For many years now Roadburn has offered artists an opportunity to showcase the multi-faceted nature of their work when we invite them to be our artists in residence. In these instances, the artists will perform multiple times over the course of a Roadburn edition – sometimes with collaborators, sometimes performing full album sets, always pushing the boundaries of their creativity. For the 2025 edition – and beyond – we are adding a new kind of residency to Roadburn, one that stretches over three editions of the festival. 

Our very first triennium residency will commence in 2025 and run through until the 2027 edition. Each year of this elongated showcase will highlight different elements, different possibilities within a particular artist’s skillset. Within this structure, we hope to be able to support and nourish the development of a particular artist, enjoy watching them flourish in new ways and of course, as always, provide them with a stage to do their best work. 

The artist that we are collaborating with for our very first three-year residency is Lane Shi. She performs most often under the moniker Otay:Onii, but she is a frequent collaborator, and an artist in the truest sense of the word. Her imagination knows no limits and her dedication to creativity is inspiring. 

Lane’s first performance at Roadburn, in 2023, was with her former band, Elizabeth Colour Wheel, who also participated in a collaborative commissioned project with Ethan Lee McCarthy. That same year she performed a spell-binding solo set of her Otay:Onii material that left the audience enraptured, and us as her biggest fans. Having moved to Europe in early 2024, Lane has already made her presence felt working with musicians across multiple genres and performing in the headline-grabbing opera by Florentina Holzinger, Sancta.

For the first installment of her residency, Lane will perform her latest album, True Faith Ain’t Blind, in its entirety. With the spotlight trained on her piano playing and her distinctive voice, this is an opportunity for us to immerse ourselves in Lane’s work in its rawest, most vulnerable form. 

Of her invitation to be Roadburn’s very first triennium artist in residence, Lane said:

“Roadburn is my favorite festival on earth, I am honored and grateful. Now I put my excitement for the engine of passion: 2025! Allow me to unleash fingers to dance on the piano keys like tiptoe steps on pebble stones of a lifetime – and there’s a throat to sing for love, a hymn for joy, to mourn in grief, to weep for the wounds of an opening portal to a brave new world. For the next three years I would like to introduce you to the multimedia performance pieces that I always wanted to bring to light. From the never-ending ouroboros we diverge to a new moon, and tell a tale that was never told.”

We always want to take Roadburn attendees on a journey; every edition is different. But this time around we’re inviting you to join us to witness a special, one-of-a-kind artist develop in real time, a wholehearted journey of discovery that we’ll embark upon together.