Arsenal Mikebe live at Gaswerk Music Days 2025

In the organizer's words:

Arsenal Mikebe live at Gaswerk Music Days 2025
Arsenal Mikebe is a cutting-edge percussion ensemble based on the outskirts of Kampala. Their heavy-body drumming style is interwoven with soul vocals and jungle-infused trance - a raw industrial-organic rhythm machine dressed in sexy Armani. Founded by Jonathan Uliel Saldanha (HHY), the ensemble includes traditional percussionists Ssentongo Moses, Dratele Epiphany, and Luyambi Vicent de Paul. Their custom-built percussion system - crafted by Henry Segamwenge and partially composed of metal bells - forms the ensemble's core sound: a hybrid of acoustic intensity and electronic energy, like an 808 cargo cult device. The result is a dense rhythmic force, hypnotic grooves, and infectious vocal bursts that target the body directly.
For this show, Arsenal expands its sonic arsenal with extra pressure and dub, as HHY joins the core trio on stage. While typically a three-piece powerhouse, these special live appearances unveil the full vision of the project, with HHY's production spectrum fully integrated into a live performance setting.

Recent performances include BRDCST Festival (Belgium), CTM (Germany), Nyege Nyege (Uganda), and Boiler Room Festival (UK) in 2022, as well as Tallinn Music Week and Gnration's anniversary in Braga, Portugal, in 2023.

Check out their latest album release - Drum machine (Nyege Nyege Tapes - September 2024)

https://www.instagram.com/arsenal_mikebe/
https://www.gaswerk-music-days.de/

<<<>>>

Saturday, 12.07.2025
Afrosonic Lineage - in collaboration with Nyege Nyege Festival

The first festival date highlights artists from the Nyege Nyege sphere alongside other African and local voices. Whether drawing from ancestral traditions or exploring Afrofuturistic frequencies, dusting off archival tapes or reimagining sounds from Africa and its diasporas, each artist leaves a distinct mark on the arc connecting African pasts and futures.

Arsenal Mikebe
HHY & The Kampala Unit
Ibaaku
Sonic Interventions
Awesome Tapes From Africa

<<<>>>

Gaswerk Music Days (12.07. - 19.07.) is the summer music festival organized by Gaswerksiedlung Berlin and taking place in its lush gardens, BLOCK1 event space, and creative studios. The event unites experimental electronics, African sounds, jazz, noise, avant-pop, kraut, improvisation and dance music under its "Radical Live Music" flag, binding and crossing genres in a program with over 20 acts on 2 stages.

Overcoming the classic fractures among genres, our program is devoted to live music, challenging sound, improvisation and discovery. We foster those who take risks and push the boundaries, we establish grounds of exchange whilst cultivating diversity, embodying a proud alternative to a mainstream-dominated music ecosystem.