Riga’s experimental music festival Skaņu Mežs 2026 will take place on October 9–10 at Hanzas Perons (16A Hanzas Street). In addition to the previously announced artists, five more acts now expand the program: experimental hip-hop artist Cities Aviv, French-Moroccan singer Sophia Djebel Rose, and Latvian experimental electronics projects Sofi and m.a.t.a.d.a.t.a., as well as composer Agita Reķe with her installation “My Distraction”. Two-day tickets can be purchased here; their price is 60 EUR. “Duo tickets” are also available for 50 + 50 EUR.
Cities Aviv (USA)
Cities Aviv is an artist based in the United States. Since 2011, the Cities Aviv project has redefined the hip-hop landscape through restless experimentation. He is affiliated with the NYC-based label D.O.T. Audio Arts.
Cities Aviv’s real name is Wilbert Gavin Mays. He’s a Memphis‑born rapper, producer, and former hardcore punk vocalist whose work helped define the early 2010s wave of left‑field, cloud‑rap, and experimental hip‑hop. His debut mixtape “Digital Lows” (2011) earned glowing reviews from Pitchfork and Spin, establishing him as one of the most distinctive underground voices of his era. His subsequent releases are diverse and experimental, often exploring contrasting sonic directions. Mays is also an accomplished creator of instrumental electronic music – his project African-American Sound Recordings combines instrumental hip-hop with electroacoustic music, ambient music, and noise.
Sophia Djebel Rose (France, Morocco)
At the crossroads of folk, vocal performance, noise, and avant-garde songwriting, Sophia Djebel Rose creates a singular universe where the voice becomes a space of exploration and transfiguration.
On stage, she presents a minimalist performance built around guitar and harmonium, where the intensity of the voice, the ritual dimension of singing, and the connection with the audience are at the heart of the experience.
https://sophiadjebelrose.bandcamp.com/album/s-cheresse
Raised between France and Morocco, she shapes a plural body of work informed by multiple trajectories, weaving together Mediterranean heritage, mysticism, experimental soundscapes, ecological sensitivities, and feminist perspectives.
Sofi (Latvia)
Sofi (Sofia Zaiceva) is a Latvian sound artist and performer. With a background that spans classical piano training and electroacoustic composition through live coding and the DJ scene, she has developed a distinctive approach to experimental electronic music that prioritises an open-source philosophy and creative live coding. Through contemplation on digital obsession, she excavates the relational qualities of sonic environments, revealing how digital processes can articulate deeply human experiences.
https://sofi.bandcamp.com/album/hypergloss
Her latest releases include the collaborative album “SHE HAS CANDY” by the duo CATPURSE (SØVN Records, 2025), the solo albums “hypergloss” (Superpang, 2025) and “aze” (Riforma, 2024).
Jakub Knera of The Quietus describes Sofi’s music as “a journey through computer music marbled with fleeting, iridescent melodies, curious harmonic resonance, and a mix of sublime and fractious impulses… the music treated as living matter, coding serving as a form of live improvisation”.
Agita Reķe (Latvia)
Agita Reķe is a Latvian electroacoustic music composer, performer, and sound artist. Her artistic practice encompasses fixed media, live performance, audiovisual works, and sound installations.
As a composer, she has collaborated with contemporary music ensembles such as L’Ensemble Multilatérale (Paris), Fractales (Belgium), NAMES (Salzburg), Ensemble for New Music Tallinn, Latvian Radio Choir, and Sinfonietta Rīga. As a performer, she has been a member of the electroacoustic experimental project Systema Solaris (Riga) and the electronic duo flowerpower.
In her artistic practice, she explores spatial electronic sound and textural sound synthesis, focusing on the perception of sonic space. In audiovisual works, she is interested in the interaction between image, sound, and environment, and in how audiences engage with audiovisual space in a contemplative, perceptual manner.
At Skaņu Mežs 2026, Reķe will present her new work “My Distraction”. It is an audiovisual installation where sound, voice, and visual material merge into a unified spatial experience. Built from four interconnected parts, it explores the processes shaping human perception, associations, and our relationship with the surrounding world. Minimalist and subtly hypnotic in its aesthetics, the work traces the tension between noise and silence, the pull of digital dependency, and the search for renewed connection between body, mind, and self. It invites slow, attentive listening and looking, opening a path toward self‑encounter while reminding us of our place within a larger natural context – one in which humans are not the centre, but a small, inseparable part of an immense and largely unfathomable whole. The work is presented as part of the sound art project tekhnē.
m.a.t.a.d.a.t.a. (Latvia)
m.a.t.a.d.a.t.a. exists as a corrupted future directory. Root path: postApocalypticRenaissanceVehicle. Destination node: unavoidableUnknown. Executable file: danceNotDance.exe. System patch: mandatoryIncrementalUpdate.
https://dirtydealaudio.bandcamp.com/album/u
The festival is supported by the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, Riga City Council, Goethe-Institut Riga, the Trust for Mutual Understanding, BALTA and Valmiermuižas Alus.
Skaņu Mežs is part of the sound art project tekhnē, supported by the European Union and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia. The festival is also part of the NERDS network, co-funded by the Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture.
Media partners include The Quietus, TVNET, Satori.lv, Radio NABA, Arterritory, magazine “Mūzikas Saule”, and la.lv.
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