This year's closing act is Amsterdam/Berlin sound scavengers La Rat! Carelessly dribbling our vulnerable hearts with their hella compelling stories, these ever-so-charming rodent troubadours from Amsterdam hip-hop their way through life, spitting funky beats while they mop up all the catchy trash they can find. Here we get a glimpse of their process before they hit the garage this Saturday!

French folk legend Emmanuelle Parrenin has been making music with her hurdy-gurdy, harp, guitar, thumb piano, and so on, for decades, and still her music sounds relentlessly timeless. Her first solo album La Maison Rose, released in 1977, was reissued in 2017. Only her mystical drones could catapult you across that forty year gap so smoothly. She graciously replied to our kraakfest questionnaire ahead of her performance this Saturday!

Last spotted touring Europe in pre-pandemic times, Sugai Ken's much-awaited return to the continent has him stopping by KRAAK Fest for another inscrutable performance steeped in darkness and sound. The producer gimmickily deploys electrified renderings of folklore and nature, specializing in the replication of insect and bird sounds through purely electronic means so as to evoke the mystifying aura of the Japanese night. More on what he's been up to:::::

Using radio televisions, TV pattern generators, calculators and other electric paraphernalia, Maria Cervello Llorca's alter ego Polifeme blasts open portals to different manifestations of reality mapped by electromagnetic waves, warping frequencies into a pulsating, resounding creature. The visual element of the performance adds an amplitude akin to watching a mad scientist bring the impossible to life ~ here, she walks us through the experience of becoming and being Polifeme.

The four dudes that make up Ghent's De Regering Van Treffelijke Zaken (including KRAAK scene alums Ishtembashtok and Venediktos Tempelboom) have to basically be summoned out of their lairs in order to play together. This might explain why the music - psychedelic improvisations with a debt to the Sylvester Anfangs, the Träd, Gras Och Stenars and International Harvesters, and all the long-winded psych greats - hits with the kind of jolt that transcends preparatory mindframes. We hear more about their past and always uncertain present, where musical minds meet and melt!