The 2025 iteration of music-first festival Berlin Atonal marks its first following its official inclusion in the International Biennial Association — long-earned recognition of its status as one of the world’s most significant platforms for the presentation of experimental, interdisciplinary and non-commercial art and music. Inaugurated in 1982, the festival initially ceased its operations in 1990, but was revived in 2013. Since then, this uniquely curated showcase of sonic diversity and exploration has found its home within the hauntingly vast walls of the former industrial complex now known as Kraftwerk; a fitting setting for the festival’s atypical offering, which brings together innovators, leaders and underground names from across electronic, avant-garde and rock music.
This year, Berlin Atonal will present a five-day programme of new commissions, premieres, installations and club nights, with the objective to “mobilise artistic risk in order to initiate new modes of listening, gathering, and sense-making”. We’ve collated some of our must-sees.
Image credit: Joanna Chwilkowska
The majority of the festival’s music programme will take place on the sprawling main stage, including a performance from a new trio made up of noise legend Merzbow, Igor Cavalera of Sepultura and Eraldo Bernocchi. There will also be a major new live work titled ‘S.L.O.T.H.’, by “performance-enhanced culture jammers” Amnesia Scanner and artist and hacker Freeka.tet.
Known for his emotionally candid and sonically complex work spanning jazz, ambient, techno and modern classical, Djrum — the alias of British producer and musician Felix Manuel — will showcase a new sculptural and improvised performance. Meanwhile, festival-goers will also be invited to experience new audio-visual performance ‘Reign’, from Kenyan artist Lord Spikeheart and visual collaborator NMR, “drawing on the history and aftershocks of the Mau Mau Rebellion against British colonial rule”.
Image credit: Frankie Casillo
Berlin Atonal 2025’s much-anticipated art programme is titled Third Surface and follows on from the festival’s previous Metabolic Rift and Universal Metabolism exhibitions. The hybrid exhibition will be embedded within this year’s event and has been inspired by the “spirit of late-night venues from Weimar Berlin — spaces where the trauma of war and the shadow of fascism collided with the desire to gather, speak, and stay awake”.
Expect to see a new sculptural performance by Danish artist Kristoffer Akselbo, work by Italian artist Roberto Cuoghi, a new installation by Polish artist Joanna Rajkowska — known for her incisive interventions into public space and collective memory — and an installation from Norwegian artist Steinar Haga Kristensen, whose practice spans painting, sculpture, performance and architectural intervention as he interrogates the “unstable dynamics of image, authorship and recognition”. Among those creating the live music for the space are DJ E, Moin, John T. Gast and YHWH Nailgun.
Image credit: Helge Mundt
Art and music lovers alike will have the opportunity to immerse themselves in conceptual sound at PAN’s listening room, in the Kraftwerk control room. Look forward to selections from Entopia, an offshoot series “dedicated to expanding the function and form of the soundtrack”. Each evening of the festival will be dedicated to a work from the series, including the soundtrack to artist Cyprien Gaillard’s work ‘Retinal Rivalry’, Jenna Sutela’s ‘Pond Brain’, Anne Imhof’s ‘WYWG’, Mohamed Bourouissa’s ‘Lila’ and Jeremy Shaw’s ‘Phase Shifting Index’
Across the three club floors of Tresor, Globus and OHM, an expansive programme of DJ sets will take audiences on numerous journeys, exploring “genre, geography and generations”. Selectors will include Lil Mofo, livwutang, Still and TNTC, billed alongside scene-defining figures such as Rrose, Pinch and Calibre. There will also be must-see back-to-back sessions, including: Vlada with Skee Mask, re:ni with Mia Koden, Moritz von Oswald b2b Azu Tiwaline and a rare triple B2B from Anthony Linell, DJ Red and Neel.
Berlin Atonal 2025 will take place 27 – 31 August 2025 and tickets are available now.
