Sunday 15 March 2026, 7.30pm
Assyouti has built a reputation for music that treats chaos as a creative force - frenetic, theatrical, and emotionally charged. For this night at OTO he has curated a line-up gathering artists who share his instinct for sound as unstable matter: voice, rhythm and texture pushed to the point where structure begins to give way. The UK debut of Elvin Brandhi and Sara Persico’s semi-liquid vocal architectures and Xterea’s grime-caked subterranean frequency plunder will sit alongside Assyouti’s live reworking of the score of the 1928 silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc, stretching and disassembling it into a fragile, unstable sound field. Three practices that find something raw and alive in the moment before things rupture.
Elvin Brandhi and Sara Persico combine their distinct yet complementary practices in a duo that engages with layered, intricate vocal textures. Voice, rhythm, and abstraction interact continuously, oscillating between intimate whisper and industrial exhale.
Elvin Brandhi, a global nomad originally from Wales, blends distorted beats with her improvised stream-of-consciousness lyrics, creating a volatile soundscape that is both chaotic and captivating. Her extensive collaboration history and participation in international festivals highlight her dynamic artistry and commitment to innovative music.
Sara Persico, a Berlin-based artist from Naples, merges her powerful vocals with analog electronics, field recordings, and samples. Her music, featured at renowned festivals and venues, navigates abstract electronic sounds, bass-heavy club music, noise, and vocal experiments, reflecting her versatile and fearless approach.
The duo constructs a precarious, semi-liquid soundscape in which splintered pulses, sparred voices, and interwoven peaks itch along the edges of perception to explore the intimate margins of the self. Their performances unfold as evolving, mutating sonic structures, constantly evolving and resonating with audiences worldwide.
Born and raised in Egypt’s crowded, disordered capital Cairo, Assyouti is among his generation’s most distinct and unapologetic voices. Juggling hypermodern bass mutations, warped dancefloor snaps and percussive club experiments, he draws energy from the chaotic stimulus he grew up engulfed by, moving fluidly between supercharged, frenetic feverisms and moments of introspective emotional hypnosis, usually weaving (in and out of) both creating high-pressure narratives fueled by a sense of theatrical disorientation.
Since relocating to Berlin in 2021, Assyouti has appeared at renowned festivals including Unsound, Berlin Atonal, CTM, Intonal, and Uganda’s Nyege Nyege. In 2024 he founded No_Stone, an event series and cultural platform reflecting his
commitment to expansive, cross-pollinated adventurous music. He has released on labels such as DAWN, Hundebiss, High Digital, Shepard Tone, PAYNOMINDTOUS, and a slew of other imprints.
In this performance he reworks the score of the 1928 silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc, stretching and disassembling it into a fragile, unstable sound field. Voices and orchestral fragments are slowed, looped and eroded to the point of rupture, shifting from accompaniment to textural matter that flares and falls to ash as distortion and decay quietly overtake the image.
Operating out of London, Xterea crafts raw soundscapes that meet gritty fractured rhythms. Recent works include “I’ll Call You Later,” “Headcase,” and “Guardian of Zeus” on 5 GATE TEMPLE, as well as “Like the Shadows Before Babylon” on Mindseye Records and self released “The Ghost of X.” His live performances unfold as immersive sonic rituals — full-frequency incursions that challenge perception and expand the edges of his sound.
