#patrick belaga

First off Tim Hecker & Vincent De Belleval. I came in late, just off the train, so I found myself in the back with other latecomers and people who needed their phone to either communicate with another or update their social media profile, because either way they were making and sharing pictures of the performance.

Now describing said performance is a little tricky, I think mood plays a big role in this. Imagine a dark room, a beam of blue light appears, smoke follows and engulfs the first 5-7 rows. Over time the beam changes patterns, then characters and finally colours. At some point, I expected the words 'Los Angeles 2019' to appear, but alas no words materialized in the string of code.

Music wise, there’s noise, it builds up. Following the smoke, it engulfs the audience, this time the whole audience. It may sound boring, yes. Even if nothing happens, something happens. I’d say this performance borders between music and art in a minimalist sense. Like I said it’s about mood, it’s an experience. Hecker is great at turning/elevating noise into art.

That also means to me that if you commit to sit down, you’re committing for the whole thing. Of course, this is a festival, so people did leave, but generally speaking: the only way out is through. If I’d have left halfway, I might still wonder what would have happened…

After about an hour I and many with me emerged from the temporal tomb with a story, more of sound than of actual words.

Next up: Patrick Belaga, Asma Maroof & Tapiwa Svosve. This performance was the coming together of saxophone and flute player (Svosve), a cellist (Belaga) and electronic producer (Maroof, of Nuzunguzu fame). There were no visuals, but all wore red in their own respective styles (Belaga had wooden clogs on), with white, yellow and red light shining down upon them. It was a great collaboration to witness and listen to. The lack of visuals weren’t the problem, but some people in the back valuing their conversation over the performance were.

(Free suggestion: have something to share in a moment like this? Either leave or send each other messages with the notification sound off. Thank you!)

Fortunately, at times, the music was intense enough, that by concentrating on it, you could to dive in deep. When they were done, the players were visibly relieved and happy, especially Maroof appeared glad to have pulled it off.

With an empty hour, Sunday’s programme was rather weak, ahead of me, I decided, I wanted to check out a venue I hadn’t visited until now. By accident, I ended up at a séance with a dead rainforest in the catacombs of a church (-insert whippy comment here, if you like-). The attendees were witness of Vivian Caccuri & Thiago Lanis creating a rainforest in sound (and occasionally light). Especially Lanis was impressive, creating animal sounds with his voice: mosquitoes, various monkeys, a tiger already passed us… Yeah, a bit odd, but not bad. After the applause, they briefly spoke about their project, mentioning spending a month to create the project from scratch.

Then, I wanted to check if I could see Ana Roxanne, but the queue was long. It went through the venue’s lounge and into the street. Thus, I walked around, letting my thoughts wander, the night air was good for the head anyway.

After a while, I went to the last venue and caught the end of Zebra ‘And what the fuck do you know about that?!’ Katz’ performance and it seemed like a lot of fun, people were cheering a lot.

About 40 mins waiting and presided by a group cheer backstage, Kelela appeared upon a stage. It was just her and 4 units/pillars of light.

Beforehand I wondered if she’d fit at a festival like this, in my mind she’s a pretty big rnb star… I imagine she graces larger stages. And offence to Rewire, but no venue is exceptionally big. Funnily enough, a few songs in Kelela remarked how intimate the room was. Anyway, more importantly, she was great. Opening with ‘Washed Away’, followed by more off ‘Raven’ and calling her show a dance party with live vocals, brought cheers and applause. But there was more, ever so often she stopped to talk about things that matter to her. Nothing sermon-like, she led her songs do the talking, but just addressing male stoicism, emotional stuntedness and being emotionally available was important. Though, as an introvert, I’m not sure I can comment. Really though, I thought it was great, she said she felt the world is unkind enough already.

She also did some older songs, which was great. To watch her sing ‘Rewind’(?) under 2 white spotlights while being engulfed in smoke was simple yet outstanding. Plus, hearing the ‘Bank Head’ brought me back to the time I listened to Hallucinogen and a few select Boiler Room sets, while editing my thesis.

Finally, because all things must come to an end, she did ‘All the Way Down’ in a flurry of light and sound. (Testing my vampire eyes once more, I’ve been working inside too much.) Making her performance a great closing act to a solid festival.