Last weekend the 15th edition of Week-End Fest gave Cologne (and Wuppertal) some magic. Like every year, Niclas Weber captured the most beautiful moments in pictures. Here are 21 of them – fitting a recap of the festival on Jazzstadt Cologne / Night Notes by Thomas Venker.

Photos: Niclas Weber
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WEEK-END FEST 2026: “Every artist has an audience. You just have to find it, pique its curiosity, and get it excited.”
A MELTING POT AGAINST MUSICAL COMFORT

Text: Thomas Venker

You have to be able to let go sometimes. It’s generally a good thing to have reached this realization in life, but during the first week of November in Cologne, it’s absolutely essential if you don’t want to end up being picked up by an ambulance. Because quite a few people have already overtaxed themselves—both physically and culturally—between Art Cologne and the Week-End Fest (and then there’s also the Film Festival Cologne running parallel to it all).

And here’s a second piece of wisdom: “It’s not proper to speak ill of others,” my mother whispered to me early on. Little did she know that one day I’d be drawn to cultural journalism—and thus, among other things, to cultural criticism—where it’s simply unavoidable to make critical, negative assessments. You just have to be able to back them up. Which isn’t difficult for me in this specific case, since I recently had the opportunity to experience Dopplereffekt—the opening act of this year’s Week-End Fest—at the Making Time Festival in Philadelphia—and there I had to watch and listen as Gerald Donald treated his project partner and wife, To Nhan Le Thi, unpleasantly on stage, snapping at her fiercely, even lashing out at her with downright malicious anger.
Other artists performing there later told me that it had long since ceased to be a secret and was, unfortunately, just part of everyday life at the Dopplereffekt—both on stage and backstage. For me, that was reason enough to leave the set in Philadelphia early—and to skip his performance at the Week-End Fest as well. And this as a huge fan of Donald’s earlier project Drexciya (with James Marcel Stinson, who passed away in 2002) and of Dopplereffekt. For the record—and definitely with a completely different, entirely positive vibe: Before and after that, the Cologne-based DJ collective Hyperlove spun sets; they’ve been regularly booked by Week-End Fest director Jan Lankisch for several years now. After all, supporting local musicians is part of the festival’s DNA.

This is a good time to take a brief look back at the festival’s history, especially since it celebrated its fifteenth anniversary this year. It was founded in 2011 by Jan Lankisch together with Jörg Waschat; since Waschat’s sudden death in 2018, Lankisch has continued to run the festival—initially with Theresa Nik (who had been part of the team since 2013) and, for the past few years, on his own. Although “on his own” isn’t quite accurate, since he actively seeks dialogue with other key figures in the Cologne music scene and books numerous local musicians—this year, for example, Benjamin Adams (aka Electronik für Alle), Opek, and the ultimate party crew, E.P.I.Q. & DJ LoveCatt. In addition, Lankisch repeatedly—almost manically—initiates major projects that deliberately build bridges between the “International Classics,” which form the core repertoire of the festival, and emerging artists. Here are a few examples: In 2012, Stephen Malkmus & Von Spar came together to kick off the festival with a special live version of Can’s Krautrock masterpiece “Ege Bamyasi” at the Alte Kranhalle in Ehrenfeld. And in 2013, Australian singer-songwriter Robert Forster and U.S. composer Jherek Bischoff performed together with a string quartet at the Week-End. Most recently, the award-winning, Cologne-based Dutch flutist, composer, and arranger Jorik Bergman has become a key figure in the Week-End Fest’s ambitious, large-scale ensemble projects (more on that later, as the current edition also builds on this collaboration). In 2021, for example, Bergman developed an unconventional live arrangement of the groundbreaking minimalist piece “Stay On It” by U.S. composer Julius Eastman for the festival, in which she also performed as a flutist. And at last year’s Week-End Fest XIV, she conducted a ten-piece Cologne big band assembled specifically for the festival. Together with U.S. jazz icon Charles Tolliver, they brought the historical legacy of the legendary spiritual jazz label Strata-East Records to the stage of the Stadtgarten.

Friday kicked off with an absolute highlight: the joint performance by Upsammy & Valentina Magaletti, the project by Dutch DJ and producer Thessa Torsind and Italian super-drummer Magaletti, who most recently released a fantastic album on AD 93 with Koshiro Hino, among others, and whom Lankisch has been inviting back time and again for years (most recently, she played a stunning concert with Holy Tongue at the Jaki). So it’s no surprise that she appeared a second time in the 2026 lineup on the festival’s Saturday—with Moin, her seriously loud project that straddles the line between post-rock and doom. It’s characteristic of Lankisch’s approach that he remains loyal to artists and is always happy to invite them back with new projects.

The Friday highlight for quite a few people—and, as expected: Gilles Peterson in the Stadtgarten Hall. After Opek and Gena had already really fired up the weekend crowd, Peterson celebrated what he does better than almost anyone else: digger DJing, which feels totally laid-back and casual—here, an artist doesn’t have to go out of his way to prove he’s seen it all. “Gilles is one of the people who had a huge influence on me back in the 1990s,” Lankisch told me a few days before the festival. “I’m really glad that his endless curiosity about new music and his love for record-digging culture will never fade. He inspires so many people with his radio shows (on the BBC and his own station, Worldwide FM; author’s note), DJ sets, and his own We Out Here Festival. It’s an honor to have him back in Cologne—a city that’s very important to him, where his career outside of England began.”

Overall, the lineup once again beautifully showcased how Lankisch listens to, feels, and blends music. For him, one discovery often leads to the next. Take Gena, for example—the collaborative music project between singer Liv.e and producer/drummer Karriem Riggins—which Lankisch discovered through Gilles Peterson’s sets. One act simply leads to the next.
The subsequent performance by Daddy G and Don Letts on Friday, in turn, reflected Lankisch’s formative years of musical socialization. As for many others, Massive Attack—with whom Daddy G remains active to this day—was of great significance to him. And Don Letts was the manager of The Slits, whose post-punk sound has now accompanied him through several revivals—plus, Letts is a longtime collaborator of Massive Attack. Yes, everything is somehow connected to everything else.

But not everything is always meticulously planned—not even at the Week-End Fest. After all, the performance by Actress, Saturday’s headliner, ultimately came about because Anna Domino, like last year, unfortunately had to cancel due to illness, freeing up a slot. Of course, Actress had already been on Lankisch’s wish list for many years. And sometimes, last-minute requests are simply the key to booking success.
Among the Saturday performances, ML Buch’s set also deserves a mention; Lankisch rightly counts her, alongside Smerz and Astrid Sonne, among the most exciting artists from Copenhagen. This, too, is a hallmark of his booking approach: opening up new contexts, listening to what other musicians are listening to. “The atmosphere I want to create comes about purely intuitively,” Lankisch comments in response to my questions about the festival’s programming. Which doesn’t mean he doesn’t think deeply about how artists interact with one another. The festival is an expression of his taste, but by no means his private listening room, as he emphasizes:“There’s an audience for every artist. You just have to find it, pique its curiosity, and get it excited.” And so, in contrast to the algorithmic reassurance of the familiar, Lankisch enthusiastically bets on people’s willingness to embrace the unknown. When people go home with an unexpected discovery, he considers the magic to have worked.

In reality, however, it’s nearly impossible to break down the Week-End Fest program and single out individual acts. The experience lies in the whole. Every act is worthy of the audience’s attention. And since this is our anniversary year, let’s state it explicitly here: After fifteen years, the Week-End Fest has found its place in the world of festivals. It opens up spaces for the present and for surprise. For Lankisch, growth at any cost has always been less important than independence and artistic freedom. In this regard, the cozy setting of the Stadtgarten—along with the adjacent Jaki and the bar lounge—has proven to be perfect, both recently and this year (though the Jaki sometimes reached its capacity limits, forcing people to wait longer to get in).

The core idea behind the Week-End Fest—which Lankisch had once defined, together with Jörg Waschat, as a way to create a “melting pot” for artists and ideas that might otherwise never have made it to Cologne—was certainly palpable again this year. And Jan Lankisch is certain that Jörg Waschat would have enjoyed many of this year’s acts, especially Daddy G, Don Letts, Gilles Peterson, Gena, and Moin.

Sunday, dubby Sunday

And since the concept of being overwhelmed has always been part of the Week-End Fest, a listening session at Open Ground in Wuppertal on Sunday served as a follow-up to the festival. Following an introduction by David Katz, one of the most knowledgeable music journalists on reggae, dub, and Jamaican music history, “Upsetters 14 Dub Black Board Jungle” was presented—one of the most influential dub albums in reggae history, produced by Lee “Scratch” Perry and mixed by Lee Perry and King Tubby, which is set to be reissued in late November on the festival’s affiliated Week-End label. This was followed by a live performance by U14DBBJ, one of those typically charming, megalomaniacal Week-End projects, for which Dutch composer, arranger, and flutist Jorik Bergman was once again invited to assemble an ensemble to interpret the original material. The event was framed by DJ sets from Olaf Karnik and Daniella Dee.

The author himself wasn’t there on Sunday, though—he was simply too wiped out after the Art Cologne and Week-End Festival marathon. Trusted sources, however, spoke of a magical finale to the Week-End Festival. And Open Ground was sold out, too—as were the Stadtgarten on Friday and Saturday, by the way. Well played, Week-End, mate.