12°C 
NEW WAVE 2026 / Davor Gazde
Location: Beton Kino, Multimedia Cultural Center (Ulica slobode 28)
Dates: 30 & 31 January 2026
The second season of the concert program at Beton Kino is starting.
This year’s edition also presents a genre-diverse lineup, encompassing ambient and modular sound structures, improvised live sets, dub, reggae, and bass music, as well as forms influenced by industrial and ethnic traditions, experimental pop, and hybrid projects at the intersection of club sounds and avant-garde practices. This year, the program further opens up to the international scene, featuring artists from France, Serbia, and Spain. In addition to the concerts, Novi šum also includes free open workshops led by the artists themselves.
CONCERT // Friday, 30 January – BETON KINO / 9:00 PM:
"One day I will find the sound I am looking for, and it will be simple." This concert is not a search for new sounds, but for a single sound—the one that can last forever while remaining inexhaustible. An infinite tone from which everything arises. A hint of existence and its witness, a barely audible presence. Buchla and Serge modular systems are almost living organisms, participating in the process more as partners than as tools—conversationalists in the language of controlled chance.
Davor Gazde is active in contemporary and experimental music and has spent the last twenty years playing and exploring modular synthesizers. In his work, he uses the modular synthesizer, which he describes as an instrument without beginning or end: “I experience it as experimental geometry; rarely is sound so visual.”
He released his first album, “Levitation Scene”, as a digital edition in 2022, followed by a vinyl release in 2023. In the same year, his composition “Probability No. 3” was included in the international compilation Hordijk Vol. 2, dedicated to experimental electronic music, released by Flag Day Recordings. At the Audioart Festival in 2024, he performed an improvisation titled “Music for Still Life”, inspired by the poems of Gertrude Stein. At the 8th edition of the sound art festival Ispod bine (2023), he performed “Levitation Scene”.
He has performed at major festivals and institutions, including the Museum of Contemporary Art and Izlog suvremenog zvuka. Since 2010, he has been part of the group ROOM 100, composing music for award-winning performances staged in Croatia and abroad. He focuses on modular synthesis and drone music and in 2019 participated in a residency in Armenia, where he learned to play the duduk.
WORKSHOP // Saturday, 31 January – BETON KINO / 11:00 AM:
The day after the concert, Davor Gazde will hold a workshop open to all interested participants. The workshop will focus on the West Coast approach to sound synthesis and the differences in working within the Buchla ecosystem compared to the standards established by Bob Moog. There will also be discussion of the Eurorack standard, which in some ways incorporates elements of both approaches.
After a brief theoretical introduction to composers who worked with East Coast and West Coast approaches, the focus will be on differences in instrument design and the workflow. Various approaches will be demonstrated on a modular system, followed by practical work addressing perhaps the most interesting question: Where does composition begin on a modular electronic instrument?
Admission to the concert and participation in the workshop are free. No prior registration is required to join the workshop.
