Join us on Friday, September 13th at ESS for a showcase of artists working in synthesis and electronic music in Chicago. The concert features performances by Bakantez, Dalibor Cruz, and Onur Żłobnicki and takes place in ESS’s Studio A. This event is the first in a series of initiatives aimed at supporting Chicago’s rich synthesizer community and building towards ESS’s SYNTH[bank], scheduled to launch in 2025.

About Bakantez

Bakantez formed in 2022 as the solo electronic project of Chicago based experimental composer Hanna Elliott, former member of the industrial duo HOGG.

Over the years of creative development, Hanna has retained consistent themes of libidinal physicality, tactility, and tumultuous introspection. Her project Bakantez sonically consists of electro-acoustic sampling, sequencing, synthesis, and processed vocals reminiscent of sound collage, minimal wave, and noise. Her new work uses home-made objects that translate movement into tools for sonic manipulation.

As Bakantez, Hanna released her first full-length album 'Rubedo' in 2021 on CD and Cassette and was featured on the compilation 'Larval Worlds' curated by the Montreal based art-collective, Interzone. She currently works with Brooklyn based artist Roxy Farman (Manat, Wetware) on the multi-media project, Tvål. Tvål debuted their first piece at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, 2022. Through various music projects, Hanna has released four full length albums and two EPs with Labels SCRAPES, Nihilist, and Rotted Tooth Recordings. She has gone on five American tours, has performed in France, Montreal, and at Mana in Miami.

About Dalibor Cruz

Dalibor Cruz is a Chicago-based artist with a heritage from Honduras. His latest release ‘Veiled Asperity’ works by a cryptic system of smoke and mirrors suggestion and cues, complicating a sort of ‘90s cyber-noir narrative with aspects of Hollywood orientalism and nods to pulpy Latin drama for a darkly ravishing trip as immersive as James Ferraro’s ‘Hacker Track’ spliced with the sort of late period Bryn Jones that inspired Vatican Shadow, and the cyberfolk urges behind work by JTG, Chris Chondropoulos & CLF.

About Onur Zlobnicki

Keven Michael-Onur Kalaycıoğlu-Żłobnicki’s compositions for modular synthesizer are structured within Quantum Entangled systems where Indeterminacy and Nonlinearity become favored as compositional and improvisational tools. Pieces are influenced by contrasting fluctuations of Harsh Noise, Drone, Musique Concrete, Algorithmic Composition, and Found Sound Manipulation violently coalescing into a primordial soup of distorted and dynamic orchestral inspired movements. Keven is the founder and designer of the, Chicago based, Eurorack modular synthesizer company, Żłob Modular, and guitarist/composer of Puke in the Icetray.

Tickets