Le Guess Who? 2024

It’s that time of the year when, as others keep madly planning summer holidays and festival weekends either muddy or sun-scorched, some music heads start looking forward to November and to the cozy setting of one of the Netherlands’ true gems. We couldn’t stress this enough: Le Guess Who?, four days of music and shapeshifting arts taking place in Utrecht every year, is Europe’s most forward-thinking, horizon-broadening, genre-defying, inspiring and inspiriting festival. The 2024 edition will return 7-10th November, and its first names have just been announced.

First, we have this year’s guest curators: neo-Sufi/free-flowing jazz explorer Arooj Aftab (the first ever Pakistani woman to win a Grammy, awarded for Best Global Music Performance in 2022), Japanese heavy psych travellers Bo Ningen, Franco-Guadalupian-Ivorian multimedia artiste Crystallmess, NYC electronica-meets-disco-meets-prog-meets-funk duo DARKSIDE, Guatemalan-born Mexico City-based avant-garde cellist Mabe Fratti, and South London musical movement cum record label Touching Bass.

As these artists’ curations are revealed together with the first names from the festival’s general program, we can look forward to beloved favourites (alternative rock royalty like Kim Gordon, as well as Aussie acid-punk noisemakers Tropical Fuck Storm and reggae giant King Jammy) and, most importantly, adventurous music weavers from all around the globe – remember, new discoveries are always the best aspect of a true Le Guess Who? experience. Among the most promising events, it is worth mentioning Bo Ningen’s live score to the Jodorowsky classic The Holy Mountain, a meeting of tombak (the main percussive instrument of Persian tradition) and modular synths courtesy of CinnaPeyghamy, performances from historic purveyors of Colombian cumbia Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto and diasporic music experimenter Sheherazaad (who was recently featured in our pages).

The full initial line-up can be found at www.leguesswho.com/lineup.

A limited amount of remaining four-day passes and day tickets go on sale on Tuesday 28th May at 11am CEST: www.leguesswho.com/tickets.

Shindig!’s review of last year’s edition of the festival – defined as the one that better caters to true music heads’ multifarious tastes – concluded that “once again, Le Guess Who? had us looking around and feeling that our species was a little less hopeless than we thought. A glance at the initial line-up for 2024 says that such uncommon, life-affirming experience can only be enhanced.