- Touching down in Athens for the sixth annual Synch Festival, I hoped for a level of excitement somewhere in between a visit to the Acropolis and anarchist riots. The city showed its charm immediately. Young dudes with guitars were an ever present sight, and down every dusty back alley, tourist-friendly sidewalk cafés squeezed in cheek-by-jowl beside stylish hideaways featuring sunken sofas and polished metal bars.
The astonishingly named Technopolis, home to Synch, rises from Gazi, one of the most relaxed and hedonistic of Athens' numerous such neighborhoods. A handful of illuminated former smokestacks mark the venue from a good distance away. Inside, the functional buildings and exposed machinery enclosed two outdoor stages; several indoor arenas, hosting music and video art installations, completed the festival's setup.
FRIDAY
The music started late Friday, with Jazzanova warming up the main stage just in time for the languid summer sunset. Their huge collective ranged from turntables to a double bass, with everything else in between. They would have had to have been truly miraculous musicians to carry off that setup. They weren't, but still set the tone for the highly innovative live/electronic performances that were to be Synch's raison d'etre. Jazzanova were the first of many at Synch to show the flipside of everyone and their grandmother cobbling together an Abletonized live performance: for better or worse (usually better!) Synch's artists were more likely to be deep into experimental live setups.
Ebony Bones /// Photo credit: Spyros Simotas
Ebony Bones were erratic, with some lovely off-kilter drumming done in by overfrequent indie-yelp vocals. Florence and the Machine were no revelation, but young Flo Wel can sing like nobody's business, something that came through much more noticeably live than it has on her recordings. Still on the indie front, Friendly Fires were in a league of their own. Perfectly placed electronic samples, like that on "Your Love," their homage to Frankie Knuckles, were one small part of an inventive style that didn't make a big deal of its own inventiveness. Their humble stage presence and superbly uplifting melodies made for a rare treat.
As the rockers packed up, it was time to settle in to a long, low room called D10 to put the techno in Technopolis. Greece's native Mari.Cha spun a set of tech house that oozed personality even if she didn't always coax the best from the sound system.
3 Chairs /// Photo credit: Spyros Simotas
Next up, though, were 3 Chairs, the DJ collective of Theo Parrish, Rick Wilhite, and Marcelus Pittman. By this time, the big, two Euro cans of Mythos were starting to kick in, and it was frankly great that Pittman decided to dive straight in to toothsome Detroit techno. For the first couple of hours, he and Parrish swapped places on the turntables, often selecting records for the other to mix. Wilhite on the mic gave us an extra special dose of Detroit bravado, asking the crowd questions like "What year was the first house music made?" and assuring us that we "wouldn't have any of this without Detroit."
If all that swagger would have seemed a little over the top in another context, the music was a good reminder of why these three have reason to boast. The track selection gradually opened up to encompass everything from Moodymann and Plastikman to disco, funk and jazz. Wilhite even dropped Estelle's "American Boy." For all their attitude, these three offered a savoury reminder of what mixing was like before microfashions and label catalogues defined DJ's brands. And the clusters of people sedately enjoying one last beer around the festival grounds when 3 Chairs finished at dawn were a refreshing sign of going out with open ears and open minds, with a healthy indifference to finding the afterparty.
SATURDAY
Matthew Herbert /// Photo credit: Spyros Simotas
Whereas the guitar strummers and vinyl jocks stole the show on Friday, Saturday proved to be all about the experimental fusion of the two. The Matthew Herbert Big Band certainly won full points for bravery. Mr. Herbert on his sampler was supported by a brass band of about twelve plus a drummer, conductor and vocalist. This setup seemed to present quite a challenge to the sound engineer, and Herbert himself produced just as many glitches. Songs like "The Story," and "Waiting" from the most recent album shone brightly through the technical hiccups. "The Audience," for an encore, made me weak at the knees.
Squarepusher and Junior Boys battled for our attention next. Squarepusher used his guitar to fill in the bass lines of his 200 BPM electronica to great effect. There was no arguing with the reaction Junior Boys were getting from their crowd, though. Their slick remake of Sally Shapiro's "Jackie Junior" drove the crowd wild, as a few daring souls ventured to dance from some old steel pipes running high around the site.
Junior Boys /// Photo credit: E. Patsialos
Greece's own Nteïbint brought on itchy, glitchy, dark and sensuous minimalesque electronica crossed with a healthy dose of rock. His remix of Jamie Lidell, out on Warp, is a good place to start for this clearly talented performer.
Hudson Mohawke brought the polyfolk. His splashes of colour coordinated synths cresting around dubstep-influenced beats are more polished at every performance. Hud Mo has only released few records so far and his laptop powered live show provides testament to the love and funk that his still raw music should achieve more and more. Sweating to "Overnight" in the balmy Athens air was a highlight. Alex Tsiridis followed, with a special live performance of his astute brand of reduced club wreckage.
Fennesz /// Photo credit: Zeugo
Perhaps the most accomplished of all the live performances was Fenessz's. He took up a late slot in the packed out auditorium. Its ruby-lit rows of seats held countless bodies firmly in the grips of a downtempo/ambient performance like little else. Fennesz hooked his guitar up to an impressive bank of analogue gear, and coaxed minutes on end of feedback from every chord plucked and each finger sliding up a string. The music was extraordinary, and the connection brought about by the organic but innovative performance style held me breathless.
This left Matthew Jonson to finish things off in the altogether more lively fashion in a cavernous room at the other end of the site. He took things shiny and minimal. Extended refashionings of "Symphony for the Apocalypse," and much else, had the crowd eating from his hands until a bit past closing time.
SUNDAY
Sunday night's closing shindig brought us down to the fantastic courtyard of the Benaki Museum. The shimmering space at the center of a museum focused on Greek culture was the perfect end, symbolically and otherwise, to a superb weekend. German duo You, who have been on the synths since 1978, brought something as different and memorable as the festival had been. There is no question that Synch took a huge amount of risks, but it showed how a place without a club culture like London or Berlin can use that isolation to its advantage. You'd be hard pressed to find a festival with as much diversity or freedom in either of those cities.