The Vienna based festival Unsafe+Sounds returns this September with a densely layered program. Now in its 11th edition, the festival continues to foreground experimental, electronic, and club music alongside socio-cultural discourse and artistic practices that stretch and subvert contemporary templates. The presented formats range from concerts, performances, DJ-sets, readings, installations, screenings, to artist talks, key notes, and panel discussions.
About Unsafe+Sounds
The festival is dedicated to artistic practices of a contemporary culture that constructively questions the supposed dictates of the majority and introduces new perspectives and modes of access. Its formats are varied, ranging from concert evenings and club nights to readings and performances, from installations and screenings to artist talks, keynotes, and panel discussions.
The festival understands sound as a transformative force, a medium that can unsettle, reorient, and open new trajectories of thought and emotion. The festival brings together musicians, performers, poets, theorists, and researchers to explore these sonic potentials, inviting audiences into alternative realities and sketching speculative horizons that challenge established worldviews.
In 2025, the invited artists reflect a heterogeneous present, shaped by increasingly pluralistic aesthetic positions. Their works critically engage with our environment and highlight the interconnections between social developments and contemporary aesthetics. Personal narration and political resonance are deeply interwoven here.
Around 70 international and local artists and speakers will be featured from September 2–7 across various locations in the city. In addition to renowned concert venues like Porgy & Bess, institutions such as AIL in the former Postsparkasse and the IFK will also be involved, alongside clubs like Pratersauna and Flucc.
First wave of announced artists
- CEL (Felix Kubin & Hubert Zemler) (DE/PL)
- COBY SEY & CONTINUE (UK)
- ELIJAH (UK)
- GAJEK (DE)
- HXH (US)
- LUDWIG WANDINGER & YVES B. GOLDEN (DE/US)
- NKISI (FR)
- ROSA ANSCHÜTZ (DE)
- SOPHIA EISENHUT (DE)
- EDITIONS MEGO 30 feat.
- FINLAY SHAKESPEARE (UK)
- GENERAL MAGIC & TINA FRANK (AT/DE)
- HÜMA UTKU (TRK/DE)
- ILPO VÄISÄNEN (FIN)
- NIK COLK VOID (UK)
FIRST DISCOURSE HIGHLIGHT
The first announced discourse guest of this year’s edition is no one less than ELIJAH. The hyped London-based writer and DJ is working at the intersection of independent music, visual art, and critical discourse. With over 15 years of experience across artist management, label work, event production, and creative strategy, he co-founded the influential grime label Butterz, which helped define the UK’s grime and garage resurgence. Since 2021, his Yellow Squares project on Instagram has blossomed into a hybrid creative platform of visual installations, lectures, an album, a book, and a lecture series. A contributor to The Guardian, a Sónar +D panelist, and a lecturer at SOAS University of London, Elijah decodes creative practice and champions sustainable, DIY cultural entrepreneurship. In a keynote he will emphasize transparency, resilience, and radical self-determination in the evolving music ecosystem.
Get your early bird pass!
⟢ The reduced price 2nd wave Early Bird Festival Pass is available now!
The pass gives you entry to all events at all venues.
⟢Single ticket sales will start with the full line-up announcement at the beginning of August.
⟢ As each year the discourse programme can be attended for free.
⟢ Check updates and further announcements on the festival website, on Instagram, or subscribe to the Telegram channel, or newsletter!
Link
Stay tuned for more announcements and details coming up!