The Next Day #163: Berlin Weekend Guide

Back from my vacation in Brazil. The theatres are still on holiday, so the season opens sideways: Volksbühne skipped the stage entirely and built a 25-meter pool. Friday is already sold out.

Around it, a weekend that does not slow down. MAGMA takes RSO for two days, which function as two different festivals: Saturday deep and Sunday pop. Kynant runs its first Panorama Bar night with Paul St. Hilaire live. Nadia Struiwigh plays at MONOM on Saturday, and that is the one I am going to. Sunday holds the best few hours: Eris Drew and Octo Octa all afternoon on vinyl, Moodymann on a roller rink after that.

And August is already stacking up. Tanz im August, Sound in the Garden, Pop-Kultur. A dense month, and we are keeping notes.

Lalai

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Sunroof at silent green, live and improvised, which rarely happens (see above). Gropius Bau stays open late with AL.Berlin. Ana Frango Elétrico at Lido for the Rio band, or the Genesis P-Orridge documentary at Kantine.

Spätschicht x AL.Berlin [gather]
Thursday · 5-10 pm · Gropius Bau, Niederkirchnerstr. 7 · free
Tenth edition of the late-night series, this one co-curated with AL.Berlin and spread across the building and the south terrace. Sonic Interventions play the terrace, moving between jazz, groove, improvisation, spoken word and dance from diasporic ground. TRU:L and Bogdan D. bring three vinyl sets of music the record shops here mostly skip. RAWY Films and Refuge Worldwide fill the rest of the evening.

Ana Frango Elétrico [live]
Thursday · 7 pm · Lido, Cuvrystr. 7 · €32-35
Ana writes, plays, produces and arranges, and the live band is where all of that comes loose. Bossa and samba sit next to post-punk guitar and funk without any of it reading as costume. One of the people at the center of the Rio scene currently rewriting how much Brazilian pop can hold at once.

MORE ON THURSDAY

↳ S/HE IS STILL HER/E: Berlin premiere of the Genesis P-Orridge documentary, with a Q&A hosted by Chloe Lula. Also Friday, 8 pm. Doors 7 pm · Kantine am Berghain · €12 [watch]

↳ Ragana + Dis Fig: Queer black metal from Olympia and Oakland, then the voice of Dis Fig. Spixe opens with hardcore. 8 pm · Neue Zukunft, Alt-Stralau 68 · €25 [live]

↳ Sole x Micheline: Six days of oysters, rotating wines and lunches that run into dinner. Duck breast carpaccio, shrimp toast, mussel croquettes. Noon-11 pm, until 08.08 · Kienitzer Str. 93 · oysters €2.50 [gather/drink]

↳ The Shape of Us: Eight artists on mutation as a form of intimacy, curated by Keumhwa Kim. So Young Park activates her installation with voice and body at 8 pm. Opening Thursday, 7 pm. Artist tour Friday, 3 pm. Runs to 23.08 · Kunstpunkt, Schlegelstr. 6 · free [look]

↳ Passing Signals: MR TC and Fergus Clark of 12th Isle open a new listening series with The Burrell Connection. Food by dream_e. 6 pm · ikii, Herrfurthplatz 8 · donation [frequency]

↳ Berlin Beats: Nene H: SWANA, Muslim and femme perspectives from the founder of UMAY, in the museum garden. 7 pm · Hamburger Bahnhof, Invalidenstr. 50-51 · free [frequency]

Volksbühne opens a pool on the street, free and with no ID. Kynant at Panorama Bar for dub techno with a live voice. Angel Audio if you want to learn something before you dance. Oppenheimer's THE END on the grass at silent green.

VOLKSBAD am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz [gather]
Friday, noon-9 pm; and Saturday, noon-8 pm, until 01.10 · Volksbühne, Linienstr. 227 · free, time-slot ticket
The new season opens with no stage and no podium, just a 25-meter lane built on the street outside, chip stall included, free and with no ID. Friday has a crawl crash course with Vorspiel, DJ Angel and Ghostpoet. Saturday is (a)synchronised swimming with the Regenbogenforellen. Slots drop at 2 pm, three days ahead.

Kynant [sweat]
Friday · 10 pm · Berghain | Panorama Bar, Am Wriezener Bahnhof · €20-22
First label night for Kynant on this floor, built around the low end of dub techno. Paul St. Hilaire sings live, three decades after the Rhythm & Sound sessions that set the template. Steve Rachmad brings back his Parallel 9 alias, Aurora Halal plays after appearing on Kynant’s own record, and Laura BCR holds the ambient ground.

MORE ON FRIDAY

↳ Angel Audio 001: Sound system design and tuning with Carlo Hermann and Aarti Kriplani, then Appleblim, Uta, Skratch, Genoe and comf. Workshop 7 pm, music 9:30 pm · 90mil, Jannowitzbrücke [frequency]

↳ Joshua Oppenheimer: THE END: A musical set in a bunker after the collapse, screened outdoors as part of Lost in Finity. 9:15 pm · silent green, Gerichtstr. 35 · €6 [watch]

↳ Symbiotic Glitches: AC+ Collective: Twenty women artists across the building’s layers. Opening with performances and a DJ set; herbal walk Saturday noon; artist tours 2 pm both days; Jinran Ha performs Sunday 4 pm. 07-09.08 · Lobe Block, Böttgerstr. 16 · free [look]

↳ everybody: Group show opening with EVA & ADELE, up until 29 November. Reason to build a Grunewald afternoon around it. Opening 6 pm · Georg Kolbe Museum, Sensburger Allee 25 [look]

↳ punx’n’kweenz festival: First festival edition of the queer punk night born in Kopi’s cellar in 2019. Bands, market, tattoos, Dornika. 4 pm, two days · Neue Zukunft, Alt-Stralau 68 · €32-60 [live]

↳ Calentura Vinyl All Stars Vol. 2: Flea market, salsa workshop, Creciente live, then Paulah, Simón JaVa and eÑe. Part of proceeds to Venezuela. 7 pm · Panke, Gerichtstr. 23 · €15 [gather]

↳ This Will Destroy You: Texas post-rock built on dynamics rather than riffs, twenty years in and still playing rooms this size. 8 pm · Bi Nuu, Schlesisches Tor · €29 [live]

MAGMA all day (see above), and the night is a different ticket. Struiwigh at MONOM, ambient in 4DSOUND. EEE at Panke, heavy and small. Symbiotic Glitches at Lobe Block, herbal walk at noon.

Nadia Struiwigh presents IAMBIENT [frequency]
Saturday · listening 2-6 pm · live at 6 and 9 pm · MONOM, Nalepastraße 18 · €34 (live meditation) - €22 (listening session)
Struiwigh is a producer and a certified sound therapist, and the live set is built on contrast, stillness against movement, thin texture against deep tone. Spatialized in 4DSOUND, so the sound arrives from around you and not from a stage. Lying down, eyes closed.

EEE [frequency]
Saturday · 10:30 pm · Panke, Gerichtstr. 23 · €13
Ziúr headlines the series that has become the reliable home for heavy experimental bass, with bela, ALEX WANG and Kilo Vee. Small room, loud system, thirteen euros. The Saturday for anyone who wants weight without four to the floor.

MORE ON SATURDAY

↳ Sound Biesenthal 2026: An hour north, in a watermill, sound as material and as method. Curated by Domenico Positano and Tjioe Meyer Hecken. Saturday & Sunday, noon-7 pm, until 30.08 · Wehrmühlenweg 8, Biesenthal · €24 [look]

↳ Unkompress Saturday Session: JINI: Tokyo selector on vinyl, funk through fusion to soul, with the house chef grilling on the terrace. 5 pm · Fichtestr. 23 · free [frequency]

↳ Else Birthday: 40 hours: Nightmares on Wax, Young Marco, Dee Diggs, Angel D’lite and Thabo across a covered open air. 2 pm · An den Treptowers 10 · €20-40 [sweat]

↳ Luis Küffner: Synphonetics: Küffner runs synthetic speech through live coding until it glitches. With Júlia Koffler, Miran Thiemann and Olmatri. 8 pm · BHROX bauhaus reuse, Ernst-Reuter-Platz · free [frequency]

↳ Barbi Recanati: Argentine songwriter, formerly of Utopians, running Goza Records and one of the sharpest feminist voices in rock in Spanish. Badehaus, Revaler Str. 99 · €28 [live]

MAGMA continues (see above). Eris Drew and Octo Octa all afternoon on vinyl, Moodymann on a roller rink after that. Jinran Ha at Lobe Block. arkaoda's basement in the evening, one of its last.

T4T LUV NRG x Haus der Visionäre [sweat]
Sunday · 2 pm · Haus der Visionäre, Eichenstr. 4a · €22-28
Eris Drew and Octo Octa bring their daytime party to Berlin for the first time, playing an extended b2b entirely on vinyl after sets from ābnamā and Immy. There is an ambient area for when you need to sit down, on-site harm reduction, and community ticketing built with the collective tracey. Priority is held for trans and queer guests.

LOVEDANCIN’ Roller Jam [gather/sweat]
Sunday · 3 pm · ZIK, Schloßstraße 78-82 · €25
Moodymann playing a roller rink is not a sentence that comes up often. LOVEDANCIN’ takes over ZIK and puts skaters and dancers on the same floor, with skates rentable at the door.

MORE ON SUNDAY

↳ Berlin Circus Festival: Catalan focus this year, and Sunday brings Fèmut, Grind art club and two works in progress. Until 16.08 · Tempelhofer Feld, S+U Tempelhof · €18-23 [gather]

↳ Dub&Dal meets DAYTIMERS: Two collectives pulling South Asian diaspora music into daylight, with O.M.Theorem, yungfya and Sinhwave. Food on site. 4 pm · 90mil · tba [sweat]

↳ Souon music and vinyl market: Curated record market, live performances and a listening session by the canal. Noon · Fluxbau, Pfuelstr. 5 · free [gather]

↳ Ambient Picnic: Blanket, park, low volume. Location sent to ticket holders 24 hours ahead. 6 pm · Tiergarten · €5-10 [frequency]

↳ Delphis Orakel x Makoto Sakamoto: Live soundscape and improvisation for the release of TRANSPORTED MAN. 8 pm · Theater im Delphi, Gustav-Adolf-Str. 2 · free/donation [frequency]

↳ DJ Fart in the Club b2b Cousin: All night in the basement, and one of arkaoda’s last. The venue closes at the end of August after nine years. 10 pm · Karl-Marx-Platz 16 · €10-12 [frequency]

Sound in the Garden 2026 [frequency]
12-16 August · from 6:30 pm · Neue Nationalgalerie, Potsdamer Str. 50 · €26-90
Four nights of live concerts in the sculpture garden, then a full Sunday given over to sound installations built around Fujiko Nakaya’s fog. Across the week: Gigi Masin, Valentina Magaletti, upsammy, Dopplereffekt, Space Afrika, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Slauson Malone 1 and Michael Rother. Sunday runs from 11 am with Stephen O’Malley, Kali Malone, Alva Noto, David Tudor and Ryuichi Sakamoto moving through the mist, museum ticket until 6 and free after that.

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↳ Kee Avil (11.08): Montreal guitarist building songs out of scrape, breath and processed voice, on Constellation. Neue Zukunft, Alt-Stralau 68 · €11 [live]

↳ Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy (11.08): Will Oldham, three decades of writing songs that sound older than he is, in a room built for broadcast. RBB-Sendesaal, Masurenallee 8-14 · €44-56 [live]

↳ Tanz im August (13-29.08): Cloud Gate Dance Theatre brings Sounding Light; Calixto Neto’s Bruits Marrons gets its German premiere. Nineteen productions total. HAU, Radialsystem & Haus der Berliner Festspiele · €14.30–48.40 [watch]

↳ Agnes Obel (15.08): Danish songwriter, long based here, playing outdoors among the gardens. Gärten der Welt, Blumberger Damm 44 · €63 [live]

↳ Stian Westerhus (19.08): Norwegian guitarist who runs the instrument through enough processing that it stops being one. Neue Zukunft, Alt-Stralau 68 · €25 [live]

↳ ¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U (20.08): Industrial collapsing into gabber into anime score into gqom, played loud and without a shirt, Errorsmith and yungfya open. Haus der Visionäre, Eichenstr. 4a · €27-37.50 [frequency]

↳ Pop-Kultur 2026 (24-30.08): Mostly commissioned work, so most of it exists only here. Plan around 26.08 at silent green, with Bar Italia and Avalon Emerson & the Charm, then Dis Fig, Discovery Zone and The Notwist on 29.08 at Kulturbrauerei, and múm closing at Pierre Boulez Saal on 30.08. [live]

↳ Poliça (25.08): Channy Leaneagh’s voice through layers of processing, warmer on the new record than on the early ones. Peter Edel, Berliner Allee 125 · €28 [live]

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