Four artists have cancelled their appearance at Japan’s The Labyrinth festival in 2023 after attention was drawn to comments made by co-founder and booker Russell Moench about trans issues. Moench’s now-deactivated Twitter account (@russmonk) contained posts opposing the trans rights movement, including sharing anonymous gender-critical accounts and labelling the term TERF “misogynistic hate speech”. The controversy led to one supporter of trans rights contacting several artists on the festival’s lineup alerting them to Moench’s views and asking whether they were aware of his radicalisation.
The Labyrinth, founded in 2001, is renowned for psychedelic techno in a stunning location and with an excellent sound system and Moench has given interviews on rare occasions to international publications. The contact from supporters led to Moench emailing nine of the artists on the festival’s line-up, which included doubling down on his views about transgender people. He referred to the trans-rights movement as being deeply illiberal, totalitarian, homophobic, and misogynistic. In his email, Moench outlined his contention that vulnerable children are being turned into lifelong pharmaceutical patients, and recommended interviews with gender-critical journalist Helen Joyce and Corinna Cohn.
In response to the emails, some artists, concerned about Russ Monk’s comments, requested clarification from him regarding whether his views are shared by other festival personnel and management. Dial Records co-founder Carsten Jost, one of the artists on the line-up questioned whether Moench’s views reflected “the policies of the festival at large”. Moench replied via an email, stating that Labyrinth is not anti-trans, but that he is the driving force behind it and uninvited Carsten Jost from playing at the festival. Following this exchange, several artists on the roster cancelled their appearance, using social media to express their decision.
Timnah Sommerfeldt wrote on an Instagram story on September 5: “I have to announce that I made the decision to not perform at this year’s The Labyrinth in Japan and cancelled my gig with the promoter. “I’m very sorry to everyone who was looking forward to it, but also I stand behind my values and am strongly against discrimination and anti-trans rights in any form. John Elliott, who was due to appear for the second time at the festival under the name Imaginary Softwoods, also withdrew.
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