Our kickoff for the festival began at Neumos, where the long anticipated Detroit-based duo Adult. was scheduled to perform. We arrived to the city late, which luckily lined up with a late start due to some technical difficulties with some of their equipment. The crowd was full of energy and the venue was packed to capacity, which was encouraging to see for a Wednesday night.
Despite the rough start, the crowd was quickly drawn into Adult.'s performance; both "Heartbreak" and "Love Lies" were standout tracks and had the dance floor moving. Their cover of the A Number of Names track "Sharevari" was well received.
After Adult. finished, our contingent headed from Neumos to Q, where Klockworks label owner Ben Klock was already into some deep techno.
Once again, we entered a packed club, and the crowd was loving it — a very nice warmup to what would become an inspiring week of music.
Related: Listen to Ben Klock's Decibel set
Thursday found us back at Q nightclub for a short session with Innervisions artist Âme, I had been looking forward to their set since first seeing their Boiler Room show with Dixon last year that ended in a giant pillow fight.
Despite my initial enthusiasm, something about the club that night did not agree with me. I found the bouncers were rude and aggressive with patrons, and as a result it interfered with the music and the general vibe in the place. It was quite unfortunate.
At 2 a.m. we headed to an afterparty that featured local favourite Caro, the ever mysterious Rrose and Vancouver duo the Automatic Message. This show was the perfect antidote for the negative scene we had ejected ourselves from, and proceeded to be some of my favourite music of the entire week — dark, tripped out, cavernous hard techno.
Unfortunately we missed Cajmere versus Green Velvet at Q nightclub; but, both sets have been recorded. Listen to Cajmere here and Green Velvet here.
Waking up on Friday proved difficult, but we managed to drag ourselves down to the Nordstrom Recital Hall to reserve our tickets for Berlin-based composer Nils Frahm and Icelander Olafur Arnalds — we luckily scored some of the last tickets from the dwindling pile. A bit of a contrast from the previous night was called for, to provide the ears with a needed break.
Frahm started the evening to a sold-out crowd, and he did not disappoint, bringing many to tears, judging from the wiping of eyes in multiple parts of the performance.
(KEXP )
I have never heard a piece played on piano composed in an electronic style before, and his level of precision and execution was perfect. If I hadn't seen it personally, I would have argued that the rhythms were sequenced digitally, rather than by his hand. The standing crowd at the end of the performance had everyone on the same page: we had witnessed magic. It was incredible, his talent a true gift.
Related: Watch some past Nils Frahm performances here and here .
Icelandic pianist and ex-punk rock drummer Olafur Arnalds followed afterwards, playing piano with cellist Rubin Kodheli and violinist Viktor Orri Árnason. In addition to the accompaniments, he looped components of the instrumentation with an iPad for added effect and layers.
(KEXP )
After dinner we headed to the cavernous Showbox SoDo for Mount Kimbie, who debuted in North America two years previous at Decibel.
(David Lichterman )
Two years of touring experience has made a difference for Mount Kimbie, as the level of confidence and presence onstage was markedly different than their first foray, performing a few tracks from their recent release Cold Spring Fault Less Youth.
Following a short break, Nicolas Jaar stepped up and preceded to pack the front of the stage with his slower but still dance floor-friendly sounds from his latest album, Space is Only Noise. Newer tracks were seamlessly woven in with his older releases, which the crowd absolutely loved, and demanded two encores by the end of the show.
(David Lichterman )
The visuals were unlike anything I had ever seen, with vivid psychedelic patterns and textures of abstract moiré and fingerprints, produced by visuals artist Tarik Barri.
Related: Listen to Nicolas Jaar's Decibel set.
We finished the night with the Electric Deluxe after hours, as we've been longtime fans of Speedy J and wanted to hear what Max Cooper had planned after enjoying his set at last year's Decibel. The waning energy levels left us unable to keep up with the hard and fast tempos, which were just too much to take and lacked the bass lines that we needed to keep us going, so we ended our night in favour of some much needed sleep.
Saturday was much anticipated, with longtime favourite ambient dub masters the Orb and veteran techno producer Juan Atkins building up the crowd in preparation. I arrived late, but luckily missed none of Atkins who, in my opinion, played the best set that I had seen from his three previous performances.
Thomas Fehlmann stepped up onstage momentarily and the crowd went wild — that moment of seeing the two producers side by side had me reminiscing about their track "Die Kosmischen Kuriere," which was my first exposure to Atkins in 1992.
Not soon afterwards, Alex Paterson and Fehlmann took over, and the crowd was elevated into Orblivion, with mash-ups of old classics like "Blue Room," "Huge Ever Pulsating Brain" and "Toxygene."
Later that evening we returned to Neumos for the Kompakt Records' 20th anniversary party, and more Fehlmann. This time he was performing a solo live set — it was excellent and danceable, despite the lateness (5:30 a.m.).
Related: Listen to Thomas Fehlmann's Decibel set
We missed John Tejada earlier that evening, which by my friends' accounts was some of the best of the festival. Luckily it was recorded: listen to it here .
Sunday's Black Noise Optical show at the Triple Door was one of my most anticipated for the festival, with Raime, the Sight Below and Nosaj Thing's first ambient performance (unfortunately Oren Ambarchi's flight was delayed, postponing his performance until the next day).
Raime was outstanding, and was exactly what my ears needed at that moment: deep and brooding ambient with rolling, slow motion, haunting bass lines; it was very inspiring stuff.
(KEXP )
Seattle soloist the Sight Below was also captivating — more on the dreamy side and not as dark as Raime, which was a nice counterpoint. The visuals were well executed and the black-and-white delivery complimented the feeling of escape that his reverb-washed guitar sounds presented.
(+Russ )
Nosaj Thing finished the night with a slightly more lively set, but blended beautiful and lush ambient soundscapes with slow tempo broken beats reminiscent of his album Drift .
(+Russ )
We finished the festival with Bulgaria's KiNK and Italian duo Tiger & Woods at Neumos for the finale showcase, From Disco to Disco.
KiNK's set blended an eclectic mix of house to great effect — his use of various controllers created an excellent and interactive performance that made it interesting for exhausted people like myself to follow, as my feet were having a hard time with the faster tempos after the earlier chill-out session.
(Bob Hansen )
Related: Watch KiNK's Decibel set; watch Archie Pelago's set
Tiger & Woods revved up the disco edits and lush synth pads to create warm and pleasant sounds, and a polished performance. Once Neumos wrapped up we headed to Q for the Rebel House Finale with Kenny Glasgow of Art Department, who demonstrated his 20-plus years of experience in whipping up the exhausted masses, keeping everything moving until 2:30 a.m.
(+Russ )
The festival this year was slightly smaller in scale, but its execution was excellent. Production values were extremely polished, and the last-minute substitution of Nosaj Thing at Optical 4 was a testament to the quick thinking of the production crew in order to avert a crisis.
Despite its smaller size, it was still impossible to see all of the performances, and many were regrettably missed. But this keeps us coming back for more, and next year will see a visit again without hesitation. If you have not yet put Decibel Festival on your list of must-see events, please do — you won't regret it.
by Nicole Goodman via Electronic RSS
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