Üle Heli Festival – When You Don’t Know What’s Going On Anymore
- 23 hours ago
- 4 min read
We are used to listening to music which serves our expectations. You know exactly what you will get by going to a rock concert or visiting a chamber hall – the music industry offers you a product that ticks all the checkboxes, be that an AC/DC cover band or the seven-thousandth recital of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. With only a few exceptions, every performance and every album release that gets people’s attention is guided by the industry’s standards, while everything else is left in the underground, rarely getting a good spotlight. Üle Heli (Estonian for “Above Sound”) sound art and music festival is an exceptional platform that allows performers to share music and art created “outside of the box” and encourages experimental music to be created and performed.
Last week, my friend K. and I visited Kanuti Gildi Saal on Friday evening to see what Üle Heli had to offer. The first performance we saw was by Tencu & Yurii Samson, a wild audiovisual improvisation with a duo of saxophone and modular synthesizer. Screen was filled with black and white palettes, changing shapes and patterns. Sounds were intense, sometimes almost painful, changing rapidly, connecting and disconnecting. When there is nothing for the mind to focus on, what happens to it? I felt some kind of trance, getting all sorts of small images in my head, not connected to anything certain, just some memories and imagined pictures. It seems like these sorts of works are made to affect your subconsciousness and choose very non-direct ways to do so.
After the performance, we talked with K. about it. He said, “What’s even the point of it if it’s not something that can be repeated and it’s not something you can clearly memorize?” That’s a good question for anyone meddling with improvised music. I would say that the importance of the moment is raised by such unpredictability of the outcome of the art, although unpredictability often seems unattractive to people. However, there were almost no empty seats. Festivals can really grow over time and gain a consistent audience.
After leaving the performance hall, we found a small room near the exit; there was an ambisonics setup with a sound installation on. A lot of weird voices were coming from all directions – impressions of a mental hospital filled with professional singers, sounds moving from left to right, down and up.
Moving back to the main hall, the second performance by Joel Tammik was much more democratic than the previous one. Nice ambient sounds, images of forestry, some weird stone face moving on a screen – both creating a pleasant atmosphere of a forest walk. In the middle section of the performance, musical elements started to arrange in a very unconventional way: all the rhythms were displaced, and you couldn’t find a center, which made me feel like I was flowing. I think that this performance had a very clear idea to present and develop, a very clear experience to share, and Joel did a very good job here. Talking to K. and G. (a friend of K.) after it, they both preferred this performance.
It’s only natural to choose things that are pleasant. When artists go in the opposite direction, they often meet resistance from the public: why are you making me feel bad? At the same time, we need art forms that are not controlled by our expectations (or the expectations of the music industry). If we allow freedom, we allow any kind of expression. What if the artist wants to express pain? What if they want to express nothing in particular? When you come to this kind of show, you learn to accept all sorts of things.
The third performance by Taavi Laatsit, Mihkel Tomberg, and Aivar Tõnso was one of the most radioactive musical experiences I’ve had. It was hyperactive, strong, and gave no hope for emotional release. Visuals were somewhat like in the sax/synth duo show but more active and matching the music better. One word I can describe it with: chaos. You can rarely get an emotional experience of that intensity from a musical concert. I couldn’t fall asleep for hours that night.
One question I would like you to ask yourself: do I want to experience something like that in my life? Am I ready to go to a concert having no expectations, to experience something entirely new, even if that might hurt? If the answer is no, I can fully respect that – life is chaotic enough, why spend your money to get more of that? If your answer is yes, then I’ve got some good news for you: Üle Heli will have part II on 13 December this year (2025). Hit me up, we can go together to experience the unknown.
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