- An error of judgement meant I missed the chartered "Techno Transit" train from Stockholm to Into The Valley, but reports filtered through of full-blown parties in the carriages fuelled by DJs and an open bar. Instead, I had to take three much less lively trains to get to Rättvik, a small town in south-central Sweden whose population swells considerably during the last weekend in July. Into The Valley, often referred to as ITV, is only partly responsible for this; the bulk of the crowds come for Classic Car Week, as tens of thousands of immaculate Cadillacs, vintage Ford Mustangs and their petrolhead owners gather from across Sweden, Scandinavia and even Germany.
The demographics were more international still at ITV, with around 6,000 people attending the festival's second edition, up from 4,500 in 2015. The lineup was also bigger, in part because the team decided to upgrade this year's opening party from the nearby campsite to Dalhalla, where the festival proper takes place. Dalhalla, opened in 1995, is one of Europe's top open-air concert venues, but before that it was a disused limestone quarry (production stopped in 1990). Sigur Rós and Kraftwerk, as well as rock gods like Sting and Neil Young, have performed there, and the acoustics are said to be incredible. ITV is Dalhalla's first dance music festival.
Because of my earlier travel snafu, I arrived at the main site later than planned on Thursday night, though Sweden's generous summer days meant that the view from the top of the quarry was no less breathtaking at 11 PM than in the daylight. The easiest way to describe it is like a giant football stadium, almost perfectly oval in shape and with a lining of dark green pine trees around the rim. Down below, my eyes were immediately drawn to a huge amphitheatre, ITV's main stage.
The Theatre, as it's known, was still being readied on Thursday, so punters spread themselves between two smaller tents, The Temple and The Pyramid. The latter, with its hazy atmosphere and carpeted floor, felt like the kind of stage you might stumble across at a British weekender, and it was home to some of the festival's most energetic moments. Fred P closed on the opening night, playing fast-paced US cuts like DJ Bone's "It's All About" before moving onto more floral, Latin numbers. We were only hours into the festival and guys were already topless, dancing in circles with their arms held aloft. All around me, people were beaming.
On Friday and Saturday the music started at midday and went through until 2:30 AM. Both days got off to slow starts, with numbers picking up just as afternoon became evening. tINI hit The Theatre around this time on Friday, turning out possibly the best set I've heard her play. The size of the space demanded the biggest records in her bag, a collection of flowing, springy grooves that she interspersed with the odd rave banger or slice of angular techno, such as Johannes Heil's "1776". She stuck around after her set for Sonja Moonear and Raresh, who rolled out three hours of snaking basslines and earworm melodies (Spacetravel's "Magic Track"), before shifting into summery techno for the final 60 minutes (Model 500's "Digital Solutions").
Zip and Ricardo Villalobos, the night's headliners, appeared to pay little mind to what had come before, starting their four-hour slot with mellow techno that had the audience at a loss. By this point, the large dance floor beneath the stage was gently swelling, though the amphitheatre was still mostly empty. This was no bad thing: sitting in the front row of one of Sweden's premier concert venues while Zip and Villalobos worked through US house, breakbeat techno and endless rude (and sometimes weird) minimal was a special experience. The sci-fi backdrop of crystalline blue waters and towering sheets of rock didn't hurt, either.
The Theatre's imposing setting and excellent sound meant I never escaped its clutches for long on Friday, so I was eager to spend Saturday exploring. In terms of layout and offering, the rest of the site is typical of most festivals, with three music tents and a spread of food trucks, bars and random art installations. Heavy afternoon rain forced me to take refuge in The Pyramid, where Dorisburg was doing a really nice job rendering cuts from his debut album, Irrbloss, live, using a drum machine, some sample pads and a pair of drumsticks. Later, Paranoid London got the room roaring along to their rabid live set, before the crowd doubled in size for Bicep and their trance-indebted house jams.
Honestly, though, that whole time I was aching to get back down to The Theatre for the closing night's techno marathon. Most of Ben Klock's tracks were funky and direct, so when he strayed seamlessly into Aleksi Perälä's melodic bomb "UK74R1512110," the shift in pace and mood was striking. Jeff Mills followed, lit up in red and obscured behind a pile of gear. Played for the biggest crowd of the weekend, the music was epic and typically hard to place, with bewitching synth lines draped across crashing kicks. "The Bells" surfaced for a minute, then disappeared again, quickly substituted for another haunting tune.
In hindsight, I'd have liked my ITV experience to have ended there, but instead I wound up at The Temple for Omar-S, where sound bleed from the neighbouring Pyramid marred his hit-heavy set. Tracks like his own "On Your Way" and an edit of George Benson's "Give Me The Night" sounded great in full flow, but as soon as the kicks dropped away, the dull thud from next door would cut through. The festival should strongly consider repositioning these stages next year, which, in fairness, is my only real complaint from the weekend. People were friendly, the soundsystems were loud, and the venue more than lived up to the hype. Plus, it was nice to see so many women on the lineup, something that booker Ulrike Schönfeld had made sure of. I clearly wasn't the only person who'd had a good time, either: on the journey back to Stockholm, most people lay slumped across their seats, dozing or staring vacantly at their phones. I overheard one wide-eyed reveller, clutching a bottle of red wine, suggest "Techno Transit" be rechristened "The Comedown Train."
Photo credits /
Beata Cervin
Martin Rietti
Annemarie Koerten
The Theatre's imposing setting and excellent sound meant I never escaped its clutches for long on Friday, so I was eager to spend Saturday exploring. In terms of layout and offering, the rest of the site is typical of most festivals, with three music tents and a spread of food trucks, bars and random art installations. Heavy afternoon rain forced me to take refuge in The Pyramid, where Dorisburg was doing a really nice job rendering cuts from his debut album, Irrbloss, live, using a drum machine, some sample pads and a pair of drumsticks. Later, Paranoid London got the room roaring along to their rabid live set, before the crowd doubled in size for Bicep and their trance-indebted house jams. Honestly, though, that whole time I was aching to get back down to The Theatre for the closing night's techno marathon. Most of Ben Klock's tracks were funky and direct, so when he strayed seamlessly into Aleksi Perälä's melodic bomb "UK74R1512110," the shift in pace and mood was striking. Jeff Mills followed, lit up in red and obscured behind a pile of gear. Played for the biggest crowd of the weekend, the music was epic and typically hard to place, with bewitching synth lines draped across crashing kicks. "The Bells" surfaced for a minute, then disappeared again, quickly substituted for another haunting tune.
In hindsight, I'd have liked my ITV experience to have ended there, but instead I wound up at The Temple for Omar-S, where sound bleed from the neighbouring Pyramid marred his hit-heavy set. Tracks like his own "On Your Way" and an edit of George Benson's "Give Me The Night" sounded great in full flow, but as soon as the kicks dropped away, the dull thud from next door would cut through. The festival should strongly consider repositioning these stages next year, which, in fairness, is my only real complaint from the weekend. People were friendly, the soundsystems were loud, and the venue more than lived up to the hype. Plus, it was nice to see so many women on the lineup, something that booker Ulrike Schönfeld had made sure of. I clearly wasn't the only person who'd had a good time, either: on the journey back to Stockholm, most people lay slumped across their seats, dozing or staring vacantly at their phones. I overheard one wide-eyed reveller, clutching a bottle of red wine, suggest "Techno Transit" be rechristened "The Comedown Train." Photo credits / Beata Cervin Martin Rietti Annemarie Koerten