Photo credits /
Felix Hohagen Photography - Lead, Daytime Site, Âme, Tale Of Us, Kalypso Crowd
Elephant Studio - Seth Troxler, Sonja Moonear, Ricardo Villalobos
Ruben Schmitz - Janina, Sven Väth, Sven Väth 2, Jamie Jones, Confetti, Girls, Kalypso Sign
Sonus Festival 2017: Five key performances
- PublishedAug 31, 2017
- Words
- Share
- When you think about it, Sonus is a genius idea. Cooked up five years ago by Cosmopop, the company behind the Mannheim mega-rave Time Warp, it's a festival that offers people the full Ibiza experience for half—maybe even a third—of the price. For as much as a night out in Ibiza, you can party to the world's biggest house and techno acts on Croatia's Adriatic coast for six days straight. The clubs—Kalypso, Aquarius and Papaya—are loud, imposing and open air. The beers are €5. This year's crowd was one of the most international I've seen at a festival—Sonus sold tickets to people from more than 50 countries. Also, in terms of the lineup, you'd be hard-pressed to find a week on the White Isle stacked with so many heavyweights. (The only downside was the site, Zrce Beach, a tacky strip ruled by neon vests and crappy fast-food.)
With so many big names playing extended sets in one place, Sonus also offered a rare opportunity from a journalistic perspective. Dance music's elite artists play to thousands of people on a weekly basis, and a lot of the coverage they get in the press or on social media tends to be overwhelmingly positive. But we should never stop questioning their position at the top of the tree. Who's there on merit? And who's treading water? I stumbled away from Zrce Beach on Friday morning with plenty of thoughts.
Here are five key performances from across the weekend.
Seth Troxler Roughly 15 hours before Seth Troxler ambled into the booth at Kalypso for Resident Advisor's afternoon-into-evening showcase, he had been in full party mode alongside The Martinez Brothers, necking shots in a Tuskegee T-shirt while throwing down a slick barrage of classic house. Together, their sets tend to be fluid and groovy. But left to his own devices, Troxler delights in playing less straight—especially in the daylight hours, when the heat has a way of expanding people's tolerance for fruitier music. At Kalypso, before the sun sunk behind the pine trees, there were swooshing guitars, Middle Eastern vocals and weirdo club cuts like Chris Korda & The Church Of Euthanasia's "Six Billion Humans Can't Be Wrong," all complemented by a shapeshifting backdrop of, among other things, Troxler pulling demented faces. (Unlike most artists of his standing, he brings his own VJ to the big shows.) Even if the range of textures upset the flow at points, and some segues felt too audacious, it was exciting to watch. Each track brought fresh personality. In a world dominated by cookie-cutter tech house, this approach goes a long way. Once darkness fell, the selections became cleaner, though no less varied: the tingly trance of Bicep's "Glue" spilled into a stomper with a jungle break, before Troxler signed off—one arm raised, lips puckered—with a warbling ambient cut that meandered on forever.
Janina In the two-hour break between the day and night sessions on Wednesday, staff scurried around cleaning the clubs while punters decamped to the strip, loading up on chicken nuggets and large carafes filled with dubious pink slush. At 11 PM, the gates to Sonus's biggest venue, Papaya, reopened, as a few early birds wandered in to the tender techno of Jeff Bennett's "Fnaskras." Numbers crept up at a glacial pace over the course of the next hour, though Janina didn't seem fazed. Shooting the dance floor the occasional wry smile, she mixed with a marksman's precision, deploying long blends that let the last track slink beautifully from view. The mood, soothing yet sombre, was such that when the first ice-cannons went off, the jarring blasts spooked the crowd. Bang on midnight, she switched things up with a flick of the wrist, bringing in Brothers Vibe's "Like It Used 2 B," a woody house track with twinkly keys. She quickly found her way back to techno, but now the selections, like Alien Rain's "Alienated 5B," were tougher and more upbeat. By 1 AM, the floor was gently heaving and whistles shot like arrows through the air—sure signs of an expertly executed warm-up set.
Sven Väth At around 6:40 PM on Thursday, Sven Väth's concentration was momentarily broken by the needle jumping on one of his records. With a wag of the finger and a wide smile, he got back to work, leaving the sheepish technician to face the fury of Cosmopop cofounder Steffen Charles. This was, unsurprisingly, the only blip in Väth's four-hour set at Papaya. I've never seen a DJ looking so supremely relaxed. He spent most of his time gazing out at the crowd, winking at fans or, when the mood struck him, fanning the atmosphere with one of his vinyls. His mixes were short and water-tight, often executed with only a couple centimetres left on the record, a technique that requires the tracks to do the legwork. Unlike so many of his peers, he doesn't frame his sets around white-noise crescendos and oversized drops, preferring a slow, natural build using dynamic cuts with catchy hooks and fiery rhythms. (DJ Slyngshot's "High-Tech," "Inigo Kennedy's "Voyager.") As night fell, the music grew trancier and more cinematic, sometimes to a fault. It was during these cheesier moments that I stopped dancing and watched Väth up there onstage, jigging about or playing air drums, ever the consummate showman. The reason he's stayed on top for so long is simple: watching him is never boring.
Sonja Moonear As Matt Unicomb found out last year, Thursday night at Kalypso is all about the biggest acts in minimal-leaning club music. The sky was warm and starry as Margaret Dygas, wearing a baggy Disney T-shirt, handed over to Sonja Moonear, who transitioned from Dygas's breakbeat closer directly into a rude roller with alien flickers. Her swinging sound is built on slinky tech house and techno tracks with swooshing basslines and irresistible percussion. On top, there's usually some bleeps or synths ready to spark a dialogue with what's beneath. At Kalypso, moody bombs like Per Hammar's "4444 Dubb" and Pablo Denegri and Seph's "Mutante" had the place jumping, their gritty warmth magnified by the impressive sound. The second hour was more big-room friendly—in my notes, I wrote down that some of the tunes wouldn't have sounded out of place in a Sven Väth set. But no matter how slamming the kicks, or how long the breakdowns, the music was always funky and tasteful. Due to Ricardo Villalobos's late arrival, Moonear ended up running over by 15 minutes. I didn't see anyone complaining.
Ricardo Villalobos Not for the first time, Ricardo Villalobos, bobbing at the centre of a long train of fans, friends and hangers-on, turned up late for his headline slot. While Sonja Moonear kept the ball rolling, the Chilean squatted on the floor, unzipped three heaving record bags and began furiously assembling a game plan. Once satisfied, he bolted straight up, took a long swig of Coke and sprung over to the decks. As his head poked above the parapet for the first time, you could feel the rumbles of excitement coursing through the floor. What followed was one of dance music's best-loved spectacles: Villalobos, on festival form, twirling, cutting and nailing mixes without breaking sweat. It's the show that never loses its sheen, a one-man tour de force powered by an endless stream of old favourites and demented, rave-tinged bangers. All the usual crutches were lent on—Floorplan, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, "Easy Lee," Peace Division's "Gotta Have You"—and they were received like a band's greatest hits, sending Kalypso's wooden cauldron potty. But for all the indulgent familiarity, there were still fresh takeaways: I'm now on the hunt for a nasty hip-house tune with the lyrics "I hate you but I love your cock," and I finally figured out the method behind one of his signature fader tricks. As 6 AM's ostensible cut-off loomed, I noticed a nearby group of English girls growing agitated. "There's only 20 minutes left," one complained. I lent over and told them the good news: the party would rage on, right where they stood, for at least another 20 hours. "You're joking!" laughed the ringleader, before leaning over for a sweaty high five.
0303