20 Seconds, Once a Week: No. 5, with Ale Hop

The Berlin-based musician, curator and researcher speaks on the Agua Dulce LP, Radical Sounds of Latin America and more.

Welcome to another edition of 20 Seconds, Once a Week, on Substack. This week, Daniel Melfi speaks to Alejandra Cárdenas Pacheco, known as Ale Hop, a Berlin-based Peruvian-born musician, curator and researcher. Her performances often blend visceral sounds with an unavoidable emotionality, combining extended guitar techniques and electronic synthesis. She is a co-founder of the Berlin-based festival Radical Sounds of Latin America and is a PhD candidate at the Berlin University of Arts, as well as the director of the editorial platform Contingent Sounds. Melfi speaks to Ale Hop about the foundation of the Berlin festival in the midst of its fifth edition and about stepping down from its curatorial team in pursuit of musical projects. They also touch on her new album with Laura Robles, Agua dulce, as well as her editorial imprint Contingent Sounds and balancing music and theory in the fields of technological research.

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Photo by Elina Matvajeva.