ELOV + MAITRE is a duo crackling with the creative tension of two distinctive artists, a writer and a musician. Elo Viiding (b. 1974) established herself already in the early 1990s as a bold and direct poetic voice. She has published dozens of poetry and prose collections, characterised by a reworking of social clichés and ideological attitudes, as well as a theatrical poetics that is at once free and measured. Mait Rebane (b. 1969) is a musician with a broad range, a multi-instrumentalist and producer who has performed in several of Estonia’s most notable rock bands (including Vennaskond, The Chance and Bizarre) and has composed sound design for theatre productions, often performing it live during the shows. He has also organised the experimental electronic music festival ElektriKirik. MAITRE’s music can be explored on Soundcloud.
The programme I Was Alone That Evening, which refers to one of Elo Viiding’s best-known poems, is an industrial-tinged collage of word and sound in which electronic textures merge with a deeply personal human voice, opening up a parallel reality that is at once expansive and concentrated.