One is almost tempted to say that Alessandro Cortini needs no introduction. A longtime member of Nine Inch Nails—which earned him a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—he has simultaneously built a remarkably consistent and prolific solo career. Over the past years, he has released a consistent stream of work on renowned labels, including Mute, Hospital, and Important Records. Among his most recent releases, the subdued NATI INFINITI (2024, Mute Records) stands out.
A leading figure in contemporary electronic music, Cortini is known for his atmospheric aesthetic, in which he balances dark atmospheres with immersive rhythmic beats, creating dense and hypnotic compositions. His remixes for bands such as Depeche Mode, Mogwai, and Death Cab for Cutie should also be noticed.
In addition to his international tours, the Italian musician has even composed music for fashion shows by brands like Alexander McQueen and Dior, and his music is frequently featured on television, in series such as The Bear or Twin Peaks: The Return.
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Shane Parish likes to venture down narrow paths. In 2024, he released Repertoire (Palilalia Records), a collection of acoustic guitar arrangements from major jazz, electronic, and avant-garde classical works. On that album, you’ll find songs by Alice Coltrane, John Cage, Aphex Twin, and Kraftwerk as recognizable as they are strange due to the rawness of his recording.
The American musician—also founder of the avant-rock band Ahleuchatistas and a member of the Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet—doubled down on risk with his new album, Autechre Guitar, released earlier this year. Parish draws from the universe of the British duo Autechre, pioneers of IDM and seminal figures in avant-garde electronic music, bringing their themes into his own territory: the acoustic guitar, with roots in jazz, folk, and blues, and his unmistakable fingerstyle. An album that could be classified as impossible were it not for the presence of one of the great contemporary masters of the six strings of a guitar.
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Calcutá’s debut album seems to be tailor-made for Extremo. Soon After Dawn, released earlier this year, finds in the dawn a realm of exploration that encompasses all the sonic territories that make up Teresa Castro’s music.
A composer, multi-instrumentalist, and sound artist, Teresa is a classically trained guitarist, yet she never fails to incorporate folk elements, which she weaves together with drone, ambient, and experimental music. Calcutá thus creates a sonic lexicon entirely her own: persistent guitar sounds, harmonies that breathe, electronics that pulse in a sonic ritual. Her voice is also an instrument that guides us through spaces where time slows down and the process of listening deepens.
The album released earlier this year is her debut, but Calcutá has long been a recognizable name in the Portuguese music scene — having emerged from Mighty Sands, she launched her solo career in 2015 with the demo Love Path Again, followed by the EP Over Night (2017). In 2024, she presents Feux d’Artifice, an ambient piece that marked the beginning of a new phase in her creative work. Live—accompanied by Luís Barros on drums and percussion and Maria Amaro on double bass, vocals, and keyboard—she delivers a hypnotic, dense, and free-form performance.
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Molero brings the exuberance of the Amazon to Falperra’s forest. The Venezuelan musician, who has been based in Barcelona for many years, creates music that explores tropical imagery, visions, and dreamlike soundscapes using synthesizers.
In Ficciones del Trópico (2020), his debut album — which he presented at the Jordão Theater in Guimarães in 2021, at the invitation of Capivara Azul — he began to construct a universe inspired by the exploration of the unknown and the utopian. There, he drew on the visions of naturalist and graphic artist Anton Goering, writer Victor Segalen, and filmmaker Werner Herzog, among others, to construct his own interpretation of how Europeans perceived—or failed to perceive—the Americas.
His latest release, Destellos del Éxtasis, released in late 2024 by the Portuguese label Holuzam, expands this world into a more abstract and symbolic language, in which the music flows and transforms continuously between alchemy, dreams, and visions, immersing the listener in their own perceptions.
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Joana de Sá’s work blends field recordings, classical instruments such as the flute and the voice, and electroacoustic improvisation. Often drawing from poetry, frequency manipulation, and sound collage, the artist from Viseu always seems to have another story to share with her audience.
In 2024, she independently released the album Absedo, the result of artistic and archival research into the megalithic heritage of the Viseu district. Over the past few years, she has presented her work solo or shared the stage with other artists such as Manja Ristić, Tiago Sousa, Joana Guerra, and the Lisbon Contemporary Music Group.
In addition to her work in the field of sound art, she also works with drawing, photography, writing, and video, combining graphic elements with any of these mediums—the starting point for these practices often arise from her daily life, by chance, the landscape, elements from her personal archives or other themes that she considers relevant to explore further.
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A drummer, composer and multi-instrumentalist, Valentina Magaletti has been redefining the boundaries of percussion with an original approach. She is renowned for her versatile technique, which takes her from the drum kit to the vibraphone, using contact microphones and found objects to construct a sonic palette capable of holding the rhythm or exploring soundscapes.
Valentina Magaletti’s ubiquitous presence spans collaborations ranging from the alternative scene to the mainstream, in a catalogue that includes Tomaga, Nicolas Jaar, Thurston Moore and Kamasi Washington. It is worth highlighting two of her most recent releases, the result of collaborations with the Portuguese artist Nídia (“Estradas”, from 2024, which recently featured at the Index biennial in Braga) and the Dutch artist upsammy (“Seismos”, released earlier this year).
As a solo artist, Valentina’s work explores textures and identities, blending lo-fi drone collages with modulated percussive objects. It is in this vein that she will perform at Extremo, with a one-off concert at a venue that will only be revealed on the day of the festival.
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The more observant among you will already have noticed the power in the music of Debit the stage name of Mexican-American artist Delia Beatriz, but “Desaceleradas”, the album she released on Modern Love late last year, has firmly placed her at the heart of the global electronic music scene.
The album, her second under her own name, offers a meticulous exploration of cumbia rebajada, uniquely transformed into the ambient soundscape to which Debit is devoted.
Since 2017, Delia Beatriz has been a pioneering force in the export and recontextualisation of Latin American club music, having performed as a DJ at festivals all over the world (Roskilde, Berlin Atonal, Unsound, Rewire, among others).
As a creator, she invents conceptual universes marked by rigorous research. This is how she created “The Long Count”, her first album in which she reconstructs pre-Hispanic wind instruments with the help of Artificial Intelligence, and also “Desaceleradas”, based on old cumbia tapes that move fluidly between cultural excavation and the design of a sonic future.
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The beat and happiness factory known as Príncipe has been giving us endless reasons to get up and dance ever since its inception in 2011. Following in the footsteps of global stars such as DJ Marfox, Nigga Fox and Nídia, a 19-year-old prodigy by the name of Helviofox is now rapidly making a name for himself.
Carlos Afonso was born in Loures to a family of Angolan origin, right at the heart of Lisbon’s batida scene, blending African rhythms such as kuduro, kizomba and tarraxinha with house and techno. His influences began at home – he is the brother of Dadifox and Erycox – and extend to other local DJs such as Edy Fox, Studio Bros and DJ Firmeza.
He made his debut on the decks at the age of 13 and, two years later, founded TLS Produções, alongside E8Prod, DiionyG, Alberfox, among others. At the end of last year, he released his debut EP on vinyl via Príncipe, “Rodeado de Batida”, making his mark straight away, and which brings him to Extremo, where he will close this edition’s programme.
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abitat is part of a series of site-specific installations conceived by the artist and researcher Adriana Sá, based on a modified sound system in which each speaker has been fitted with light sensors.
The volume of each sound source depends on the light detected by the corresponding sensor, meaning that the soundscape never repeats itself: it varies according to the time of day, the weather conditions, the architecture of the space and the specific location where each person is at any given moment.
The soundscape tracks, that are played simultaneously, are constructed from sounds recorded on the hill of Falperra during an artist residency that Adriana Sá undertook this year in collaboration with the American artist John Klima, her creative partner for almost two decades. The two artists will also collaborate on the performance activating the installation, late in the morning on the day of Extremo.
Adriana Sá is a key figure on the national experimental scene. Since the 1990s, she has been using sensor technologies to explore sound constructions linked to light, space, movement, architecture, weather conditions and the social context.
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With over 20 years of solid experience, Pedro Augusto has become a key figure on the national experimental scene. From the musical project Live Low to his solo explorations of modular synthesisers, his creative work has taken him to some of the country’s most important venues.
He also works as a musician and composer for dance, theatre, performance and film, alongside a prolific discography as a producer, sound engineer and editor on numerous albums over the last decade.
In parallel, he has explored his investigative side through the creation of the Found Tapes Porto archive, which he has been building independently since 2004. In an academic context, Pedro Augusto is conducting the research project “Stone and Sound: Sound matter in sculptural practice”, funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology, as part of his PhD in Fine Arts at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto.
It is from this experience that “Deriva das Pedras” emerges, a new creation commissioned by the Extremo festival, a hybrid of walking and performance that could only take place in this location.
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