Ether 08 merges art with technology

Southbank Centre's festival of art and technology will return with a mix of experimental new work, rare appearances and suitably strange collaborations. This year's line-up features performances by Goldfrapp, Radio Soulwax and 2manydJs. There are also free shows in The Front Room of Queen Elizabeth Hall and The Clore Ballroom at Royal Festival Hall, including China Incidental, a sound installation, which can be sampled throughout the festival. Here are our tips on the festival highlights:

Goldfrapp
Royal Festival Hall
April 18, 7.30pm
£25 - £30

Opening Ether, the preternaturally cool Goldfrapp unveil their new album Seventh Tree live at the Royal Festival Hall. Seventh Tree follows the platinum-selling Supernature which was released in summer 2005. From the electronic balladry of the Mercury nominated debut Felt Mountain and the darkly subversive follow-up Black Cherry, Goldfrapp have consistently surprised – with each album signalling a new direction.

Harmonia
Queen Elizabeth Hall
April 18, 7.30pm
£15 - £17.50

Krautrock pioneers of electronica, Harmonia demonstrate where it all came from with their first-ever UK performance. Formed from members of Kraftwerk, Neu! and Cluster (and some of the most important musicians in the 1970s German experimental music scene: Michael Rother, Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius), Harmonia were once called the world's most important rock band by Brian Eno. In their short lifetime (1973-76), the trio released two albums that captured Krautrock in its prime. Full of twists, turns and hidden depths, these extended experiments-in-sound are still as cutting edge as when they were first released.

The International Beatbox Convention
Queen Elizabeth Hall
April 19-20
Free

Whether you feel strongly about beatboxing and want to voice your opinions or would rather sit back and listen to others, the International Beatbox Convention will invite you to interact. The world's leading beatboxers descend on Southbank for two days of showcases, seminars, talks plus participatory workshops and open mic sessions for all. The convention closes with an International Beatboxing Showcase at Queen Elizabeth Hall, £15.

Current 93 and Baby Dee
Queen Elizabeth Hall
April 21, 7.30pm
£17.50 - £20

David Tibet's enigmatic post-industrial group Current 93 take to the stage with the black prince of leftfield pop Marc Almond for a collaboration that could be the stand-out event of the festival. Current 93, David Tibet's visionary vehicle since 1982, have pursued their hallucinatory gnostic vision through records, books, concerts and paintings for the last 24 years. In this unique event they perform alongside Baby Dee, described as a cross between a New York bar dancer, church organist, accordionist, tricycle-riding harpist, carnival side-show bilateral hermaphrodite, treeworker, freak-show musician and epiphanic.

Radio Soulwax
Royal festival Hall
April 24, 8.30pm
£20

Belgian brothers David and Stephen Dewaele's indie live phenomenon Radio Soulwax will take over the spaces and foyers of the Royal Festival Hall on 24 April for a one-night party. The evening features the premiere of their new movie, Part of the Weekend Never Dies, directed by Saam Farahmand and Soulwax. Soulwax will perform live and 2manyDJs will play alongside a special guest on the night.

Pere Ubu and The Brothers Quay
Queen Elizabeth Hall
April 24 – April 25, 7.30pm
£20 - £22.50

David Thomas with The Brothers Quay, Sarah Jane Morris and Pere Ubu present the world premiere of Bring Me The Head of Ubu Roi, an adaptation of Ubu Roi, Alfred Jarry's landmark play from which singer David Thomas named his band. Widely seen as the precursor to the Absurdist, Dada and Surrealist art movements, Jarry's plays were widely and wildly hated for their vulgarity, brutality, low comedy and complete lack of literary finish. With this part music, part spoken word, part animated production on the stage of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, David Thomas realises a dream he has had since being turned on to Jarry as a 16-year-old high school student in Cleveland, Ohio.

In Seven Days
Southbank Centre
April 28, 7.30pm
£8 - £22

Ether concludes with the world premiere of In Seven Days (Concerto for Piano and Six Screens), a collaboration between composer Thomas Adès and video artist Tal Rosner which has been commissioned for the London Sinfonietta, resident at Southbank Centre. Rosner's architectural video work is created from images of the Royal Festival Hall's major refurbishment, which was completed last June, and of the recently opened Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. In 2007 he made the title sequence for Skins, the E4 television series. This world premiere is coupled with a performance of Steve Reich's 1974 landmark Music for 18 Musicians.