- Over the long Easter weekend, while families around the world were attending church services and eating their weight in chocolate bunnies, Geneva played host to the eighth annual Electron Festival. While it combined music, visual art, film and skateboarding, a big part of the festival aimed to showcase the city's ability to promote dance music culture. Ten venues were utilized in total, with the majority of acts playing at Palladium, the nearby Usine/Zoo (a combined upstairs-downstairs pair of spaces) and Les Vernets, a 2,000 capacity ice skating rink ten minutes' drive away and a new addition to this year's festivities.
Set against the backdrop of picturesque Lake Geneva and an abundance of high-end retail outlets like Rolex and Cartier, Electron provided local residents and international visitors with four days and nights of artistic happenings. At BAC, the local contemporary art center, pieces from the likes of F.A.T. Lab, Aram Bartholl and Eva and Franco Mattes dealt with the themes of hacking and bricolage. The Grütli terrace, a mainstay for Swiss skaters in the '90s, was revived and turned into a skating locale, also showing films and exhibiting photos, all while lectures were going on at various times and locations.
Photo credit: Thomas Conchou
While the music lineup was full of established and fledgling artists from across the globe, the lack of daytime parties detracted from the liveliness of the fest. (A boat cruise on the lake, for example, could have been amazing.) In addition, numerous major acts were billed at the same time in locations a bit far from one another, making it tough for attendees to see everyone they'd hoped to—a problem which plagues many festivals of this nature. However, the chartered vehicles that shuttled partygoers to and from the spaces, dubbed the "rave bus," was always prompt and allowed people the best chance to hear as much as they could.
On opening night, crowds gathered in the square outside of the Zoo and Usine. Downstairs at the venue, Cologne's Glitterbug was onstage, playing an evocative set of cinematic, emotion-soaked techno, complete with visuals depicting birds in flight and oil tankers, all projected on swaths of oddly shaped canvas that hung from the ceiling. Upstairs at the Zoo, things were heating up as João Brasil threw down handcrafted baile funk on a mobile sampling pad.
Photo credit: Gabriel Asper
On the bus to Les Vernets, hooligan types were belting out football chants in French, while the ever-stoic driver quickly navigated his route. Walking through the massive parking lot to reach the venue, Swamp81 head honcho Loefah could be heard playing Addison Groove's "Footcrab." Inside, his MC, Chunky, was dancing on the right side of the stage, and emanating good vibes throughout the warehouse over a selection of amped-up bass tunes. Soon, Modeselektor and Miss Kittin took to the stage for a back-to-back set, playing upbeat techno and electro with Pfadfinderei controlling huge Technicolor visuals that featured slot machines and the Modeselektor monkey. Wearing a KLF shirt, Miss Kittin occasionally sang over the tunes into a mic—not the best move perhaps, but one that has been a staple of her sets for some time now.
Throughout the following evening, Friday, the overall mood outside festival HQ, (the outdoor square) was good, albeit less crowded than the previous evening. At Palladium, Switzerland-via-Vietnam DJ Ngoc Lan played a selection of UK funky, hip-hop and post-dubstep sounds, occasionally stepping out from behind the booth to dance happily in circles with bare feet. Next, the four-piece band Two Left Ears orchestrated a live set of experimental beats reminiscent of Cinematic Orchestra as a selection of somber cityscapes were projected in the background.
Photo credit: Melanie Groley
Over at Les Vernets, Spoek Mathambo and his band played a rock-tinged set to a half-full venue, which begged the question of whether Geneva is a large enough city to fill so many venues for four straight nights. "If you don't have haters, you're not doing anything," he exclaimed, before launching into a lively rendition of "Mshini Wam" from his debut LP. Next, Buraka Som Sistema came on to prove they're still the best purveyors of live bass music in the world, despite the fact their live show has remained relatively unchanged for the past few years. MC Kalaf and their female MC for the evening were on top form, hollering rhymes at the sweaty audience and dancing like mad. At one point, Kalaf placed a GoPro digital video camera on his head, filming the crowd.
"I hate to follow these motherfuckers!" said Diplo, as he took to the decks, launching into some hyped-up gabba to test the waters. Behind him, visuals displayed imagery of Storm Troopers decked out in leather daddy outfits. After playing Chris Brown, Lil' Wayne and Busta Rhymes' hip-hop anthem "Look at Me Now," he delved into the poppier side of dubstep, turning the dance floor into a veritable mosh pit and causing some audience members to fall onto the slippery floor as bartenders bounced up and down at their posts. It turned out to be a very populist set, which Diplo has historically been an expert at weaving more underground tunes into, yet this time it seemed to fall flat.
Photo credit: Sebastien Comte
It seemed that the organizers of Electron were imagining Saturday to be the biggest night of the festival. A slew of high-profile acts were booked at each venue. Unfortunately, heavy rains put a damper on the evening's revelry and caused people to travel between the spaces less than they might have normally. At Usine, Chukks from nearby Lausanne dispatched tropical house tunes to an almost empty dance floor. Next, RinseFM DJ and general veteran of the UK scene Marcus Nasty came on, MC Shantie in tow. "Where my hands in the air crew?" Shantie shouted, espousing old school rave vibes to the primarily Swiss crowd. Donning tight-fitting shirts, the pair felt like an entertaining relic of London's dance music past. Spicing his set up with older dancehall tunes and newer UK funky, Marcus Nasty provided a charismatic intro for the other London-based DJs who were to follow. Deadboy played a set rife with pitch-shifted R&B vocal samples, while Girl Unit showcased US and UK street sounds of all stripes.
Due to the rain outside, the floor downstairs was a muddy mess when Chrissy Murderbot, one of the foremost peddlers of Chicago juke and footwork, began to play. He seemed determined to work the crowd into a frenzy, spinning fast-paced tunes that included tried and tested samples that asked the crowd to "Hold up, wait a minute" and "Juke that percolator." Soon, DJ Rashad and DJ Spinn, veteran tuneslingers of the scene from Chicago, emerged with three dancers clad in Nightmare Juke Squad shirts. As they broke out their moves, a fight broke out in the crowd, with one man screaming at another "Don't touch my wife!" Two men were pulled apart and carried out by bouncers. Spoek Mathambo then graced the stage for his third and final time during the festival, grabbing the microphone and proclaiming that, "This is the freshest shit!" atop the music.
Photo credit: Melanie Groley
Though the bad weather was not letting up, it seemed worth it to board the bus and head to Les Vernets in an attempt to check out Shed's DJ set. Inside, Dave Clarke was playing pounding techno as one crowd member danced under her open umbrella. The lighting was unrelenting—strobes bounced from every corner, and neon colors flashed constantly. His set extended well into Shed's supposed 3:30 AM start time, leaving many to wonder on the bus back whether the German producer would've played at all considering the little time remaining before the club closed its doors.
Photo credit: Sophie le Meillour
On the last night of Electron, only the Zoo and Usine were open, making it feel like a family affair. Isolée was holding court upstairs, playing hand clap-heavy, grooving house to a large, dedicated group who had clearly come to dance their Easter dinners off. He finished his set to raucous applause, and was followed by LA band Rainbow Arabia. The duo, comprised of husband and wife Danny and Tiffany Preston, laid down tribal dance rock while bathed in green and blue light. It was a tough sell to put on a live band immediately after a house DJ. Things weren't helped by the sound, which saw much of Tiffany Preston's vocal prowess lost in the shuffle.
In Usine downstairs, OBF, Kenny Knotts and Danman's reggae and dub ambiance was flowing, as the heavy scent of marijuana smoke permeated the air. It felt like an apt way to end any festival as revelers began heading home for some much-needed sleep.