TIMES has just hit off the first festival of 2026 in Graz, Austria.
Elevate welcomed 16 TIMES curations for this year’s edition, ranging from dj sets to talks and live performances.
The first day of the festival, Elevate’s TIMES curated programme contained both musical and discourse acts.
With his saxophone seeming less an instrument than an extension of his own body, Bendik Giske delivered an absorbing live performance that captivated the audience.
Amnesia Scanner, the Finnish duo based in Berlin, transformed the stage with their signature fusion of deconstructed club music, noise textures, hyperpop influences, and futuristic digital imagery.
Alongside the musical programme, the festival welcomed Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook and Simon(e) van Saarloos for the first day’s discourse sessions.
Continuing with discourse programme, on the festival’s second day, TIMES-curated speaker Christian Schiffer joined the discussion on the topic Vibe Shift, Really?: Broligarchy, Tech-macht und Autoritäre Fantasien” (Vibe Shift, Really?: Broligarchy, Tech Power, and Authoritarian Fantasies).
Moving to the musical acts of Day 2, gyrofield‘s DJ set on Friday was marked by its technical finesse, forward-looking rhythms, and richly textured atmospheres.
Drawing on the energy of London’s underground, Josey Rebelle combined raw analogue beats, dark basslines, and soulful textures in a fluid journey through bleep, Detroit techno, and hardcore jungle.
The line-up also included Pavel Milyakov and Polygonia.
A major highlight of the second day was the premiere of Pitch, Puerta, Pigeon, which saw AGF, Kelman Duran, Kianí Del Valle, and Theresa Baumgartner share the stage together for the first time.
The new duo Herbert & Momoko (Matthew Herbert and Momoko Gill) moved fluidly between dancefloor energy and more intimate, subdued moments, with Gill’s voice blending seamlessly into Herbert’s electronic textures.
Kittin, symbol of female self-empowerment within a historically male-dominated electronic scene, proposed a set of subversive and ironic club tracks.
Final TIMES act of this year’s discourse programme was Gilda Sahebi with the talk Unite Instead of Divine.
On the final day of Elevate, Irish musician Maria Somerville presented a live performance that wove together experimental folk, shoegaze, and ambient soundscapes.
