Friday, July 11th
Magnús Tryggvason Eliassen - drums
Tumi Árnason - saxophones, clarinets, etc
Roberta Andersen - guitar & electronics
doors 19:30 / show 20:00
2500kr / 2000kr for students with ID

Thursday, July 10th
RONJA / MINEO KAWASAKI
doors 19:30 / show 20:00
2500kr / 2000kr for students with ID / PAY WHAT U CAN

Mineo Kawasaki (Japan) is a solo drummer and composer who manipulates rhythms and effects with a MIDI controller as he performs. His sets include a mixture of post-rock, indie, electronica, techno and minimal music.

Saturday, July 5th
Night of Improvised Music:
Ragnar Árni Ólafsson, che buford, & Ana Luisa Díaz de Cossío
doors 19:30 / show 20:00
2500kr / 2000kr for students with ID / pay what u can

Ragnar Árni Ólafsson - electric guitar
che buford - violin
Ana Luisa Díaz de Cossío - violin

Ragnar Árni Ólafsson is an experimental musician variously working as a guitarist, composer or improviser. He performs his own music and the music of others, most often operating along a gradient between the two, preferring a raw and real-time exchange of musical ideas. His artistic work extends into other mediums, particularly film and text. Upcoming projects this year include a concert-length performance for solo electric guitar and the release of video work Quantongue Lessons with long term collaborator Luke Deane.

che buford (he, they) is an NYC-based artist whose work explores creating new narratives within the world of music while engaging in themes of memory and place.

che performs as a violinist in various musical settings, specializing in improvisational performance, contemporary compositions, electroacoustic work, and interdisciplinary collaborations. They have performed and presented work in spaces such as Roulette, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Joe's Pub, Antenna Cloud Farm, Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt, ISSUE project room, and National Sawdust. He has collaborated with artists including Palaver Strings, Adama Delphine Fawundu, Deborah Jack, Steph Davis, Pamela Z, and others. As a composer, their work explores the possibilities of timbre and acoustical phenomena and connects them to elements of place, memory, poetry, and the quotidian. Che has received commissions from artists and organizations including Longleash, The Rhythm Method, Midori, The Museum of Modern Art, Castle of our Skins, and others.

che is a founding member of Diaphanous Ensemble, a genre-bending composition, improvisation, and performance collective started with Abby Swidler & Aimée Niemann. Diaphanous premiered four new string quartets by its members in August 2023. They also performed with Ioanna Gika as part of Jacolby Satterwhite's A Metta Prayer, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in September 2023.

che holds a degree from Boston Conservatory at Berklee as a presidential scholar in violin performance. They are currently a DMA candidate at Columbia University in Music Composition. When Che isn't interacting with music, he enjoys taking long walks, cooking vegan food, and thrifting.

Ana Luisa Díaz de Cossío is a performer-composer whose work traverses the space between social structures, individuality, spontaneity, and explores resonance in physical as well as cultural space. Through extreme extended techniques, I challenge conventional instrument playing, exploring the possibilities and limits of sounds within an instrument. My music is informed by political, social, and cultural awareness of the systems constituting our societies.

I have participated in Manifesté-IRCAM (FR), Darmstadt Summer Course (DE), OneBeat Taiwan (TW), Experimental Institute at Antenna Cloud Farm (USA), Ensemble Evolution (USA), Karp Kamina Residency (Togo), ANMA+NordPlus Music Forum (EE), Dark Music Days (IS), Time for Music (FI), ActinArt (DK) among others. I hold degrees from Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Listaháskoli Íslands and I am enrolled at the University of California-San Diego.

Friday, July 4th
doors 19:30 / show 20:00
2500kr / 2000kr for students with ID

Óskar Guðjónsson - saxophones
Tumi Árnason - saxophones/clarinets
Sölvi Kolbeinsson - saxophones/clarinets
Jesper Pedersen - electronics

When three saxophonists and one conjurer of electronic sound meet at Mengi, music becomes a conversation — each tone answering the next, until time itself loses track.” “In this first gathering of Óskar, Tumi, Sölvi and Jesper, musical ideas arise through shared listening — the moment shapes the music, not the other way around.

——

„Þegar þrír saxófónleikarar og einn galdramaður í rafheimum mætast í Mengi, verður spuni að samræðu — hver hljómur svarar öðrum, þar til tíminn sjálfur gleymir sér.“ „Í þessari fyrstu samveru Óskars, Tuma, Sölva og Jespers fæðast hugmyndir í sameiginlegri hlustun — stundin skapar tónlistina, ekki öfugt.“

Thursday, July 3rd
Óskar Guðjónsson's MOVE
doors 19:30 / show 20:00
2500kr / 2000kr for students with ID

Óskar Guðjónsson: tenor / soprano saxophone
Eyþór Gunnarsson: piano
Valdimar Kolbeinn Sigurjónsson: contrabass
Matthías Hemstock: drumsrt

Seven years ago, saxophonist Óskar Guðjónsson assembled a quartet where the focuse was on performing handwritten compositions that had accumulated in his meticulously kept sketchbooks over the years. It soon became clear that this was a project all members were willing to invest significant time in and truly make their own. From this collaboration, a partnership developed, taking place in Eyþór Gunnarsson's studio. The approach was to repeatedly play the pieces, explore different interpretations, and experiment with various approaches. Simultaneously, the music began to take shape, building a strong connection among the members. In addition to Óskar and Eyþór, the quartet includes Valdimar Kolbeinn Sigurjónsson on bass and Matthías Hemstock on drums, all of whom share their initials in the name "MOVE."

During the digital age, handwritten scores have become increasingly rare, yet they hold a certain delicate nuance that can make a difference.

Óskar has long cultivated a personal style in his compositions, reflected in his handwriting and choices of what to write and what not to write down. This aligns with his approach to performance, which is
structured but open to endless spontaneous directions at the same time. The element of spontaneity stems from a desire for the music to develop independently, adapting and evolving based on the passage of time and circumstances.

Although the compositions are instrumental, they carry names inspired by reflections on life, existence, people, and related phenomena. The sketchbooks also serve as a form of diaries, capturing moments that arise in life.

Nearly all of MOVE's rehearsals have been recorded, and part of the work process involves listening back to the recordings to discern the essence of each piece. There are quite a few hours' worth of material accumulated, along with many liters of sparkling water and carefully brewed coffee that have been consumed during this creative journey. After a long joyful journey the members of MOVE now share a collective realm of ideas—one that can be entered, explored, and followed
wherever it leads. Welcome aboard!!

------

Fyrir sjö árum síðan setti Óskar saman kvartett til að skoða lagahugmyndir sínar. Upp úr þessu þróaðist samstarf sem fór fram í vinnustofu Eyþórs Gunnarssonar og gekk út á að spila lögin endurtekið og velta þeim fyrir sér og prófa ólíkar nálganir. Samhliða því að tónlistin fór að taka á sig mynd byggðist upp sterkt samband á milli þeirra sem eiga sína
upphafsstafi í nafninu MOVE sem auk Óskars og Eyþórs eru Valdimar Kolbeinn Sigurjónsson á bassa og Matthías Hemstock á trommur.

Á tímum tölvuvæðingar hafa handskrifaðar nótur orðið sjaldséðari en um leið tapast ákveðin fínni blæbrigði sem geta skipt máli. Óskar hefur fyrir löngu skapað sér persónulegan stíl í tónsmíðum sínum sem endurspeglast í rithöndinni og því hvað hann kýs að skrifa niður og hvað ekki. Það helst einnig í hendur við þá nálgun sem hann leitar að í flutningnum sem er vandlega mótaður en um leið opinn fyrir hinu óvænta. Þetta tengist lönguninni til að lögin öðlist sjálfstætt líf og geti fengið að þroskast og breytast eftir því sem tíminn og aðstæður bjóða upp á.

Þó lögin séu textalaus bera þau öll nöfn sem eru sprottin af
vangaveltum um lífið, tilveruna, fólk og fyrirbæri sem því tengist.
Skissubækurnar eru því einnig nokkurs konar dagbækur sem taka á málum sem koma upp í lífinu.

Nánast allar æfingar MOVE hafa verið hljóðritaðar og partur af vinnuferlinu er að hlusta yfir upptökurnar til að greina kjarnann í hverju lagi fyrir sig. Það eru ófár klukkustundirnar af efni sem hefur safnast upp og í leiðinni margir lítrar af sódavatni og úrvals kaffi sem hafa runnið niður.

Dropinn holar steininn og eftir allan þennan tíma eiga meðlimir MOVE núna sameiginlegan hugmyndaheim sem hægt er að stíga inn í og sjá hvert hann tekur bæði þá og áheyrendur í það og það skiptið.
Brottfararstaður hverju sinni liggja fyrir en svo má óvissuferðin byrja.

An exhibition of pictures and sculptures in the otherworldly atmosphere of the Ondes Martenot. By looking outward Úlfur finds creatures to inhabit his frames while Matthías finds them in the world of myth and imagination and carves them in stone. These opposite viewpoints converge in the electro-acoustic sounds of the Ondes Martenot played by Magnús Jóhann Ragnarsson.

Emma is an Icelandic atmospheric folk band. The project was created by siblings Sindri Snær Ómarsson and Breki Hrafn Halldóru Ómars as well as Ásgeir Kjartansson and Óðal Hjarn Grétu. Together they have created a diverse set of songs that aim to encapsulate different emotions. The band is known for dynamic and gripping live performances and is currently working on their first album.

Founded in 2017 to distil a murky blend of jazz and electronic music, hist og is an Icelandic trio featuring Eiríkur Orri Ólafsson on trumpet and electronics, Róberta Andersen on guitar, bass and synth, and Magnús Trygvason Eliassen on drums and percussion. Through the lens of their shared musical language, they explore a Day-Glo lit ruminative world of improvisation, jazz and electronic music.

텐거/天郷
TENGGER is a traveling musical family, made up of Pan-Asian couple, itta and Marqido, who create their brand of psychedelic New-Age drone magic through the use of harmonium, voice, and toy instruments (played by itta) and analogue synths (played by Marqido). The duo originally started out with the moniker “10” but since the birth of their son RAAI (who joins them on tour and often on stage) in 2012, have called themselves TENGGER (meaning ‘unlimited expanse of sky’ in Mongolian) to mark the expansion of the family. It also means ‘huge sea’ in Hungarian. Travel, as spiritual experience in real environments, and the sound between the space and the audience have been central themes of their works. The family’s yearly pilgrimages inform every aspect of their art.

Marey Feat.

Næstu tónleikar í Marey Feat. röðinni verða 5. júní í Mengi. Marey býður til liðs við sig gest og munu þau spila, spinna, syngja og gera alls konar tilraunir með tóna og hljóð.

Systurnar Lilja María og Anna Sóley Ásmundsdætur skipa dúóið Marey sem blandar tilraunakenndri spunatónlist við rafhljóð og ljóðalestur. Áhrifa gætir frá samtímaklassík, hljóðlist og alþýðutónlist. Lilja María spilar á hljóðskúlptúrinn Huldu, hljóðfæri sem hún hannaði sjálf, og býr til hljóðmyndir. Anna Sóley spilar á fiðlu, syngur og hannar hljóðmyndir. Árið 2025 mun dúóið halda tónleika á Íslandi, í Hollandi, Þýskalandi og Bretlandi. Þar má nefna tónlistarhátíðina Lost in the Hills og tónleikaseríur eins og Classic Jamming og Bruitkasten.

Lilja María er með doktorspróf í tónsmíðum frá City, University of London. Hún hefur skrifað fyrir ýmsa hljóðfærahópa í Evrópu og sömuleiðis komið fram sem hljóðfæraleikari með alls konar hljómsveitum. Hún er meðlimur í Hlökk en plata þeirra Hulduhljóð hlaut Kraumsverðlaunin 2019. Lilja María gaf út hljóð- og sjónlistaverkið Internal Human árið 2022 í samstarfi við dansarann Inês Zinho Pinheiro.

Anna Sóley útskrifaðist með BA próf frá ArtEZ Tónlistarháskólanum í Arnhem, BA gráðu í almennri bókmenntafræði frá Háskóla Íslands og mastersgráðu í bókmenntafræði frá Háskólanum í Utrecht. Hún sendi frá sér plötuna Modern Age Ophelia, árið 2022 og hefur komið fram víða í Evrópu bæði sem söngvari og fiðluleikari. „Tónhöfundurinn syngur á ensku og íslensku, og skilur eftir rými fyrir spuna og lýrísk ljóðræn flug,” -úr umfjöllun sem Matthieu Jouan skrifaði fyrir Citizen Jazz um Modern Age Ophelia tónleika Önnu á Jazzhátíð Reykjavíkur.

www.liljamaria.com/marey

Tónleikarnir hefjast klukkan 20:00 en hurðin opnar 19:30.
Miðaverð 2.500 kr.

///

Marey Feat.

The next concert in the Marey Feat. Series will be on the 5th of June at Mengi. Marey invites a musician to join their performance to improvise, play, sing, and experiment with sounds.

Marey plays improvised experimental music mixed with electronics and poetry, where contemporary classical music, sound art, and folk music meet. The sisters Lilja María and Anna Sóley have played together since childhood. Lilja María plays Hulda, a string instrument of her design. Anna Sóley plays the violin and sings, exploring different soundscapes and extended techniques, using her voice at times somewhere between spoken words and singing. They both design electronics, and Anna Sóley writes the poetry. This year, the duo will perform in Iceland, The Netherlands, Germany and the UK at festivals such as Lost in the Hills and various concert series, for example Classic Jamming and Bruitkasten.

Lilja María completed a PhD in composition from City, University of London. She has composed for different ensembles around Europe and performed with various groups. She is a member of the art collective Hlökk, and their album Hulduhljóð (2019) won the Kraumur Awards and was nominated for the Icelandic Music Awards. Lilja María released the audio-visual album Internal Human in 2022 in collaboration with dancer Inês Zinho Pinheiro.

Anna Sóley studied music and literature in Iceland and the Netherlands, graduating with a BA in jazz & pop vocal performance from the ArtEZ Conservatory in Arnhem and a Master's degree in literature from Utrecht University. She released her debut album, Modern Age Ophelia, in 2022. Anna has performed around Europe both as a vocalist and violinist. “Composer of the repertoire, she sings in English and Icelandic, and leaves space for moments of improvisation and poetic-lyrical flights.” —Matthieu Jouan for Citizen Jazz, writing about Anna’s Modern Age Ophelia Concert at the Reyjavík Jazz Festival.

www.liljamaria.com/marey

Wednesday, June 4th
ETIENNE NILLESEN – REIMAGINING THE SNARE DRUM
doors 19:30 / show 20:00

Etienne’s exploration of the snare drum redefines its role as a percussive instrument, transforming
it into a self-contained harmonic and melodic entity. His work is not merely an expansion of
technique but a fundamental reassessment of the drum’s sonic architecture, probing the
relationships between materiality, resonance, and perception.

At the core of his practice is an intimate engagement with resonance, treating the drumhead as a
dynamic surface that contains a latent field of overtones and microtonal interactions. Through
circular motions, variable pressure control, and precise manipulation of contact points, he
accesses a vast spectrum of pitches, harmonics, and sustained sonorities that are typically
obscured in conventional drumming. His snare drums, tuned a semitone apart, create a harmonic
framework where sympathetic resonances and interference patterns emerge, forming an evolving
tonal landscape that is as much about pitch as it is about texture.

The rhythmic dimension of his playing is equally unconventional. Rather than relying on fixed
pulse structures, he generates rhythmic flow through friction, tension, and gradual
transformation, where changes in speed, pressure, and angle modulate the sound field in real
time. This approach results in a music that is less about attack and more about sustain, less about
percussive impact and more about timbral evolution. In this way, his snare drums function as
resonant objects in constant flux, where rhythm emerges as a secondary consequence of
harmonic activity.

Nillesen’s work is deeply rooted in a minimalist aesthetic, yet it resists the stasis often associated
with minimalism. Instead of looping structures or static repetitions, he focuses on gradual
variations in overtone complexity—where microtonal beating, phase shifts, and unstable
resonances create a sense of organic, evolving motion. His use of extended duration is not about
endurance, but about cultivating a heightened perception of sonic detail, where the ear adjusts
to subtle fluctuations in frequency, dynamic weight, and spatial diffusion.

His performances blur the boundary between composition and improvisation, not in the sense of
balancing pre-determined form with spontaneity, but in that form itself emerges from the real-
time negotiation of sonic possibilities. Each performance is an act of deep listening—to the
instrument, the space, and the moment. The drum is not simply played—it becomes a resonant
entity that speaks through touch.

Through this intimate process of sonic excavation, Nillesen’s work challenges conventional
notions of percussion, creating a listening experience that is both immersive and forensic, where
every gesture is magnified, every resonance is consequential, and every shift in pressure reveals
new sonic terrain.

Info TBA

Info TBA

Saturday, May 24th
MEMLNauts: Musically Embodied Machine Learning Project
doors 19:30 / show 20:00
2.500kr / 2.000 for students

MEMLNauts:
Tom Manoury
Andrea Martelloni
Betty Accorsi
Thor Magnusson
Chris Kiefer

A collection of improvised performances from participants in the Musically Embodied Machine Learning project (MEML). We are exploring the concept of building new hybrid musical instruments with embedded machine learning. Embedded machine learning empowers musicians to find new performance approaches, by sharing control with often unpredictable and lively algorithms within the instrument. We will present performances with a variety of machine learning augmented acoustics instruments, in solo and group improvisations.

Tom Manoury

Tom Manoury is a French/Icelandic musician. He grew up in Paris and lived in Brussels for many years before moving to Reykjavik. Mostly self taught, he plays all kinds of wind instruments such as saxophones, euphonium, harmonica, and many others. He also sings and masters overtone and throat singing. Aside from his career as an instrumentalist and composer, Tom´s been doing electronic music and programming for over 20 years. He develops interactive tools and intuitive interfaces aimed at multimedia live performances and realtime processing.

He occasionally integrates live visuals to his performances. He is also into DIY and builds all kinds of stuff, using any kind of materials. Among other passions in his life are photography, cooking and watchmaking

Andrea Martelloni

Andrea Martelloni is a guitar player, composer, producer and researcher in digital musical instruments, with a PhD from Queen Mary University of London. His research includes work on the HITar and the field of gesture recognition applied to expressive digital musical instruments. He is also part of the Musically Embodied Machine Learning project at the University of Sussex, where he develops interfaces for the seamless integration of artificial intelligence in musical instruments. He has been playing guitar for over twenty years, studying at the Centro Professione Musica in Milan in his teenage. He is an active session musician in the South East of England. His current main project is Sloth In The City with wife and saxophonist Betty Accorsi. Other projects include solo guitar act Virgult, jazz guitar (Betty Accorsi Quartet, Madz and the Martians), pop (Miss and the Demeanors), folk (Monkey See Monkey Do, Hilltop Ceilidh Band).

Betty Accorsi

Betty Accorsi is multi-instrumentalist and composer. She studied classical saxophone, piano and composition at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatoire in Milan, before moving to London and starting an MMus in Jazz Saxophone at Trinity Laban Conservatoire and a Master's degree in Performance at Goldsmiths under the guidance of Mick Foster, Paul Bartholomew and Dr Pete Furniss. She is currently the leader of two projects active in England: One is an acoustic duo called Sloth in the City, formed in 2018 with percussive acoustic guitar player Andrea Martelloni. Her main project is the Betty Accorsi Quartet. This was founded with pianist Finn Carter and drummer Scott MacDonald. In December 2020 they released “The Cutty Sark Suite”, an album of compositions blending Wayne Shorter, folk and punk. Their second album “Growing Roots” was released on the 15th July 2022 featuring pianist Daniel Hewson (Groove Armada, Madonna, Incognito), Scott MacDonald on drums and Andy Hamill on bass.

Thor Magnusson

Thor Magnusson has worked in the intersecting areas of music, technology and philosophy in the past decades. He has created a few live coding environments for improvisational musical performance with code as compositional material. He is a member of the Intelligent Instruments Lab which is one of Reykjavik’s breweries for new musical instruments design. Thor is also member of the Brain Dead Ensemble, the most dangerous sonic dynamite collective that sometimes surfaces on the radars of contemporary music.

Chris Kiefer

Chris Kiefer is a computer-musician and musical instrument designer from Brighton UK, where we works in the University of Sussex Experimental Music Technologies Lab. He performs and records with custom-made instruments, exploring lively algorithms and feedback processes. As a live coder and solo-feedback musician he performs under the name ‘Luuma’, with a recent release 'Ffroeds' on the Flaming Pines label. He plays an augmented self-resonating cello as half of improv-duo Feedback Cell, and with the feedback-drone-quartet ‘Brain Dead Ensemble’.

https://luuma.net/pages/listen/
https://thormagnusson.github.io/
https://www.bettyaccorsi.com/

Friday, May 23rd
Bróðir BIG Trio
Bróðir BIG Trio Emcee/producer/DJ Bróðir BIG hefur sett saman litla hljómsveit, Bróðir BIG Trio. Hljómsveitina skipa Bróðir BIG, Haraldur Ægir Guðmundsson og Arnljótur Sigurðsson. Haraldur spilar á bassa, bæði rafmagns- og kontrabassa, og Arnljótur spilar á þverflautu og syntha. Bróðir BIG sér um raddir, skífuskank og undirleik í formi trommutakta sem Trio-ið spilar yfir. Birkir Kristján Guðmundsson, eða Bróðir BIG, hefur verið að gefa út tónlist síðan 2015 en hefur verið að koma fram sem rappari allt síðan 2009. Platan Hrátt Hljóð kom út 2017 og platan Með Enga Tengingu við Tíðarandann kom út 2020. Ekkert hefur komið út í fjögur ár frá honum og hefur hann lítið komið fram undanfarið en ný tónlist er í vinnslu eftir tímabil af óvirkni vegna annarra verkefna. Bróðir BIG Trio verður live í Mengi föstudaginn 23. maí nk. og má nálgast miða…

More info TBA

DUE TO UNFORESEEN CIRUMSTANCES, THIS CONCERT HAS BEEN CANCELLED

Derek Piotr is a folklorist, researcher and performer whose work focuses primarily on the human voice. His work covers practices including fieldwork, vocal performance, preservation and autoethnography; and is primarily concerned with tenderness, fragility, beauty and brutality. He has collaborated with artists including Scott Solter, Nathan Salsburg and Thomas Brinkmann across various disciplines.
He is lead archivist and creative director of the Fieldwork Archive.

More info TBA

Nico Moreaux Quartet

Nicolas Moreaux : double bass
Oskar Guðjónsson : saxophones
Hilmar Jenson : guitar
Scott Mclemore : drums

The band will perfom Nico´s new original compositions, written recently as well a few standards and Jon Muli´s tunes. 

The band has his own way to approach compositions, inventing fresh new lines and beats to the tunes on the moment.  

A band of improvisers that play music with looseness and flow.

Active on the international jazz scene and icelandic resident, Nico had played and recorded with famous names like Chris Cheek, Tigran Hamasyan, Bill McHenry among others.