Trap has conquered Italy's Charts with its own idiosyncratic take. Artists descended from  immigrants raise political issues in an European society that is seeing ever-growing support of right wing ideas.

Im Videokommentar zu «Du verwachsch wieder nume i dinere Wonig» der Schweizer Mundart Philosophen Stahlberger erscheint das im Video inszenierte Therapiegespräch als «Psychogramm einer in sich selbst vereinsamten Schweiz».

Dmytro Fedorenko and Kateryna Zavoloka are two Ukrainian composers from Kiev who moved to Vienna two years ago. Zavoloka's EP «Volya» is inspired by the Ukrainian revolution. An interview on music, war, and protest.

On his recent release «Tar», the Tehran-based drone musician Siavash Amini creates thick walls of sound that conjure eerie landscapes and feelings of disorientation. But if one is brave enough to face the grim textures, it creates an effect of empowerment.

An echo is historically coded as the sound of a lonely disembodied voice, able to produce a decentered sense of alienation. This is illustrated here through the urban echoic production work of Burial (William E. Bevan).

The Lebanese musician Malikah started to rap out of rage. She travels between the streets of Beirut to Europe's avant-garde spaces. Norient caught up with her to talk about her sense of belonging in an English-speaking, male-dominated hip hop scene.

A psychological approach to sampling: the American avantgarde-pop musician Katie Gately samples familiar, sometimes scary sounds and noises form the everyday that are deeply connected to her childhood memory.