Day 1 | Borderline Festival 2026

At the Basement, Ben UFO, the iconic founder of Hessle Audio and pioneer of bass music, brings his unparalleled style to Athens for the first time, while aya transports us into her own universe through her raw, electrified, punk-infused audiovisual live show. Internationally acclaimed Ugandan producer Afrorack presents his captivating DIY modular synth setup; Poor J’Darr b2b pink.wav arrive with a bag full of explosive selections, inviting us to explore every corner of the dancefloor; and STEGI.RADIO’s DJ NOT I opens the night with atmospheric downtempo sounds.

At Ground Level, J Spaceman, founding member of the legendary Spiritualized and Spacemen 3, presents his signature psychedelic sound to the Athenian audience in a performance featuring live cinematography, in collaboration with Stages A/LIVE. Victory Collapse, the most dynamic voice of Athens’ new wave/neo-psychedelic scene, unleash their sharp-edged rhythms, while mint++ and Chris OD take over the closing sets at Ground Level with eclectic, leftfield selections.

GROUND LEVEL

20:00—20:50 | Newt
21:00—22:00 | J Spaceman & John Coxon - “Music for William Eggleston’s ‘Stranded in Canton’”
22:15—23:00 | Victory Collapse
23:00—01:00 | Chris OD
01:00—03:00 | mint + +

BASEMENT

20:30—22:00 | DJ NOT I
22:00—22:50 | Afrorack
23:00—00:00 | aya w/ MFO
00:00—01:00 | Poor J'Darr b2b pink.wav
01:00—03:00 | Ben UFO

Afrorack

Brian Bamanya is the first person to build DIY modular synth setups in Africa, hence his alias Afrorack. The 30-year-old engineering wizard started his musical journey by playing guitar and creating his own instruments, until he dove into the world of modular synths.

Based on his own experimentations and online findings, Brian developed an extensive home-built modular synth setup on which he’s been performing for the last two years during dazzling improvised live sets, mixing African rhythms, techno, and acid house.

aya

aya is a human musician from the Pennine region of the North Atlantic. Her work is primarily concerned with the transfigurative power of experience and memory on the physical body. Melding the sprawling bifurcations of soundsystem culture with delocalized internet scenes and post-hardcore lamentations, she casts stark sculptures in genre alloy.

Her work has been released with labels such as Hyperdub, YCO, Tri Angle, Wisdom Teeth, and Astral Plane Recordings; not to mention her work as a remix gun-for-hire.

Ben UFO

Over the past five years, Ben UFO has acquired a deserved reputation as one of contemporary dance music’s most daring and wide-ranging selectors, with his keen ear and razor-sharp technical abilities enabling him to cut between eras, lineages, and mixing styles with dazzling ease and fluidity.

Having cut his teeth in early dubstep and drum ’n’ bass, his roots lie in UK rave culture, yet his selections cast the net wider, drawing new mutations of this culture into the orbit of house, techno, and other global dancefloor sounds. In the club, his sets somehow manage to be simultaneously considered and raucous, sliding from sidewinding broken rhythms into an irresistible four-to-the-floor groove, or broadsiding you with unexpected tangents, old favorites, and bizarre secret weapons.

From their early years in Leeds, Ben UFO and Hessle Audio have evolved into core figures in an increasingly globally connected dance music scene. Having provided an early platform for music from kindred innovative spirits such as Blawan, Peverelist, Untold, and Joe, the label continues to release new music from both its founders and emerging new artists. This openness marks the cornerstone of Ben’s approach: drawing connections, exploring new ideas, and feeding some of Hessle Audio’s energy and enthusiasm back into the musical communities of which they are an integral part.

J Spaceman & John Coxon

Spiritualized’s J Spaceman & John Coxon present “Music for William Eggleston’s ‘Stranded in Canton,’” an instrumental score of Eggleston’s 1970s art film.

“Stranded in Canton” is a black-and-white film portrait of Memphis in 1974, shot in bars and on street corners, showing Eggleston’s friends carousing, playing music, and firing pistols into the night sky. It is raw, greasy, Quaalude-y, and hot. Jagged and intimate, the film is a handheld window into a different world; “Hogarth on Beale Street,” as writer Richard Williams describes it in the album’s liner notes.

The tones Spaceman and Coxon came up with mirror the ragged nature of the film perfectly. Riffs written under flickering light bulbs, hypnotic tremolo, boozy romances, some barroom boogie, and the blues. The characters of “Stranded in Canton” dance around the music, living their best Memphis lives by any means necessary.

DJ NOT I

Giannis Galiatsos is a DJ, translator, and writer living and working in Athens.

Poor J’Darr

Poor J’Darr is a producer and DJ from Athens. He has spent four years shaping the city’s underground music scene.

A regular at Romantso and STEGI.RADIO and an architect of the city’s ever-evolving musical landscape, he’s been an instrumental figure in strengthening the Greco-UK connection through his deep-rooted love of UK bass music. Following his debut release on Madam X’s imprint KAIZEN, his second EP, “Over the Top,” was released last November on Not Now Records.

pink.wav

pink.wav (she/her) is a Greek, Athens-based DJ and creative, exploring sound as a path to shared experience. She has been an active member of the scene for the past few years and has performed alongside renowned artists at events and festivals across Greece and abroad, including NLC, Reworks, Qreclaim, and more. Her genre-blurring sets fuse bass, mesmerizing vocals, intricate breaks, and seductive percussions—offering a sonic reflection of human complexity. pink’s mixes have aired on platforms such as NTS, Kiosk Radio, Komrad, and more, and she currently hosts her own radio show titled “time:stamps” on STEGI.RADIO.

Victory Collapse

Victory Collapse is a band from Athens known for their urban sound, repetitive, austere rhythms, and new wave, psychedelic sounds. They have released two LPS, “Convenience Has Poisoned Our Souls” (2012) and “Atlas” (2015), and performed alongside artists such as Liars, The Fall, Gang of Four, Savage Republic, Momus, Wire, and more. Their new album, titled “Non Player Characters,” will be released soon via Inner Ear Records.

Chris OD

Chris OD is the selector-mode moniker of Christos Karras, a music aficionado from Athens, Greece, with a lifelong passion for eclectic and off-the-radar sounds. Active across DIY publications and events, national and independent media, radio, and DJ sets, he has written, curated, collected, promoted, and connected—driven by a belief in music’s power to bring people together and build lasting communities. He currently hosts the monthly “oddcast” show on STEGI.RADIO.