(10.04.05) Knobs, dials, frequencies, beats and most of all decibels… The Decibel Festival, to be specific. In what is becoming the Pacific Northwest’s premiere electronic music festival, Seattle was taken by wired storm this past weekend (Sept. 22-25) with performances by Austrian headliner (Christian) Fennesz, who simply dazzled the audience with a virtuosic fusion between analogue (electric guitar) and digital (laptop) modalities as well as signature Touch-flavored natural video treatments. There was a Mutek showcase including the hard beats of Akufen (who was wearing an amusing t-shirt emblazoned with Akufen Sucks using the rock group KISS’ signature chunky font), Deadbeat‘s upgraded dub-soaked sound (newly improved, more physical and upbeat) and Tim Hecker (whose striated noise experiments are at once cerebral as they are disconcerting). Other performers included Styrofoam (Belgium) as well as Vancouver’s emerging ambient maestro, Loscil, the Bay Area’s radical dance-noise Panacea, and smooth folk-ambientists Pam American and a whole lot more. Immersing audiences with sounds ranging from static clicks and pops to pure dance rhythms, these world-class performers helped shape the sophomore year for this festival, now officially on the international electronic music festival map.
Not necessarily for the average-Joe concert goer, some of what you may see and hear at one of these fests may make you tilt your head like a confused beagle, though, most organizers prefer not to preach to the converted, so expect the unexpected, always. Alongside such heavyweights in the international electronic music circuit as Sonar (Barcelona), Mutek (Montreal), Avanto (Helsinki) and Transmediale (Berlin), this will be our very own U.S. destination for revellers of the right/left mind kind and those who love them. And its already got others crossing borders to share in the fun. The festival boasts workshops in software like Abelton Live (for the beginner to novice) as well as educational panels on topics ranging from the merge of technology in art to the distribution of music in the digital age. While some of these topics have been amply covered by its sister festivals, there is an evolving dialogue depending on regional concepts of emerging and dead technical strategies. So, geeks unite! Though festivals are not just for geeks anymore, especially as the work has evolved into fine arts as seen in installation (Steve Roden, Carsten Nicolai, Scanner, Brandon Labelle), theater (Dumb Type) and film (Thomas Koner) among other forms.
Housed in smaller, more intimate clubs as well as the Broadway Performance Hall, the several venues make the walk around this charming city worth each step. Hats off to festival organizer (and nice guy), Sean Horton. Seattle has made the efforts to raise the bar pretty high and as a result given us a buzz that’s what’s all the fuss is about, or a fuss that’s all buzzy, or it’s just what it is…
