kontemplation interweaves his danceable noise-pop compositions with historical voices, which are transmitted using cassette recorders.

The now rare bees also make music with ALLIGATOR GOZAIMASU. A bee colony with multiple microphones is located on a farm in Großhub, Upper Bavaria. From there, beekeeper and sound artist Mucho Pitchu transmits the live sounds to the art pavilion. There is a beehive with the honeycombs deposited by the colony the previous year. Smell and sound - the animals' forms of communication - are made tangible in the form of a beehive equipped with loudspeakers.

There is also a premiere to celebrate at "Picknick Voices & Noises". Munich-based programmer and noise musician Thomas Mayer has developed the "ALLIGATOR BYTES" sound app in collaboration with artists Klaus Erika Dietl, Stephanie Müller and Masako Ohta. This will be presented for the first time in the Kunstpavillon and then made available to the interested public free of charge. The app, which accesses the smartphone's sensor data, turns our body into a musical instrument. Together with the percussionist and choreographer Ángela Muñoz Martínez and the wheelchair dancer and activist Sema Schäffer, Thomas Mayer, Klaus Erika Dietl and Masako Ohta are developing a site-specific, sound-based dance performance that makes the events and unevenness of the Kunstpavillon tangible. The dancers' movements influence the sound modulation.

Special thanks go to Ian Jakab. He performs at the festival together with Lina Zylla. In good weather, he and his DJ-BIKE will provide a stage for the participating musicians on the outdoor area in front of the art pavilion.

At the end of the festival, visitors are invited to listen in contemplation. The harp sounds of Melis Çom weave through the soundscape of Flurin Mück (drums, percussion) and Mathias Götz (trombone).

Mirca Lotz will accompany both festival days with a culinary picnic performance. As an organizer, curator and artist, Mirca Lotz also focuses on interdisciplinary projects and special venues, including the legendary "innen.außen.raum" festival, which was held on the grounds of the Prinzregentenbad in 2020 under the strictest conditions.

THE SMALL & THE MANY - The contributors

Exhibition "Interval & Chance" with contributions and impulses by:

Max Amling, Maria Berauer (The Hercules And Leo Case), Ruslan Boyarin, Stefan Brandstifter, Sabine Bretschneider (suolocco), Ulli Ball, Cup&Saucers (Miyuki Mori, Mari Watanabe), Klaus Erika Dietl, Rebecca Doubledecca, Pete Dowling, Thomas Glatz, Helena Hartmann, Ian Jakab, Jo, Elisabeth Anna Maria Kaiser, Ramsey Kattan, Anton Kaun aka rumpeln, Marino Kobayashi, Martin Krejci aka Institut für Leistungsabfall und Kontemplation, Gerhard Lassen, Mirca Lotz, Licia Lumen, Justine Maxelon, Djibril Mbow, Deidra Mesayu, Karen Modrei, Stephanie Müller aka Rag*Treasure, Chris Münster (In:Ex), Christian Nothaft, Masako Ohta, Mucho Pitchu with sonified bee colony, Inga Riedel, Iñaki Rocha Echevarría, Mikio Saito, Patrick Schimanski, Lisa Simpson aka Agente Costura, Thorsten Soltau, Hias Stadler, Aoi Swimming, Vladi Taranovych, Miu Terada aka OTACO, Andreas Ullrich (suolocco), Stephan Vogt, Peter Wacha aka DJ Upstart, White Hot Pants (Marino Kobayashi, Rina Ono), Sigi Wiedemann, Lina Zylla ... to be continued

Festival "Picnic Voices & Noises" with:

Melis Çom, Klaus Erika Dietl, DJ-BIKE, Pola Dobler with the choir "The Witches Of Westend", Stefan Dorner, Sebastian Giussani, Mathias Götz, Ian Jakab aka peluche, INGA, Martin Krejci aka Institut für Leistungsabfall und Kontemplation, Andrea Lesjak, Mirca Lotz, Thomas Mayer aka residuum, Monobob (Karen Afeldt, Stefan Afeldt, Maryvonne Porwol, Markus Rhein), Flurin Mück, Stephanie Müller aka Rag*Treasure, Ángela Muñoz Martínez, Masako Ohta, Mucho Pitchu, Sema Schäffer, Gerhard Wicho, Lina Zylla, Fabian Zweck