CTM joins forces with Red Bull Music Academy to close its 18th edition on sonically divergent notes. For a third year in a row, the two partners have collaboratively assembled two back-to-back events, starting at Heimathafen Neukölln.

The latest project by Kevin Martin aka The Bug, whose appearance at CTM 2015 left a speechless, shell-shocked Berghain audience in its wake, is a collaborative face-off with Dylan Carlson of the legendary Seattle drone metal band Earth. These two sonic maximalists will engage in an aptly-matched, epic musical battle between subterranean guitar drones and structure-rattling electronics. While Martin’s work in dub, industrial hip hop and dancehall engages with the politics of contemporary urban landscapes, Carlson’s artistic trajectory flows through dark Americana.

Opening for The Bug vs. Dylan Carlson of Earth will be Polish guitarist and composer Jakub Ziołek (of T’ien Lai), whose one-man project Stara Rzeka (“Old River”) is similarly imaginative in its references to the dark underbelly of cultural heritage. Named after a small village in the heart of Poland's beautiful Tuchola Forest region, the project infuses black metal with krautrock and psychedelic folk to reflect on the historical and contemporary relationship between human civilisation and nature — a relationship defined by both joy and profound loss.

Presented with Red Bull Music Academy. Stara Rzeka is also presented with the SHAPE platform, which is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.