Photo credit /
Frankie Casillo
No Bounds Festival 2019: Five key performances
- PublishedOct 17, 2019
- Words
- SHYGIRL, Shannen SP and 96 Back stand out at the broad, adventurous event putting Sheffield on the map.
- Share
- On the last night of No Bounds in Sheffield, The Black Dog played an ambient set in a swimming pool. When the doors opened, I was surprised to see the festival's founder, Liam O'Shea (AKA Lo Shea), ushering people through to the changing rooms. Moments like this helped No Bounds retain a refreshingly personal, DIY vibe. There was no overcrowding or overbearing security presence. The daytime music and art programme was sometimes confusing, with some venues difficult to find. But, if anything, wandering around and stumbling upon, say, a live drone set in a corridor or a sound installation in a blacked-out shed, lent the festival a certain charm.
Now in its third year, No Bounds has become an important date in the festival calendar. The fact that it clashes with Unsound—arguably Europe's most important event for experimental dance music—and still manages to draw a crowd from across the continent is testament to its growing reputation and exciting booking policy, which balances established artists with fresh, local talent.
The combination of no-frills spaces and what O'Shea once called Sheffield's "relaxed, unpretentious atmosphere" made No Bounds a great place to party. This year, an industrial museum on Kelham Island hosted the daytime activities, prompting reflections on the link between the city's musical and industrial histories. Hope Works, one of the UK's best clubs, was home to parties on Friday and Saturday. And I wish I could have stayed longer at Foodhall, a stripped back, BYOB venue that hosted the raucous Sunday evening finale.
Here are five key performances from No Bounds 2019.
Lanark Artefax Having Calum MacRae close the opening concert after Lee Gamble, who MacRae has named as a key early inspiration, was an interesting move. Macrae's sound, forged from glitchy electronics and bass, was a perfect fit for Kelham Island Museum. The first half of his set was difficult, more an exposition of sounds than anything resembling dance music. The crowd listened, unmoving, to an onslaught of HD noise and bass tones, while Macrae stood to the side in darkness, an obelisk of light drawing focus to the stage. Things got moving in the second half as disjointed sounds meshed together into broken beats, then eventually into crystalline dubstep and breaks. The set culminated with renditions of "Touch Absence" and "Voices Near The Hypocentre," accompanied by intense lighting. It was a truly euphoric climax.
Shannen SP As an NTS regular and co-curator (alongside Kode9) of Hyperdub's excellent monthly party Ø, Shannen SP is a quietly influential figure in the London scene. Warming up at Hope Works on Friday, she played club music from across the world, much of it inspired by, and sourced from, a recent trip to South Africa. She calmly blended industrial gqom into upbeat kuduro, as well as chucking in plenty of dark, broken sounds that I'd have a hard time describing. She probably deserved to be on later, playing to a busier room; regardless, she had some of the early birds pulling crazy moves.
SHYGIRL "An amalgamation of genres born in the club but not tied completely to it" is how SHYGIRL has described her sound. Her Friday night set at Hope Works more resembled a grime MC tearing up the club than a traditional live performance. She stood mic in hand behind the decks, bathed in red light and wielding a comically large fan, as if to make up for the lack of a real stage. Her ostentatious attitude and smooth, dismissive delivery came off perfectly. The gyrating, low-slung beats, which sat somewhere between trap, grime and club, sounded ridiculous on the system. Sometimes a peak-time live set can disrupt a night's flow, but this did the opposite, immediately raising energy levels.
rRoxymore b2b Violet Both nights at Hope Works were full of short, focussed sets. rRoxymore and Violet's two-hour back-to-back on Saturday was one of the weekend's most eclectic and uninhibited. The two artists found common ground in techno and breaks, though they didn't seem too concerned with keeping things cohesive. It was a fun, messy set that spanned tech house, acid, 2-step, UK funky, bass and some perfectly timed Italo. There were so many highlights, but a special mention has to go to this unexpected Night Slugs banger.
96 Back No Bounds's musical identity is defined, among other things, by a willingness to put faith in developing acts and a strong connection with Sheffield's dance music heritage. 96 Back, a young producer from the Steel City who's released on CPU, embodies this ethos. He closed out the small yet consistently excellent third room—AKA High Density Energy Chamber—at Hope Works on Saturday with a pumping, 140-BPM-plus set of hardcore, breaks and bass, including an evil remix of The Bug's "Skeng." Disappointingly, security cut his set short by 15 minutes and ushered everyone into the main room to watch SPFDJ bring it home. There was no need, really—96 Back had already done a perfect job. Resident Advisor hosted a stage at Hope Works on Saturday night.
0303