One should reject modernity and embrace tradition is a phrase that originated in far-right internet subcultures. Recently, I saw it used by a bakery chain trying to sell me cream buns for a holiday that doesn’t exist.

Returning home from the southern Swiss experimental festival Archipel, I had the impression that the program’s take on contemporary music – especially in its engagement with premodern traditions – felt the most forward-thinking.

Archipel, which humbly and humorously bills itself as a festival for la musique bizarre (April 4–13), is extensive in scope: 50 concerts and performances, eight sound installations, and three artist talks, if my program-counting was accurate. Geographically, however, it’s tightly focused: nearly all events take place in Geneva’s Maison communale de Plainpalais, a 1908 Art Nouveau ballroom turned cultural center.