Alex Koi x Kirin McElwain

Alex Koi and Kirin McElwain are playing Berlin on Friday, November 6, performing original music written for voice, cello, and modular synthesizer. It's a duo set, so you'll see the two of them on stage together rather than a full band.

The instrumentation tells you a good bit about what to expect. You've got the voice and the cello — two acoustic, melodic lines — and then the modular synthesizer, which handles the electronic side of things. When they're playing together, those two worlds sit right next to each other: the organic, bowed sound of the cello and the singing voice on one hand, and the synthetic, patched-together textures of the modular synth on the other. It's original music, so this is their own work, not a set of covers.

If you're not familiar with the setup, a modular synthesizer is a bit different from a standard keyboard. It's built from separate modules connected by patch cables, and the sounds it makes are often more about texture and movement than a simple melody. Paired with a cello and a voice, it gives the whole thing a specific kind of weight — the acoustic instruments providing the grounding and the synth filling in the gaps around them.

The show starts at 8 PM, and tickets are $20. It's a single-bill night, so the focus is entirely on the two of them.