Pharmakon + Tot Onyx + bela // Urban Spree, Berlin

"Pharmakon is the solo experimental music project of Margaret Chardiet based out of New York City and formed in 2007. Pharmakon's live musical act has been described as confrontational and concise, attempting to "cross the boundary between performer and audience". Her songs are completely prearranged both live and in recordings, more focused on perfecting a sound rather than generating randomness in noise. Swamp Booking presents iconic noise/industrial artist Pharmakon for an 4 date exclusive tour in Europe/UK for March 2023. Having released some of noise and power electronics most revered records on the legendary label Sacred Bones, Pharmakon continues to be an unmatched force in underground music." ”Senno I” is the solo debut album by Tot Onyx aka Tommi Tokyo, who has been a founding member of the Japanese performance art/live electronics duo group A since 2012. They incorporated the use of the body in their noise & poetry-performances and they made some resonating appearances at festivals like Berlin Atonal. Adept at bending expectations, both live and recorded, the band’s formative early work echoes the experiential vocabulary in which Tommi continues to develop today. A practice in the rejection of tradition and cliché, which in Greil Marcus's words, "Share the principles of negation, rebellion, destruction and détournement”. Tommi Tokyo has worked in graphic design and photography and has worked for theatre and other forms of stage arts. Tot Onyx is her deeply personal project which shares the founding energies of group A, but is traveling deeper and elsewhere. This is a rich study of her interior life. bela is a performance artist and musician influenced by Korean folk music and club culture, based in Seoul and Berlin. Their practice involves extreme vocal performances accompanying meticulous electronic composition of pungmul music. bela's recent performances engage in the depths of queerness and miscommunication across and beyond the boundaries of language by critically positioning oneself as an unheard speaker in traditional Korean narratives. bela’s 2022 tour with okkyung lee and Yeong Die includes shows in Cafe OTO, the white hotel, A4 Bratislava and more. They performed for CTM Festival(2023), Unsound Festival Kraków(2022), and Rewire Festival(2022). bela is a co-runner of Sorrow Club*: a mixed event series involving music and performance from global acts such as Ana Roxanne, Lucy Liyou, Salamanda and Swan Meat.