Touch. 30
English electronica label Touch. (with the fullstop) has been around for 30 years. So that – you felt it coming – must be celebrated. Touch. was established in ’82 by graphic designer Jon Wozencraft and partner in crime Mike Harding. The striking thing about Touch. covers is the magnificent, nature inspired imagery. Wozencroft on that: “It's a project about beauty. I can find myself working on it as a gardener would.”

Electronica forms the largest portion of the label's catlogue. Think: turntablist Philip Jeck, Pan Sonic’s Mika Vainio, Thomas Ankersmith, minimal composer Phill Niblock and, of course, show pony: Fennesz. Coolest release: ‘The Noisiest Guys On The Planet’, a cassette by Norwegian Jana Winderen with underwater recordings of ‘boisterous decapods’ consuming their meal.

7:00 pm - SOUNDTRACK BY: The Ash International Sound System (uk)
Or Mike Harding. Co-founder of Touch. and instigator of the Ash International label. Harding is also ambassador of the imaginary country Elgaland-Vargaland that came into being in ’92.

8:30 pm - BJ Nilsen (se)
BJ – Benny Jonas to the friends – Nilsen is a Swedish sound designer who has previously worked with the likes of Chris Watson, Fennesz and cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir. He's keen on field recordings (“It’s the core of my work”) - that he went to record personally, in Portugal, Iceland and Japan - for his latest Touch. album ‘The Invisible City’ .The Milk Factory about that: “another magnificent piece to add to his impressive body of work”.

9:30 pm - Philip Jeck (uk)
Philip Jeck has a thing with vinyl. Long before Record Store Day, he began experimenting with electronica and record players in the early '80's. That was how he made soundtracks for both theatre and dance performances. His best known work is entitled ‘Vinyl Requiem’, a performance for 180 record players from the '50's-'60's, that won him the Time Out Performance Award in ’93. In The Hayward Gallery, for Sonic Boom in '00, he created the installation ‘Off The Record’ , with no less than 80 record players. In '05, with Gavin Bryars, he interpreted the man’s ‘The Sinking of the Titanic’ at the Venice Bienniale.

10:30 pm - Biosphere (no)
Biosphere is still the alter ego of Norwegian Geir Jenssen, who registered a whopping ambient house classic to his name in '97 with ‘Substrata’. Touch. has been his new homebase since ’00. Jenssen came close to doing an Aphex Twin’s ‘Selected Ambient Works Volume II’ with ‘Shenzhou’(’02). In ’11, Biosphere began to work on his latest album ‘N-Plants’ with as central theme the architecture and instability of Japanese nuclear reactors. Barely a month later, news of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima became known. Pitchfork crowned the album in the category ‘Best New Music’ and wrote: “the best Biosphere album since ‘Substrata’.”