SNACK is a showcase event and an independent platform for emerging artists in experimental music and sound art from the Baltic and Nordic regions. In collaboration with the NERDS network and Riga Music Week, it creates opportunities for international exposure.

TINTO COLLECTIVE (LV) will weave an absurd bass ostinato together with free improvisation. Their explorations span a broad musical spectrum, from ethno-trance to free jazz. It’s an experience unfolding in the here and now, performed on acoustic instruments without amplification.

Irēna Bjanko (DK) is a percussionist active in Denmark’s avant-garde and experimental music scene. As a solo artist, she has released the album Kronblade on London-based label Permanent Draft (2024), featuring percussion and electronics. Her musical influences range from Baroque and orchestral music to ’90s rock and club music. In her solo performances, she plays vintage drum kits and uses electronics, toy percussion instruments and field recordings, moving freely between polyrhythms and fragmented melodies.

Grisha223 (NO) is an artist based in Tromsø, a city regarded as the capital of Northern Norway’s electronic music scene. She is active in experimental and club music as both a DJ and performer. In her live performances, she connects sound with cultural critique and spatial exploration, drawing on both ambient and rhythmic sounds.

She creates her own instruments, mainly digital ones, and often improvises her performances, making each experience unique to the moment and the space. Though classically trained on the violin, Grisha223 seeks to break down the hierarchies associated with Western orchestral traditions. She does this with an electric violin, routing its signal through a complex chain of effects.

On November 6 at Splendid Palace, Very Cool People reimagine the music of legendary Latvian band ODIS in a special tribute to the country’s funk and soul legacy. ODIS frontman Arnis Mednis joins them on keyboards and vocoder, with special guest Ralfs Eilands. The concert also celebrates Mednis’s milestone birthday.

A discount code, RMW26, will be valid for the 10 days leading up to Riga Music Week.

Folklorist Asnāte Rancāne and musician Staņislavs Judins met at a time when both were still searching for their own creative identities. Their debut recording, Op. 2, which received widespread acclaim from audiences and critics alike, marked a fusion of folk heritage and free improvisation, without clearly defined genre boundaries.
They continue to embrace this free-flowing approach today. Unbound by traditional song structures, the artists are free to explore new musical forms and textures, using collage techniques that combine folk and contemporary music. Each of these elements, both words and sounds can exist independently, yet together they create a distinctive and unrepeatable atmosphere.
The musical geography of Op. 3 spans the whole of Europe, from Bulgaria to the British Isles, including ancient Prussia and the historical regions of Latvia. If one were to seek a unifying element among these seemingly different regions, it would be the music of an era when people experienced a sense of wholeness and the musician served as a mediator, a carrier of different stories and musical fragments.
Words and sounds were shaped by multilayered motifs rooted in the collective experience of communities. As a result, a work of art often became something greater than its creator, carrying an irrational, almost mystical message. The performer merged with the music, much like a person becomes one with nature, recognizing themselves as part of it - a tree, a river, or the mist.
Yet Op. 3 is not a reconstruction of the past, but an entirely new creation, unlike anything heard before. The uniqueness of this recording lies not only in the fusion of the two musicians’ distinct creative identities into a unified whole, but also in the sense that the music is built upon a vertical dimension of time, a dialogue between the past, present, and future.

M/House of Jazz will host Riga Music Week Club Night — an evening with four distinct voices from Latvia’s music scene. The programme brings together MARSA’s colourful original music, songs from JULIANNA and Artis Boris’s forthcoming album, SISE’s experimental soundscapes and the latest compositions by the Vadims Dmitrijevs Quintet.

MARSA

Part of the “YOUNG&TALENTED” series for young musicians, MARSA is a five-piece band of friends with a lively, eclectic sound. Two voices, piano, double bass and drums create a broad musical landscape in which every instrument and voice has room to shine.
The band performs original music that blends Latin rhythms with ethno influences and jazz harmony. MARSA moves freely between these influences, creating an open, playful musical language that resists the boundaries of any one genre.

JULIANNA & Artis Boris

JULIANNA and Artis Boris, joined by their backing band, will perform music from their forthcoming collaborative album. Arranged especially for the concert, the songs will offer a chance to experience the artists’ new material live. Sitar player Jegor Kovaikov will join them as a special guest, adding the instrument’s distinctive timbre to the evening’s sound.

SISE

SISE brings together two distinctive figures from Latvia’s experimental music scene: Evija Vēbere and Elīna Silova. Elīna’s passion for improvisation and unconventional vocal techniques intertwines with Evija’s modular synthesiser sounds, creating a dreamy, ever-shifting and unpredictable musical world.

In their music, rumbling earthbound creatures, ethereal whispers, mermaids’ calls and playful aliens become meditative, wordless stories. Voice and electronics engage in an evocative dialogue, first glimpsed in the duo’s single “Power”.

Vadims Dmitrijevs Quintet

Vadims Dmitrijevs is one of the few trombonists on Latvia’s jazz scene. His musical voice has earned him nominations for the Latvian Great Music Award and GAMMA. His second album, Integration, was nominated for the Zelta Mikrofons award and received positive reviews in international jazz publications All About Jazz and Jazzwise.

This quintet is a new collaboration with local musicians, featuring several of Vadims’ latest instrumental compositions. The music is introspective and minimalist; the combination of trombone, alto saxophone, guitar, double bass and drums brings out each instrument’s voice and subtle nuances.

Riga Music Week showcase · 6 November · KKC

Elektroniskā Virtuve (”the electronic kitchen”) is KKC’s jam session series for analogue, electronic and experimental music. Music here is made on the spot: machines, synths, voice, new instruments… All of it in front of the audience.

For Riga Music Week we open the kitchen wider. The KKC living room hosts artists we are picking through an open call: solo acts and duos where analogue instruments, live electronics, percussion and voice meet. Let’s dive in together!

Programme announced on 28 October.

Doors 19:00. Entry €3 presale, €5 at the door. Free for RMW delegates.

SNACK is a showcase event and an independent platform for emerging artists in experimental music and sound art from the Baltic and Nordic regions. In collaboration with the NERDS network and Riga Music Week, it creates opportunities for international exposure.

TINTO COLLECTIVE (LV) will weave an absurd bass ostinato together with free improvisation. Their explorations span a broad musical spectrum, from ethno-trance to free jazz. It’s an experience unfolding in the here and now, performed on acoustic instruments without amplification.

Irēna Bjanko (DK) is a percussionist active in Denmark’s avant-garde and experimental music scene. As a solo artist, she has released the album Kronblade on London-based label Permanent Draft (2024), featuring percussion and electronics. Her musical influences range from Baroque and orchestral music to ’90s rock and club music. In her solo performances, she plays vintage drum kits and uses electronics, toy percussion instruments and field recordings, moving freely between polyrhythms and fragmented melodies.

Grisha223 (NO) is an artist based in Tromsø, a city regarded as the capital of Northern Norway’s electronic music scene. She is active in experimental and club music as both a DJ and performer. In her live performances, she connects sound with cultural critique and spatial exploration, drawing on both ambient and rhythmic sounds.
She creates her own instruments, mainly digital ones, and often improvises her performances, making each experience unique to the moment and the space. Though classically trained on the violin, Grisha223 seeks to break down the hierarchies associated with Western orchestral traditions. She does this with an electric violin, routing its signal through a complex chain of effects.

German post-punk legends Pink Turns Blue are heading out on tour in support of their new album, Black Swan. Since forming in 1985, the band has refined its sound into something unmistakably its own: elegant in its minimalism, emotional in its delivery and enduringly relevant. From their early breakthrough with If Two Worlds Kiss to their latest release, Black Swan, the Berlin-based trio has remained a vital force in the international post-punk scene, shaping and reshaping the genre for decades.

One of the founding acts of Latvia’s independent music scene, Baložu Pilni Pagalmi, is coming to Atmoda for a special two-part concert. Joined by vocalist Elli Ellere, the band will perform songs from their latest album, ...un nekas vairs nav nekas, followed by a set of much-loved hits. An intimate evening with a living legend of Latvia’s alternative music scene.
The concert will be divided into two parts, offering a broad perspective on the band’s work:
Part One: Joined by vocalist Elli Ellere, the band will perform songs from its latest album, ...un nekas vairs nav nekas, introducing listeners to a fresh sound and nuanced musical moods.
Part Two: A selection of the band’s best-loved songs, inviting the audience to revisit and sing along to some of Baložu Pilni Pagalmi’s most memorable hits from over the years.
The concert at Atmoda Club will be a wonderful opportunity for longtime fans and younger music lovers alike to experience a living legend of Latvia’s alternative music scene in an intimate, up-close setting.

November celebrations at live music bar and restaurant St.Black kick off with Mārtiņš Jātnieks Band and DJ Z:LE! Expect beloved Latvian and international songs, nostalgia-filled choruses, a lively performance and, in keeping with the month of national celebrations, a few Latvian melodies close to the heart.

The five-piece band will play three sets, turning the thoughts of the working week into weekend carefree spirit and dancing!

SNACK is a showcase event and an independent platform for emerging artists in experimental music and sound art from the Baltic and Nordic regions. In collaboration with the NERDS network and Riga Music Week, it creates opportunities for international exposure.

Helena Pulkkinen (FI) is a Helsinki-based artist working across sound, music and visual art. Her compositions, which resemble notes or collages, are built from carefully selected vocal experiments, fragments of electronic music and recordings of everyday sounds.

Through layering, repeating and removing sounds and words, Pulkkinen seeks to reveal subtle, ambiguous tensions, emotional charge and responses hidden within the patterns of everyday life and perception.

Moving freely between experimental electronic music, multimedia, contemporary classical music, free improvisation and performance art, Viktor Toikkanen (FI) refuses to confine himself to a single style, continually seeking new forms of expression. He sees his art as a diary: an ongoing reflection of a particular time and place, shaped by the interests and resonances that speak to him in the moment. His music has been released by labels including *Lal Lal Lal*, *Ikuisuus* and *Country Music*. This autumn, he will release a new full-length album on Opal Tapes.

MIU (LV) creates intense, atmospheric soundscapes where dark, rhythmic noise meets industrial and experimental music. Inspired by the raw power of black metal, MIU uses modular systems to create compelling, multilayered performances that are hypnotic, chaotic and meticulously crafted.