CTM 2026 Closing Concert: Emma Ruth Rundle, Sam Slater

Our 2026 Closing Concert drifts between excavation and apparition, memory pulled apart and recomposed in real time, shadow and revelation revealing a passage of reflection.

Presenting the live premiere of the album and A/V show »Lunng«, Sam Slater’s heavy experimental electronics and layered sound design takes on new dimensions through Lukas Feigelfeld’s chilling cinematic visuals and Theresa Baumgartner’s monumental lighting display. Over Slater’s distorted and energetic compositions, Feigelfeld’s eerily processed dashcam footage merges seamlessly with Baumgartner’s immersive light theatrics, creating a dialogue between the identity-defining urgency of adolescent roadtrip listening and the uneasy bandwidth of the current moment. Memory and immediacy collapse into a disorienting, genre-bent reverie: one eye on the rearview and the other fixed on the unknown. This performance features special guest appearances by Maria W Horn, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Hilary Jeffery and Cavid Dhen.

Emma Ruth Rundle remains a restless spirit at the edges of doom-folk and ambient existentialism, drawn into shadow and myth. Since the stark emotional exposure of her work Engine of Hell, her work has moved even further inward, embracing restraint and negative space as active forces. Piano, guitar and voice are central tools, silence charged to carry as much weight as melody. Her music now unfolds less as narrative songwriting and more as emotional architecture, slow-burn structures honed by the sharp winds of grief and memory. After having to cancel her previous CTM appearance, she'll be presenting a new performance.