Rewire was only a week ago, and my brain still lingers on the highs we experienced in The Hague across a multitude of venues and three different churches. In general, the Dutch festival which just turned 15, comes across as a shrine to music created for the sake of music and nothing else. While it naturally has its commercial aspects and features world-renowned headliners like Oneohtrix Point Never (who played Amare on the Saturday), they go out of their way to present us with global talents that have largely passed under the radar of streaming services.
Granted, networks of likeminded festivals have sprung up across Europe, e.g. TIMES (The Independent Movement for Electronic Scenes) is a co-operation between 10 events including Atonal, Nuits Sonores, Le Guess Who?, Sonár and Unsound. Sadly SHAPE, which, like TIMES, was EU-funded has now come to an end. But there is also NERDS, which is funded by Nordic Culture Point and works with e.g. Intonal, CTM and Norbergfestival. Rewire, however, is not a part of any such programme. They get funding from the city and the national arts council but they are also great at selling tickets, with almost all of them selling out in 2026.
This year they also invested in eye-catching wristbands with UV threads, as well as hundreds of UV flashlights – mainly to foil gatecrashers with fake wristbands. They offer a lush 160-page programme and sell some seriously enviable merch. They also partnered with the newish club venue Laak this year, which was started by Torus who also played Rewire (and had to jump in as a replacement for Kavari).
The night at Laak went on until 7am on the main day of the festival, with OK Williams closing. I really was hoping to get there to catch Dim Garden (one of the artists we recommended in our picks) but it proved logistically impossible to get there and back from the other venues.
But I’m still incredibly pleased with the late night programme at Paard and Grey Space, where Netherlands-based DJs like Chinnamasta and Yb3L offered stunning sets along with Spanish legend JASSS (b2b with Batu) and NTS host mi-el from London. Sadly the gig with Pebblle never happened due to a fire alarm going off in Korzo during the Speaker Music set. I had been looking forward to catching the Amsterdam-based DJ, and I hung around for a while but it seemed like a lost cause.
I did see some other great shows at Korzo though, a venue I’d walked past dozens of times in the past but never entered. They run a concert series curated together with Rewire throughout the year and I started my Saturday out with listening to French artist Ouri there. She played at 6pm, meaning you could easily have racked up a 12+ hour marathon if you stayed out until closing.
Ouri’s show was musically similar to the one I had witnessed in Copenhagen last year, as she played tracks from her album Dasiy Cutter, but as a whole it surpassed all my expectations. Everything from what she wore to the lighting and music came together to create a gesamtkunstwerk. Ouri wore white latex stockings tucked into platform heels and a filmy dress with a cutup denim skirt sewed on to the front and back. She switched from the keys to the cello to pacing the stage to standout track ”Paris” (which normally features Oli XL from Stockholm).
Saturday last year I had plenty of time to browse the art installations that are a part of the festival’s Proximity programme, but this year I prioritised catching up on sleep to be able to last the night. That meant skipping out on the talk hosted by Radio WORM and Juana Molina’s artist talk. I did however catch Suzan Peeters’ mesmerising performance on the accordion in Nieuwe Kerk. It was the first time I’d seen a concert in there and it was completely packed well before the start. That’s part of the trick with Rewire – at certain times where there is not much else on it might be impossible to get into shows even with less widely-known artists. Peeters’ approach to her instrument reminded me of Bendik Giske’s physical handling of the saxophone.
On the other hand I was surprised that Laurel Halo didn’t fill Amare for the screening of Julian Charrière’s Midnight Zone. Perhaps people missed that she would be performing the soundtrack live? Either way it was the most gorgeous underwater footage I have seen – check our instagram for a short sequence. There was a moment where the camera moved back to show the smaller fish circling the light source – imitating its rotation in what felt like a truly transcendental moment, up there with Stan Brakhage’s work.
I missed Joanne Robertson but luckily she’s playing Intonal festival this week in Malmö. Instead, I ran back to hear the last few minutes of Acopia, getting caught in the queue as hundreds of people arrived to Paard in time for James K. I managed to see two songs at the end of their show and contentedly shuffled into the venue’s main room to squeeze my way to the front. All because James K has ini my opinion created the most perfect encapsulation of what life in the 2020s is like. Of course, Friend was my favourite album and ”Play” my favourite song of 2025 (perhaps of the decade), just like ”Blinkmoth” was my favourite of 2024.
Frankly it’s been heartwarming to see James K’s not-quite-meteoric-but-still-monumental rise to adoration. Two years ago she played one of the smallest stages at Dekmantel, to a crowd sitting on the floor, only to sell out venues on her 2025 tour and now, filling Paard to the brim. And all of the above well over a decade into her artisthood. She said she had prepared a set you could cry to, and refrained from playing the bouncier tracks (like ”Play”). If you were disappointed, rest asssured the remixed version of Friend is coming out any day now, with tracks adapted into a wide range of styles – intertwining with club music.
There was an uncanny feeling of synchronicity as I later passed by Paard when she was getting into a taxi, and I felt compelled to thank her even if she clearly was not in a mood to talk to anyone. And on the Sunday night, she appeared in front of me during the Neubauten show. This is the second time this happens to me at the Rewire closing night, after I haphazardly ended up next to a friend from Arizona during last year’s Laurie Anderson concert. What is it with me and Amare?
I had just returned from Colleen’s show at Concordia (which was shamefully under-attended). I had seen her play about a decade ago and she mentioned that she too, was returning to Rewire after about 10 years. She performed music from her new album Libres antes del final which features a modular synthesiser. For the show she has a rented Moog Matriarch and she jokingly showed us the print-outs she’d brought to remember the transitions and where to place the patch cables.
Like many other artists Colleen seemed as much a performer as an attendee, and it was great to hear her speak about her experience at the festival and how everything at Rewire was rated on a scale from ‘amazing’ to ‘mind-blowing’. She has come a long way since the acclaimed The Golden Morning Breaks from 2005 (on the legendary Leaf label) which scored a stunning 8.0 on the then-relevant site Pitchfork. These days, a parallell would be Kavari’s recent EP on XL, except these day we don’t care anymore. If people didn’t trust their own knowledge and understanding of music, a festival like Rewire probably wouldn’t exist.
While passing James K in the street, I was determinedly marching towards Grote Kerk to see her friend Malibu play. This was another one I expected to fill up well ahead of schedule, but I was able to get a seat on the front row no less. It was my first time in this church as well, since I never managed to get there last year.
Malibu had the same lighting design as for the show I saw her play last year in Copenhagen. While that was in a tiny venue, it took on a completely different form in that huge church – cast in darkness apart from what appeared almost like a search beam. As it swept across the seated crowd, I spotted someone with a Zoom recorder, capturing the live set. That’s about as nerdy as a festival experience gets. It was only surpassed by a photographer filming parts of Ouri’s set with a huge, whirring 32mm movie camera.
With most of the huge choir invisible due to the ardent light of the beam that doubled as a strobe, the empty space was felt and heard rather than seen. I don’t think any other artist’s music at Rewire this year was more suited to echo through those archways than Malibu’s, it felt like it was made for a church. One of the tracks off of recent album Vanities is even called ”L’empire du vide”. And as I snuck out I suddenly saw troves of people stretched out on the floor in bliss.
A pleasant surprise was how unhinged the Slikback show afterwards in Paard got. The Kenyan artist really pushed the envelope with the AV show Friction (featuring maltdisney and Tasya). Careening tempos and gabber kicks got the crowd, me included, into a frenzy. While the program said it would be based on his Attrition LP from last year (rightly ending with a track called Fracture), the show felt like those tracks had met the Hyde to their Jekyll, coming out twisted and evil on the other side.
I don’t think the video below does it justice but I did feel compelled to document it for posterity. As if no one would’ve ever believed me, now that this incredulous show had come to an end. I even took a break from jumping up and down only to film it for you, so there.
From there, the night continued into states of clubbing and dancing, to return to where this article started off. I will leave you there, so as to insure you still have enough patience to read our third and final round-up, coming up soon.
Top photo of James K by Wouter-Vellekoop
