Inviting The Producer is the title under which HIIIT joins forces with a new generation of creators — digital natives who make music using laptops and think in terms of sound and samples.

The percussion ensemble from The Hague has long ventured beyond classical boundaries. For example, the group adapted the music of renowned footwork producer JLIN for concert halls.

Earlier this year, volume 2 of the collaborative SIIIX EP was released on resident Brussels label Maloca Records. Once again, HIIIT opened up its extensive collection of percussion instruments, offering up a vast and dynamic sample bank of drum recordings to a cluster of hand-picked, rhythmically-focussed artists such as 3Phaz, Zoë Mc Pherson, and Rrose. For Abrupt Festival (formerly known as Nuits Sonores), four of HIIIT’s musicians will team up with Rrose and upsammy during an exclusive collaborative live set. Prepare yourself for an adventurous ritual of hypnotising rhythms and organic soundscapes.

Michael Gordon, the musical pioneer and co-founder of the New York ensemble Bang on a Can, is known for his subtle rhythmic explorations and bold compositional inventions. His music stems from his experience in the underground rock scene of the Big Apple, combined with classical training. It’s no surprise, then, that he is obsessed with the nature of rhythm and has built his career on exploring what happens when different rhythms are layered on top of one another.

Gordon composed Timber in 2009 specifically for HIIIT, as music for the dance production Pinball & Grace by Club Guy & Roni. The concert version quickly became a modern classic in the percussion repertoire. Gordon left behind traditional instrumentation, resulting in a mesmerizing masterpiece—a meditation on sound and rhythm that pushes the physical power, endurance, and technique of percussionists to a new level; a true desert trip.

Timber consists of five continuous sections, in which the energy of swelling and fading rolls creates an almost hallucinatory effect. Through their intense interplay, the musicians seem to transform into a single body. The piece is performed on so-called simantras, instruments made of archaic hardwood, rooted in a historical Greek ecclesiastical tradition and first developed by composer Iannis Xenakis.

At the brand-new festival Het Groene Geheim in Almere, HIIIT will perform the piece outdoors in the afternoon, in celebration of the start of summer. Children under 18 get free entry to the festival, which will take place on Landgoed de Kemphaan.