Movement had a staggering lineup up of some of the biggest DJ’s and live acts spread across five different stages in Hart Plaza. Trying to take in the entire festival would be almost impossible, so I spent a fair amount of time bouncing from stage to stage checking out a few tracks and moving on to the next artist.
MOVEMENT, originally called the Detroit Electronic Music Festival (DEMF), has become Detroit’s premium electronic music showcase over the last decade. This year had a staggering lineup up of some of the biggest DJ’s and live acts spread across five different stages in Hart Plaza. A record crowd turned out for the first day of pulling in over 34,000. Trying to take in the entire festival would be almost impossible, so I spent a fair amount of time bouncing from stage to stage checking out a few tracks and moving on to the next artist.
The standout artist for me was Monolake Surround, which was nothing short of amazing. Robert Henke produced a set that was full of intricate beats, dub echoes and unique sound design. He was one of the of the few artists to tame the poor acoustics of the Movement stage. The visual projections fit the music perfectly. Coming in a very close second, would be Green Velvet who was pure energy live; he blasted through a set of his classic and new tracks. Also of note was Mark Flash of Underground Resistance fame who fleshed out his tracks with live keyboards and saxophone.
Aux88, was a bit of mixed bag. They came out strong wearing white lab coats with pounding 808 drums and vocoded lyrics. The first 20 minutes were pure electro bliss. After they got the crowd in the frenzy, they exited the stage leaving only their backing keyboard player to do an extended piano solo that went on for what seemed like 5 minutes. During the break the crowd left in exodus. Upon their return they performed tracks from their Black Tokyo project which really didn’t have the punch of their electro numbers.
Crunchy IDM was well represented (mostly on the Saturday’s Movement Stage lineup). Detroit Underground‘s Kero produced a set of processed beats and disjointed synthetics (look for his upcoming album on Schematic). Richard Devine’s set was full of the sonic destruction he is known for. Towards the end of his set he turned a “blue screen of death” into an updated version of Moby’s “Thousand.” Venetian Snares did a mix of crazed ADD break beats (Skrillex was spotted taking notes by the sound board). The acoustics of the Movement stage had a negative effect on both Richard Devine and Venetian Snares’ sets; many of the frequencies were in the wrong places and the tone was very muddy. As this stage was located in an area which is primarily a giant concrete cave it really needed to be tamed by a competent sound crew.
The DJ selection for the most part was excellent, and mostly focused on house and techno on the main stage. As for the best DJ, I would have to say that it was a split between Sven Väth and Claude Young. Sven Väth put on excellent set of four on the floor techno, and had the crowd on the main stage totally rocking. He was engaged with the audience and was clearly having an awesome time himself. His set had an accompanying video of set of hilariously self- deprecating and pretentious footage, showing that despite being one of the biggest DJ’s on the planet, he doesn’t take himself all that seriously. Detroit’s own, Claude Young’s set was a seamless blend of techno and house and did some awesome tricks with the EQ and filters on his mixer. He also scored bonus points for dropping some classic Nitzer Ebb in to the mix. Notable mentions Dubfire (techno/house), Erika (techno/electro), DJ Godfather (electro) , tINI (house/techno ) and Matthew Hawtin (ambient).
While having plenty of potential, this year’s Movement had its flaws. As well as the issues with the Movement Stage, The Beatport Stage had numerous problems with clipping on low-end frequencies, this was particularly evident during Ritchie Hawtin’s Saturday night set. However, sound quality wasn’t the biggest issue. Several of the largest acts were booked in the smaller side stages causing massive over-crowding . The worst case of this was during Skrillex’s set in the Red Bull area where people started pushing and trampling over each other leading Skrillex to stop his set and telling people to calm down; the bottleneck in getting in and out of the area only amplified the concerns. If the promoters of Movement can sort out these issues, they will have one amazing festival in 2012.
