- "Let's do a house party in a bigger house." This simple idea, as founder Steevio told Richard Carnes last year, is the basis of Freerotation, one of the UK's smallest and most respected electronic music festivals. It's easy to see what he means. The venue is Baskerville Hall Hotel, a 19th century estate on the Welsh/English border that supposedly inspired the Sherlock Holmes novel Hound of the Baskervilles, and that today hosts small private events like weddings and parties. This humble abode holds a crowd that wouldn't fill up half of fabric (650 in total, artists and staff excluded), making for something far more intimate than the word "festival" typically suggests. Indeed, if it weren't for the (very minimal) security at the door, a traveller stopping by for directions might just think he'd just wandered into an absolutely killer house party.
Freerotation's main draw is its music—a connoisseur blend of deep house, techno and dubstep—but its cultural makeup is what makes it unique. Due to a members-and-invites-only ticket system, the crowd are mostly devout regulars. All of the staff, from the dreadlocked organizers to the kids selling vegan curry, seem to truly enjoy themselves—even the security and the clean-up crews had a bit of a laugh. Most of the artists hang around all weekend, doing the same things as everyone else: waiting at the bar, bobbing their heads on the dance floor—some even sleep on the campsite. Hunger for profit is replaced by a hippie set of values: people are generous, food and beer are cheap and a general feeling of goodwill prevails. When I lost my phone on the first night, a friend assured me someone would return it to the front desk. He was right. The next day I noticed a cluster of cell phones plugged into an outlet near one of the dance floors, completely unattended.
Thanks to the official shuttle bus from King's Cross—or as one friend termed it, "the Lerato mobile"—a cheesy summer camp vibe had set in before many of us even reached the venue (rarely do a group of adults cheer in unison upon reaching a destination). We received our wristbands from a gaggle of dreadlocked women and passed the time as the sun went down, distracted by our own anticipation. All set-times are announced day-of, so no one could be sure what the night held in store. Later that night, after the hall had opened and the programs appeared (maybe four in total, on printer paper scotch-taped to walls) Move D and Jonah Sharp joined the huddle to find themselves (Reagenz) on the schedule. A moment passed and Sharp said, "Wait—that's tonight!" (Their set ended up being rescheduled).
The atmosphere changed from day-to-day. Friday was rambunctious: everyone buzzing with excitement, meeting up with friends and diving headfirst into the weekend's antics. The music easily matched this atmosphere: Efdemin played hard and fast, Surgeon was colorful and funky (for him) and the Hessle Audio founders—first Pangaea, then Pearson Sound and Ben UFO back-to-back—were as party-friendly as they get.
Saturday was more toned down. People bummed around on the campsite or sat on the grass outside the dome, drinking tea, chatting and popping in for a dance when they felt like it. Tama Sumo and Lakuti played bubbly house records, and Jackmate followed them with more modern selections. Things were a bit artsier that night, thanks in part to the festival's exceptional VJs, who complemented the mostly dubby program (MLZ, Sven Weisemann, October) with things like silhouettes, schools of sharks, debris falling through space and in one especially inspired instance, a young ghost climbing the stone wall outside, cast up there by a hidden projector. I started the night with two fantastic sets by artists I'd never heard of, Bovill and Suade, both of whom nailed the warm-up vibe with punchy and atmospheric beats. Shackleton played the best I've ever seen him, slinking through compositions so syncopated they seemed just a handclap away from utter chaos. Across the hall, in the dolled-up parlor that serves as Freerotation's main room, Levon Vincent barrelled through something similar in tone but different in every other respect: dark, pummeling and rough-around-the-edges. For many, Vincent's set was a highlight of the weekend.
Reageanz got around to playing live that night in the lounge, a small space with low-ceilings that, judging by all the glass brick, seems to be the anteroom for Baskerville Hall's pool. Their set was a long analog jam that had nothing to do with their last album, Playtime, and everything to do with their new track, "The Labyrinth": stripped-down, punchy and a bit dubbed out. Jonah Sharp was supposed to DJ afterwards as Space Time Continuum, but Move D took over instead, finishing the night with an hour of sub-aqautic deep house (Deetron's "Sing," his own "Your Personal Healer") while flocks of purple birds slipped across the glass bricks behind him. He finished with the B-side from his new 12-inch on Workshop, a slo-mo house track that sounds like a drowning TV theme. I took this one in sitting on a mound of pillows, drinking tea and eating a muffin. A stranger tapped my arm, gestured toward the scene and said, "This doesn't exactly happen every day."
The next morning I sat at a picnic bench eating breakfast and looking around. Freerotation's easy momentum was now in full swing: everyone a bit dazed but feeling good, sprawled across the sunny lawn. A few people were selling records and a modular synth demo kept people entertained inside. Move D came on again and delivered another of the weekend's highlights, beginning with Mark E's fantastic "Special FX" and getting incrementally more spaced out from there. By the end, a bittersweet feeling crept in, which Move D drove home with his final track: Session Victim's "Good Intentions." A funny thing happened then: at the first hint of the ghostly vocal part, the crowd started cheering a bit, then a lot and kept going. Move D got a bit emotional and had to stop rolling his cigarette. He stood there smiling, bashfully soaking up all the love he was getting, then teared up a bit and wiped his eyes with his shirt sleeve. People near me in the crowd started tittering, "He's crying! Did you see that?" (Move D later posted the set on SoundCloud with the tags "Freerotation," "Sunday" and "tears on stage and dance floor").
The final night ended quickly (at 2:00 AM instead of 7:00 AM), which suited the slightly sleepy crowd. Jitterbug was at once jacking and atmospheric—a perfect balance for that time and place. Michel Baumann played live as Soulphiction, mixing things up with a live vocalist named Suzana. Fred P took a very understated approach, coursing through subtle and ethereal deep house. I wished he'd taken it up a notch—I could have gone for one last hurrah—but other people said it was just what they needed.
Seven years since it began, Freerotation still maintains that special house party feeling, but at a cost. Having received a lot of praise, it's now firmly on the summer festival circuit, which means far more people want to attend than the venue can accommodate. There are reportedly 2,500 registered members for only 650 tickets, which means lots of people were left in the cold this year, including a number of devoted regulars. Talking to disappointed punters on Facebook, co-founder Suzybee implored people to see the problem as a matter of mathematics, not exclusivity, but admitted that they may need to "severely limit" new memberships in 2012. She tried to point out a silver lining: "If you buy a ticket for Freerotation next year, it'll because there's absolutely nowhere you'd rather be in the world that weekend." After this year's festival, it's hard to say how much that will narrow things down.