After two years of COVID delays and a one-off satellite show, RE—TEXTURED returned with its London festival of electronic music combined with a striking visual accompaniment in March 2022. The three shows took in Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, Printworks London, and FOLD from Thursday, March 24th to Sunday, March 27th. Mike Barnard was there.
‘Cruising’, ‘Adjust’, and ‘Flutter’ were played to an engrossed crowd before Barbieri made her way to the equipment at the front of the stage next to Giske to add her own synth fingerprints to his music.
Italian composer Caterina Barbieri opened RE—TEXTURED with the intention of turning her newly-formed light-years label into a live experience thanks to contributions from Bendik Giske, Nkisi, Evelyn Saylor, and MFO plus visual design by Marcel Weber at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. As the audience filed into the all-seater auditorium, they looked onto a sparse, black stage space with only two sets of electronic equipment set up - one at the front and another at the back. But it was neither which would be used when the lights went down: instead saxophonist Bendik Giske emerged from the left hand side of the stage to take up a position front centre.
Giske’s sound mixes deft percussion thanks to microphones on his sax’s leather pads with extended playing techniques such as a circular breathing that allows for long, continuous holding notes, which invite you into a trance-like state as he weaves his sonic magic. Smoke filled the stage with single white beams of light cutting through them, creating a sci-fi feel to the performance that coupled well with Giske’s music. ‘Cruising’, ‘Adjust’, and ‘Flutter’ were played to an engrossed crowd before Barbieri made her way to the equipment at the front of the stage next to Giske to add her own synth fingerprints to his music.
Barbeiri’s epic soundscapes are often raw, minimalist compositions that slowly build with layers of synths, and these combined organically with Giske’s more wistful saxophone to make an impressive live partnership. Meanwhile the white beams of light patiently tracked across the stage and morphed into tunnels of smoke maintaining the outer-worldly effect.
‘Fantas Variation for Voices’ was another impressive segment to the show with strong, precise, and structured vocal delivery needed to combine for the dramatic harmonies.
When Giske left the stage to thankful applause, Barbeiri did one solo performance before composer Evelyn was joined on stage by fellow vocalists Lydia Saylor Sara Persico Michelle Cheung to perform her ‘Fantas Variation for Voices’ based on Barbieri’s ‘Fantas’ from album Ecstatic Computation. This was another impressive segment to the show with strong, precise, and structured vocal delivery needed to combine for the dramatic harmonies.
Barbieri would perform a final time with lasers now punctuating the stage before Nkisi got behind the set of equipment at the back of the stage to close out the evening. Her set of industrial techno beats with dramatic snares and effects-laden vocals made for a more challenging listen than the eloquence which had proceeded, but there was some beauty in the coldness of the music as the white lights slowed to a stop and then flickered into darkness at the end.
The following evening, the action switched to Printworks London where the Live Room paired visual artists with hardcore techno acts, while the Inkwells space was devoted to an array of DJs known for their edgy selections skills that span hard beat genres such as electro, techno, and breakcore. In the Live Room, Krankbrother set the scene with ambient and drone selections for the early arrivals while Nkisi made her second appearance of the RE-TEXTURED weekend with more industrial techno for those wanting to get stuck into the dancefloor from the off.
The music evolved gradually from an atmospheric, disjointed selection of beats into a composed array of 4/4 techno that teased the crowd into dancing.
Back in the Live Room, there was a treat in-store from Rødhåd and Vril who presented their Out Of Place Artefacts live show with visuals from Michael Titze. The music evolved gradually from an atmospheric, disjointed selection of beats into a composed array of 4/4 techno that teased the crowd into dancing before pulling away into an, admittedly cheesy, soaring synth climax. At the same time, Titze’s mix of dramatic, shifting unorthodox CGI shapes, pencil-sketched cities seen from the viewpoint of a drone, and, finally, a bright sunrise-like conclusion synced beautifully for the highlight of the Friday evening.
This marked a change of direction for the RE-TEXTURED weekend as the provocative live sets gave way to the more in-your-face rave styles of VTSS, Rebekah, Paula Temple and Helena Hauff in the Live Room which were perfect for letting rip on the dancefloor and led to a throbbing pack on the dancefloor through to 3am. While the music was not the same forward-thinking styles as the night before or even the combination of Rødhåd and Vril, the visual work from Theresa Baumgartner, Pedro Maia, and Matt Woodham ensured the sets were given an arresting element helped by the use of the huge screen behind the DJs. They also helped made a case for Printworks perhaps opening up the Live Room for its Saturday daytime shows if they can repeat the impressive visual artist bookings, such was the strong response from the crowd.
We spent most of our time down in Inkwells where Baby T, LSDXOXO, Skee Mask b2b Stenny, and Hector Oaks were behind the decks. The vibe there was of an underground club rather than the ‘super space’ upstairs at Printworks, and was so much the better for cultivating an intimate response from the clubbers. A shame, then, that the soundsystem didn’t quite have the slamming bass that the music demanded: when LSDXOXO dropped ‘Mutant Exotic’, we wanted to feel that bass through our bodies, but no matter how close we were to the speakers, it just didn’t puncture our skin.
The provocative live sets gave way to the more in-your-face rave styles of VTSS, Rebekah, Paula Temple and Helena Hauff.
RE-TEXTURED would finish on the Sunday with a takeover at FOLD’s UNFOLD daytime party with an unannounced line-up that included Nkisi and Baby T on repeat performances plus Phase Fatale, Voicedrone b2b James Newmarch, Alessandro Adriani, Danny Clancy, Anilan, and Lockhart. We hear Nkisi was a huge highlight back on the decks in the early evening.
Images 1 and 2 by Nat Urazmetova; images 3 to 6 by Jake Davies. Article republished November 2026.