Club To Club 2016: Five key performances

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  • Turin's Club To Club Festival is a funny one. Every year, the team pulls together a killer lineup, a mix of club-ready DJs and experimental acts that range from globetrotting superstars right through to intriguing up-and-comers. For a solid handful of these artists, it's their first time playing in Italy; for others, it's their only Italian date of the year. (In 2016, there were 12 debuts and 18 exclusives.) For domestic electronic fans, the festival acts as a one-stop shop, offering the chance to catch dozens of elusive acts across a single weekend. Its musical reputation, then, is right up there with Europe's top-tier electronic festivals—Italy's equivalent of Sónar or Nuits Sonores. But for reasons other than the programming, the comparisons with those world-class events ends there. While my experience wasn't exhausting or plagued by sound issues (in fact, the sound was great all weekend), there were a few things that, for me, stopped Club To Club from reaching its full potential. Lingotto Fiere, the cavernous exhibition hall that housed the bulk of this year's edition, was impressive in size, but it lacked the necessary production to bring a space like that to life. The branding, though not as overbearing as at the AC Hotel, where Club To Club hosted several days of talks and panels, was still too visible: one of the sponsors had set up a large cubed structure in the middle of the main space, while the walkway connecting the two rooms felt like a trade fair, with people flyering next to KLM stands and photo backdrops covered in Audi logos. With all this going on, plus a heavy police presence on Friday and Saturday, Club To Club never felt properly immersive. I should say that I was only in Turin from Thursday through Sunday morning, which meant I missed Wednesday's opening and Sunday's closing events, which took place at other venues in the city. In the end, I only visited two of six venues—had I been able to watch Elysia Crampton perform in a 17th century palace, or catch RP Boo at a street party, my experience will have likely been more rounded. But the festival also has a part to play in this: it's only recently that so much of the programme takes place at Lingotto, and it'd have been nice to have the other venues in use on Friday and Saturday, easily the festival's busiest nights. Despite all that, I had a good time, which has everything to do with the music I saw. Here are five key performances from across the weekend.
    Arca & Jesse Kanda Club music becomes experimental when it strikes a balance between making you dance and making you uncomfortable. Alejandro Ghersi, AKA Arca, has always navigated this terrain with particular aplomb, whether with his visceral productions or, as at Thursday night's RA showcase in Lingotto's smaller Sala Gialla, with his exhilarating, bare-all DJ sets. There wasn't a moment during the 90 minutes when I didn't feel slightly on edge, as Ghersi tore through trashy Latin house, salsa, R&B, pop, US garage and more, cutting and looping on the CDJs with a rough-and-ready proficiency. Every now and then, he'd pause to strike a pose like a model at the end of a catwalk. Normally serene songs like Frank Ocean's "Solo (Reprise)" and Big Pun's "Still Not A Player" became tense affairs—lurking around the next corner could be another grating house beat or a slice of thrashing heavy metal. Meanwhile, sat on a stool facing Ghersi, longtime visual collaborator Jesse Kanda contributed to the queasy atmosphere with graphic footage of goats giving birth and fish being decapitated. The audience loved it, Ghersi's rapid-fire mixing whipping the yellow-walled room into a frenzy. I still can't say for sure if I actually enjoyed it, but then that's not really the point: watching an artist pour out their soul with such vigour and honesty is an enriching experience regardless.
    Autechre The last time I saw Autechre perform, at UK festival Bloc. in 2015, I didn't realise they'd started until ten or 15 minutes into their set. There was no danger of that happening at Club To Club—a curious bit of programming had them playing Lingotto's Main Stage after Laurent Garnier, who'd spent the last three hours banging out emotive house and techno. As Rob Brown and Sean Booth took their place onstage, their faces obscured by two monitors, people streamed into the huge hall, forming the biggest crowd of the weekend. All the lights in the building, including the Absolut gobo, were turned off. 30 minutes in, a spray of kick drums burst through the wall of noise and bass, sparking the first whoop from the audience. Until that point, Autechre had been restrained, laying squirming synth lines and spluttering percussion over thick waves of bass. The music had no discernible structure, making it hard to follow but never boring. Every time a glint of sound caught my imagination, it'd be gone before I had time to process it. The second half was more boisterous, with machine-gun drums and the odd, flashing glimmer of one of the pair's signature dainty melodies. Unfortunately, though, the performance seemed largely lost on the crowd. At the end of the hour, the space had emptied by roughly half.
    Andy Stott Andy Stott, who followed Autechre on Lingotto's Main Stage on Friday night, grew up in Oldham, Greater Manchester, less than a 20-minute drive from Brown and Booth in Rochdale. Their music shares some of the same elements—grit, heavy bass, detailed rhythms—but the form it takes is completely different, which made for a nice contrast in Turin. After Autechre's wayward sounds, Stott's ordered layering and dance floor thrust felt satisfying. I liked that I could predict when the clap would come in, and dance accordingly. His slamming breaks and dynamic percussive flourishes sounded fat through the powerful system, and never more so than when, just over 30 minutes in, he teased and then unleashed a rowdy jungle break. There were ravey breakdowns and the occasional rush of synths like a plane going overhead, but for the most part it was all percussion. Funky and rude, it was just what the crowd needed to see them out into the chilly dawn air.
    Jessy Lanza If Friday night was all about moody electronics from the UK's north, then Saturday's bill in Sala Gialla was even more specific. Sandwiched between Junior Boys and Daphni, both from Hamilton, Canada, was Jessy Lanza, also from Hamilton. (I know this because Jeremy Greenspan pointed it out.) Lanza and her drummer, Tori Tizzard, appeared in the red fog to feeble applause; they left, 45 minutes later, to a rolling chorus of whistles and cheers. Their set followed a classic arc, starting slow with cuts like "5785021" and "Kathy Lee" before building up to a rollicking closing medley that featured "It Means I Love You" and fan favourite "Keep Moving." In between verses, Lanza hopped and skipped about with all the charisma of a seasoned frontwoman, colouring the backing track with echoey shrieks and squeaks. I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone win over a crowd in such a short space of time.
    DJ Shadow At about 1 AM on Sunday morning, DJ Shadow stood on a raised platform onstage, scratching away. Behind and in front of him, and to his left and right, were large screens projecting engaging visuals of sped-up traffic scenes and fuzzy satellite images. For the first time all weekend, Lingotto's Main Stage looked the part. It felt it, too, as thousands of locals of all ages poured in, ramping up the energy. When he wasn't scratching, Shadow busied himself by banging out rhythms on a drum machine or getting on the mic. "Endtroducing is 20 years old," he announced over the classic chords from "Midnight In A Perfect World." "Now check out Hudson Mohawke's new remix." My heart sank slightly at this point—timeless records shouldn't be tampered with—but the crowd didn't seem to mind. One guy next to me pranced about in ecstasy with a baby blue rhino strapped to his head. The rest of the set passed by in a blur of serpentine trap beats, rap vocals and saccharine guitar lines, and though the music was never amazing, the spectacle made up for it. As Shadow bid his goodbyes, something happened that I've never seen at a festival: credits played onscreen, thanking everyone involved in the performance. Photo credit / Stefano Mattea - Arca Francesco Stella - Autechre Daniele Baldi - Jessy Lanza, DJ Shadow Andrea Macchia - Andy Stott
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