Usagi Shima (うさぎ島) is a small Japanese isle that’s home to a horde of cotton-tailed rodents inspiring its aforementioned “Rabbit Island” nickname. Officially called Ōkunoshima (大久野島), it has a less-than-cute human history of military activity, running from the Russo-Japanese War at the turn of the 20th century to being a key player in developing chemical weapons during World War II. There are countless other Rabbit Islands around the world—from several in Australia to one called Koh Tonsay (កោះទន្សាយ) in Cambodia. They each boast their own unique stories and environmental circumstances, ultimately impacting their occupying organisms in myriad ways. Creamcake’s eponymous Rabbit Island rave at Berlin’s Zenner on July 29 is one of two experiments in possible outcomes from a complex sum of variables, by inviting several radically different artists to inhabit a specific space and seeing what happens.
The party at the former GDR restaurant in Treptower Park follows an earlier event of the same name at the nearby Spreepark, an abandoned amusement park from the same Soviet era in the north of the Plänterwald. Set to the neoclassical architecture of the building and its changing use over time—from two-storey dining hall to disco, to a Burger King before becoming the music and concert venue it is today—Rabbit Island will host an array of artists who live in their own realities. Japanese-American producer and performer Golin’s collection of synthetic and ethereal earworms is an electrifying invitation into her idiosyncratic sonic world, while Montreal-based pop and reggaeton singer, Isabella Lovestory, draws her audience into the memories of her childhood in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
Egyptian DJ and producer Oldyungmayn expresses his multifaceted identity through an exhilarating musical lexicon of 90’s era rave and Middle Eastern music, while Hong Kong-born, Manchester-based producer and DJ ASJ works in concepts of the mind. Berlin-based multi-hyphenate DJ, LIL RISK, brings a barrage of unexpected blends of techno, reggaeton, doom metal, and club, and Roman-born, Berlin-based electronic artist TRYCE carries their precision-cut sound to their DJ set, alongside Canadian-born DJ Venetta’s so-called “sonic blitzkrieg.” Much like the many Rabbit Islands in existence, Creamcake brings these artists together to create another ecological experiment in electronic possibility.
Set times
11:00pm-00:30am ASJ
00:30-02:00am TRYCE
02:00-02:30am Golin
02:30-03:15am Isabella Lovestory
03:15-04:45am Venetta
04:45-06:15am oldyungmayn
06:15-8:00am Lil Risk
