Pussy Riot, D Double E, and Audiobooks Join Llais 2022 Line-up

Wales Millennium Centre has announced further artists joining the line-up for Llais 2022, WMC's flagship international arts festival which returns to Cardiff from 26-30 October with an eclectic line-up of international acts.

Iconic Russian punk rock performance art collective Pussy Riot will bring their award-winning show Riot Days to the festival. More relevant and vital than ever, the show is an innovative combination of live music, theatre and video, produced by Alexander Cheparukhin and directed by Yuri Muravitsky.

Trailblazing grime artist D Double E, who was integral to the establishment of grime in the UK, will headline Wales Millennium Centre's Weston Studio supported by some of the finest emerging artists from across Wales. Joining D Double E on stage are Pennines-based drill artist SAGE TODZ and Swansea rapper MARINO, and opening the show are some of the most exciting grime MCs in Wales - MANLIKEVISION, Niques, Razkid, Smxk3 and Truth.

Welsh band audiobooks will join the previously announced singer songwriter Keeley Forsyth in a double bill.

Previously announced artists include John Cale, who performed at the inaugural Festival of Voice in 2016, returning in his 80th birthday year to perform a special one-off performance with Sinfonia Cymru and special guests, and to chat about his life and career. Death Songbook, featuring delicate new versions of songs about death performed online at last year's Gŵyl 2021 by Suede's Brett Anderson, Charles Hazlewood, and Paraorchestra, will be performed in front of a live audience for the first time.

Also appearing will be legendary South African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, Texan indie folk rockers Midlake, English rock band black midi and Wales' own Cate Le Bon. Niger-based musician Bombino will perform his only UK date this year as well as eight-piece experimental London band caroline and psych-folk group Tara Clerkin Trio.

Other acts include Les Amazones d'Afrique, a creative force from across the African diaspora.

In between performances, audiences can enjoy two interactive virtual reality experiences. In award-winning filmmaker Darren Emerson's In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats - one of the sell-out smash hits of Coventry UK City of Culture last year - audiences will be transported into the heart of the acid house movement, while in Darkfield's FLIGHT they will face different worlds, realities and outcomes aboard an aircraft as the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is explored. Alongside those, the immersive film installation No Place Like (Flat) Holm will tell the story of the island at risk from rising sea levels through a lone woman in chronic pain.

There will also be a packed schedule of free workshops and events, details of which will be announced in September.

Across five days, Llais will fill every corner of Wales Millennium Centre with a programme inspired by the instrument that connects us all - the voice. Audiences will be treated to a packed schedule of incredible live music, inspiring digital experiences, free workshops and events.

The festival will start on Wednesday 26 October with the Welsh Music Prize ceremony; arguably the focal point of the industry's calendar in Wales, celebrating the finest music made in Wales or by Welsh people around the world. The ceremony will include live performances and the announcement of three prizes, including the coveted Welsh Music Prize itself.

The original Festival of Voice was held in 2016 and 2018. In 2020, Wales Millennium Centre announced its intention to make the festival annual, and though that year's festival was cancelled, in November 2021 it bounced back with 20 acts from across Wales and the world.

Wales Millennium Centre's Artistic Director, Graeme Farrow, said: "We've put together a cracking line-up for this year's Llais; from veterans to the hottest new talent, from Wales and the world over, from poets to Paraorchestra. And to top it all off, we're incredibly proud to welcome the iconic Welsh Music Prize to the festival. It feels like a match made in music heaven."