Music lovers get ready – Electronic Music Malta (EMM) is preparing to launch the 2020 edition of its annual Circuits Festival later this month. And this year’s Circuits programme is set to make Malta’s electronic music scene even bigger and better, as Laura Bonnici finds out from EMM and Circuits artistic director Luc Houtkamp and EMM board secretary Tina Camilleri.

Malta’s music scene is growing by the day, with new avenues constantly being explored by seasoned artists and new musicians, composers and producers alike. Regardless of their background – in the jazz, dance, popu­lar music or classical genres, for example – both musicians and their audiences are dabbling more and more in the world of electronic music.

Luc Houtkamp. Photo: Marek Choloniewski

This ongoing collaboration now promises to launch the local electronic music community further into the international music world. And supporting the community as it takes this leap out of its musical comfort zone is EMM’s Circuits Festival.

“When Circuits started, it was aimed at the musicians themselves and a small audience of experts in electronic music,” explains Luc Houtkamp, artistic director of both EMM and Circuits. “Since then, the festival has broadened its territory artistically, appealing to many different groups of music lovers.

“Electronic music is simply defined as music that uses electronics in one way or another – which offers endless possibilities of crossing borders and boundaries between musical styles and disciplines. To me, that is the essence of programming an electronic festival like Circuits: offering a chance for musicians from differing backgrounds and their audiences to mingle, while discovering musical styles that they might not have explored before.”

Organised as part of the Spazju Kreattiv programme, EMM (Electronic Music Malta) has hosted Circuits Festival annually here since 2016, with a programme of live music by Maltese artists as well as installations, talks and workshops on varying topics and music software techniques.

Tina Camilleri. Photo: META online

For the 2020 edition, which will take place between October 17 and mid-November, the Circuits concept hopes to go even further – into upping the skills of the local electronic music community to better prepare those in it to take their place on the international music scene.

“Despite the possibilities of social media, Malta, musically, is still a somewhat isolated place,” Houtkamp continues.

“Artists from other countries do not often visit the archipelago, while many local ones don’t venture beyond Malta. It is of great importance to hook up the musical life of Malta with the rest of the world and, especially this year, Circuits can help with that by producing innovative performances and hosting informative workshops and talks with electronic music experts.”

Shaped around the theme of ‘Away from the Comfort Zone’, the Circuits 2020 programme includes DJ and live performances by an elite line-up of electronic music artists including Giacinte, Tina, Hearts Beating in Time and KNTRL.

This is music, this is art, this is electronic sound. It’s a culture full of surprises- Tina Camilleri

A series of workshops will also explore topics such as building the ‘Storbju’ DIY synthesiser device, health awareness on exposure to excessive sound levels, the history of music production in Malta from the 1970s to today, and representation of the Maltese entertainment and arts industry, copyright and music law. An online workshop on spatial sound, with the participation of a live and online audience, will meanwhile be delivered by Grammy Award nominee Tom Ammermann and discussions will be hosted by organisations such as the MEIA, M3P Foundation, PRS and the Malta Association of Audiologists.

A particular highlight of this year’s programme promises to be the ‘Away from the Comfort Zone’ special project. This will offer electronic music artists the opportunity to collaborate with artists from other disciplines or spheres, in 10- to 15-minute performances that will be filmed at various locations around Valletta and screened throughout the Circuits 2020 festival, before being collated into a documentary to be premiered in 2021.

“The backbone of this year’s festival will certainly be ‘Away from the Comfort Zone’,” Houtkamp elaborates.

“Artists that would normally never have the chance to work together have been combined and asked to collaborate, such as Acid musician Neil Hales and actor Jeremy Grech, classical pianist Tricia Dawn Williams and DJ Owen Jay, producer Keith Farrugia and eminent jazz saxophonist Carlo Muscat, and Duo Blank with composer Ruben Zahra and light artist Toni Gialanzé. I will also be collaborating with Mari van Rooij, who often can be seen on the streets of Valletta, playing his terramaxka, a barrel organ.”

Luc Houtkamp is artistic director of both Electronic Music Malta and the Circuits Festival. Photo: Elisa Von Brockdorff

Bringing the ‘Away from the Comfort Zone’ from concept to reality was something that the EMM team had long dreamed about but it was nonetheless steeped in challenges – particularly when the COVID-19 pandemic was presenting challenges of its own.

“I feel that ‘Away from the Comfort Zone’ has been always simmering in the minds of various members of EMM, in some form or other, as a means of showing that electronic music is accessible to everyone,” elaborates Tina Camilleri, secretary of the board of EMM and coordinator of the ‘Away from the Comfort Zone’ project. “These artists had never collaborated in the past, so to collaborate meant that they would need to create a performance using instruments or concepts they were perhaps never exposed to before.

“Add to that the challenge of how these collaborations will be presented due to COVID-19 restrictions and this project has definitely taken us as an organisation outside of our comfort zone too!”

In the face of these obstacles, the ‘Away from the Comfort Zone’ project nevertheless promises to achieve the main aim of the Circuits Festival: to push artists out of their comfort zone and further into the world of musical innovation.

“When electronic music artists venture out of their comfort zone, they are venturing into the limitless,” Camilleri continues. “This is music, this is art, this is electronic sound. It’s a culture full of surprises.

The project ‘Away from the Comfort Zone’. Photo: Elisa Von Brockdorff

“The artists in this project were given artistic freedom to explore this journey to the best of their existing knowledge, as well as that which they were learning through the project. It is about the strength of productive collaboration, experimentation, pushing personal boundaries and experiencing music in every means possible.”

While planning this ground-breaking project – not to mention the rest of the Circuits 2020 programme – the EMM team had to remain flexible as the world tackled the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In January, we settled upon the first line-up for the festival, with many international artists. Then spring brought us a lot of uncertainty – nobody knew how this would impact us.

“In June, our hope was rekindled that we might still be able to bring some artists over from abroad but in the last two months we had to change our plans again,” elaborates Houtkamp. “So, now, Circuits 2020 will be a mostly online festival, with a few activities that can be attended live, by a selected audience, in line with the COVID-19 health protocols at the time.”

This year also marks the first that EMM, as a Maltese voluntary organisation, has received the three-year Investment in Cultural Organisations grant from Arts Council Malta, opening the door to far wider possibilities for the Circuits Festival.

“The Arts Council grant will not only help us to develop EMM as an artistic organisation but it will also enable us to expand Circuits into a professional festival, with the ability to invite foreign artists who will help local electronic music artists network with, and learn from, a far wider musical community,” Houtkamp explains.

“We are very honoured to also be a part of the Spazju Kreattiv programme and to have the support of the German Maltese Circle and the Goethe Institute. With these prestigious organisations supporting us, EMM – and Circuits Festival – can continue to help put everyone in Malta’s electronic music scene on the international music map.”

More information about the Circuits Festival may be found online at www.electronicmusicmalta.org.