Circle of Live at Freerotation 2018

Circle Of Live is a roving electronic jam led by the Swedish techno artist Sebastian Mullaert. It aims to break down the rigid structures of electronic performance, linking artists and their machines for something collaborative, open-ended and utterly improvised. The players, a rotating cast that can number as many as 14 at one time, follow Mullaert into a fluid volley of musical ideas, jumping in when they have something to add, the rest of the time hanging back and listening. At some point—maybe an hour or two into the set, maybe longer—a kind of lift-off is achieved: the artists find themselves in a state of drift, being led by the music more than the other way around, like a planchette across a Ouija board. “There was one moment in the night when everyone sort of looked up and looked at each other in shock almost,“ Johanna Knutsson said of their first performance. “It really felt like we all talked with each other but just through music. We all talked about it afterwards and we all