Movement 2009 in review
RA looks back at the weekend that was in Detroit.
Detroit. What can you say? It's a metropolis that has birthed some of the finest electronic music ever written, and it's one that has endured some of the deepest cuts of America's failing economy. It's a city of highs. It's a city of lows. Over the past ten years, though, an influx of techno pilgrims come each Memorial Day to pay tribute to what the city has given the world. Over the course of four days, parties rage across the city, celebrating both music and life.
As anyone who has been to the festival knows, the whole thing centers around Hart Plaza and what has come to be known as the Movement Festival. But there are plenty of afterparties, as well. (At least 70 by our count this year.) RA sent out a number of our trusted correspondents to take in as much as they could over the course of four days in the city. Here's their report.
Friday, May 22
Monty Luke beamed the crowd up at Mothership
Perhaps the most highly anticipated pre-party of the festival, Mothership's free entry/free booze shindig was moved to the C-Pop Gallery not long before the event. It was a wise change: The art on display, and the multi-level loft offered a lot of room for exploration. Voodeux debuted its live set to celebrate The Paranormal's release, while Monty Luke and Mothership founder Claude VonStroke played strong sets despite three (!) power outages. If anything, though, those hiccups made the mood more intimate. VonStroke's own "Who's Afraid Of Detroit?" and Carl Craig's rework of Faze Action's "In The Trees" had the crowd going insane, kicking off—for many of us—what would be a weekend of many more aural climaxes. -- Vicki G. Siolos
Minneapolis representing at the Corktown Tavern
Andrew "Grimace" Virden's seventh annual and, regrettably, final pre-festival BBQ started off the weekend on a high note. The event has become a yearly reunion in a comfortable atmosphere with burgers and dogs on the patio grill at Corktown Tavern. Standout sets came from Eric Cloutier, who started things off upstairs at a leisurely pace, treating everyone to an extended set of ultra deep minimal techno and house records, and SubK, who threw down an incredible mix of dark German techno, electro, breaks and acid in the downstairs room. So: why this is the last year? Virden explains, "I want to end it with people wishing there was another one..." Thanks for the memories, Grimace. -- Elly Rifkin
Saturday, May 23
Vitamin Water stage at Hart Plaza
By mid-afternoon the main festival stage had a healthy attendance, and Drumcell cut through the afternoon with his industrial twist on techno. Everyone was baking in the sun, and by the time Slam's "Hot Knives" peaked, Steve Bug was prepping for his set on the lower tier of the massive stage. It wasn't Mr. Poker Flat's strongest delivery, but it would be hard to match considering Francois K, who—having gone deep and soulful and finished with, of all things, breaks—dropped the Surgeon remix of Shed's "Lower Upside Down" at his apex. That sounded mighty good resonating through Hart Plaza, and, as a whole, his set glued the whole day together. -- Vicki G. Siolos
Beatport stage at Hart Plaza
Damian Lazarus' hazy shade of (nuclear) winter was on display all weekend, but the soon-to-be-man-about-town had to first properly rock the Beatport Stage on Day 1. Earlier in the afternoon, Nikola Baytala of Kontrol extolled the virtues of deep tribal techno, and Heidi followed with dreamy, tinkering minimalism, dropping wicked bass tempered with playful, handclapped mixes. But back to Lazarus, he of aviator shades and spirit finger dramatics. If it weren't for the ebbing daylight, maybe the trance-inducing singing bowls, tribal workouts, tuning forks, dog whistles and kitchen sink would've been overwhelming. Or maybe that's just what the doctor would've ordered. Whatever the case, Lazarus' set was clearly the oddest high point of the night. -- Duke Shin
Made in Detroit stage at Hart Plaza
Giant speaker stacks surrounding the stage on all four sides. An interesting concept, sure, but it meant that echo and muddy bass plagued the cement cavern known as Made In Detroit stage throughout the weekend. Shaun Reeves nonetheless came up with a cool mix of dubby house tunes, which segued into short sets from the Detroit Beatdown crew. Delano Smith's set of familiar Detroit house and techno was the most engaging, as he danced and swayed to the music and got on the microphone to give love to his city. Mike Huckaby suffered the most, though: The pit's unbearable loudness made his gorgeous dub techno tracks sound indistinguishable from each other. -- Elly Rifkin
Red Bull stage at Hart Plaza
Over the past few years, the Red Bull stage has become known for housing some of the outliers invited to the festival, but many of the first day's acts were anything but, what with Ghostly International taking over the area early in the day with four of its acts. While each performed as you might expect—with The Sight Below's ambient wanderings notably confusing neon-wigged ravers ready for the dance—the best act to grace the stage was the non-Ghostly affiliated Kevin Reynolds, who came complete Malik Alston on vocals and a trumpet player that knew when to add touches to Reynolds' simple drum machine/synthesizer set-up. His set was alternately hard and soft, building expertly throughout an hour that seemed way too short. -- Todd L. Burns
Kai Alce played to a local-heavy crowd
"Come early. Stay late. Respect the neighbors. Get down!" Well, three out of four ain't bad. The crowd at the NDATL Muzik party at 1515 Broadway—the former home to the Detroit Music Institute—was rather sparse early on, but served as a suitable afterparty as plenty of other venues wound down at Detroit's 2 AM closing time. I saw plenty of people from my travels earlier that night at Street Science and Rick Wilhite's night at Lola's. And a guy in a fully sequined outfit with an afro. Luckily, Kai Alce was busy putting things down to a degree that it became easy enough to forget about the scenery, and simply groove to his classics-filled set. And with Omar-S and Theo Parrish holding court outside as we left, we knew we'd made the right choice on this night to pay tribute to the city's rich history. -- Todd L. Burns
The view from behind the decks at The Other 9 to 5
Chicago promoter Volatl had a lot to live up to after last year's festival after-party at Bert's on Broadway. But with this year's fete featuring three excellent rooms at River's Edge Grille, we probably shouldn't have worried at all. Highlights of the night were Clink's Camea, who mixed her signature dark minimal techno with some loopy tech house jams and Bruno Pronsato, who doesn't seem capable of delivering anything less than mind-blowing lately with his live set. Hello?Repeat's Jan Krueger, meanwhile, tagged with label co-owner Daze Maxim. Once again Volatl outdid itself with crystal clear sound, especially on the upstairs deck. One of the most well-received after-parties of the weekend. -- Elly Rifkin
Ryan Elliott and not entirely unexpected guest Matthew Dear
The promoters of Resolute have come a long way. Cutting their teeth in the highly competitive New York scene, they've become experts in throwing parties in that city as well as Miami and Detroit. This year marked their second outing at TV Bar. When I arrived, the inside room had already closed and Kate Simko was playing for 60 or so people outside. Her warm summery house music thawed everyone out from the unusually chilly Detroit weather, while Camea dropped more tech-oriented grooves, which suited the second wave of attendees (AKA those that had slept) just fine. Things really took flight, though, as Ryan Elliott and the unannounced—yet hardly unexpected—Matthew Dear took the final leg of the fifteen hour party. -- Christopher Thomarios
House-N-Home at Oslo
Cassy is the Sophia Loren of DJs. Gorgeous, talented and exotic in her demeanor and style. Based in Berlin, the Panoramabar resident plays warm and nurturing house music. It's the same vibe that New York's House-N-Home party has been putting forth each month in a loft that would make most promoters salivate. As such, Oslo was the most fitting venue in Detroit to have such an event: Dark, cool and with plenty of dim corners to hang out in, Home's founder Anthony Parasole opened the night before Cassy mixed up feel-good smoothness and minimal warehouse ambiance, with the signature style that is undeniably Cassy—passionate and enriching—permeating the entire event. -- Vicki G. Siolos
The Blank Artists Afterglow at Bohemian National Home
The room is pitch black, lit only with a Blank Artists Lite-Brite and the warm sounds of classic house and techno from Detroit deck stalwart Trent Abbe. Ghostly's Osborne hits the decks next as the crowd builds, dancing in the dark, or grabbing booth-space and sipping Bell's in the previous room. Leaving before Tim Sweeney drops his inaugural Detroit DJ set, it seems things are definitely on the way up, as the party won't end until Blank's Drew Pompa and Josh Dahlberg close out the night/morning. Perhaps Blank Artists would've been happier with a bigger turnout, but kudos for pulling off one of those truly unique experiences tech-tourists have grown to love in Detroit. -- Duke Shin
Sunday, May 24
Omar-S, Dave Powers and friend
I awoke to a text message: "Omar S is destroying Exodus right now!! Get here stat!" Despite only a few hours of sleep, I knew that Omar-S destroying things meant something special, so I skipped breakfast and went directly over to the Greektown venue to find that, yes, indeed Smith was pretty much killing it. Luckily, the crowd was largely in my frame of mind: Tired, willing to listen rather than dance, ready to marvel when Smith dropped yet another bomb. It was quite simply the best set of the weekend that I didn't dance for one second to. Kyle Hall—the Detroit wunderkind—instead took care of the dancing for us, wrapping his gawky, young frame to Omar's set which featured at least two airings of "Psychotic Photosynthesis." -- Todd L. Burns
Vitamin Water stage at Hart Plaza
Osunlade is ending his set with a "French Kiss." The crowd leans in with anticipation as Innervisions take to the stage. With an occasional wrist snap or elbow swing from behind their laptops, the foursome resemble a cerebral (German) version of Glitch Mob. They use vocals sparingly, but with devastating effect. "Slow it down, I don't know how," loops James Lavelle's voice from UNKLE's "Hold My Hand." Soon, Derrick Carter's voice is also heard: "Is this all there is to life? There must be more!" Indeed. More comes in the form of Dennis Ferrer channeling the "Good Life," and Luciano and Loco Dice's converting Hart Plaza's enormous amphitheater into a ravetastic scene out of Blade. -- Duke Shin
Beatport stage at Hart Plaza
The Beatport Stage's approach to bookings this year was a bit more varied than the Minus-dominated format from 2008. On Sunday it was sibling DJ day. The crowds were somewhat sparse until Nic Fanciulli started in the afternoon, and then really filled in when the brothers Ali and Basti (AKA Tiefschwarz) stepped in with their present-day version of house. However, everyone was keyed in on the true stars of the day—The Wighnomy Brothers. These party boys very rarely make it over to the States, and the crowd was up for their rousing set that kept smiles on everyone's faces (even through the extended interlude of Obama's entire inauguration speech). Unfortunately, by the time Guy Gerber stepped up with his live/laptop performance the crowd had dispersed into the chilly Detroit air. -- Chris Thomarios
Made in Detroit stage at Hart Plaza
Electro and breaks were underrepresented in 2009, which is perhaps why Will Webb's set was one of the pleasant surprises throughout the weekend. But it was Octave One's set—sound issues aside—that was the highlight of the day. They banged out their classics with unrelenting energy from start to finish. The highly touted "rare DJ set" from Mark "MK" Kinchen and Scotty Deep, however, was disappointing. Luckily, the only non-Detroit artist to perform on the Made In Detroit stage, Anthony Rother, closed out things with a fully analog setup—which may have been why it sounded so clear. Rocking the vocoder, Rother riled the crowd into a frenzy—definitely my guilty pleasure of the day. -- Elly Rifkin
Red Bull stage at Hart Plaza
A simple look at the line-up on the event page will show you the overlap between the RA readership and the acts that took to the Red Bull stage on Sunday. No DJ pages for any of these guys at the time of this writing? Yeah, that sounds about right. It's not for lack of skills, though: DJ Godfather's ghetto tech set was typified by his remarkable dexterity behind the decks. The best set we saw, though, was the lone drum & bass entry into this year's festival: Mark "8en" Moss annihilated a crowd that was clearly ready for sped-up breakbeats and old-school memories. Bringing together diehards of the genre and relative new jacks (a ten year-old kid was the MC's favorite source of lyrical inspiration), Moss' set was a wonderful sidelight to the house and techno going on elsewhere. -- Todd L. Burns
Soft-focus lens, hard-edged techno: Jeff Mills
As Jeff Mills sets become fewer and farther between, a chance to see him back on his home turf was far too appealing an opportunity to pass up. Even if the venue, The Tangent Gallery, was located far away from the usual downtown-centric afterparty scene. Luckily the raw, warehouse space fit the vibe perfectly: The walls were bare, the ceilings were high and the sound was immense. A video projection screen was situated next to the booth, trained on Jeff's hands, allowing punters to keep in tune with each mix as one thunderous techno monster came in as the last abruptly departed. The only quibble: Whatever your stance, watching CDs get put into Pioneers isn't the same as seeing 12-inches getting tossed about on three Technics. Ah, the old days... -- Chris Thomarios
The view from the boat
Easily the most anticipated afterparty of the festival, more than a thousand people flooded the enormous Detroit Princess to hear three floors of house, techno and everything in between after the festival ended on Sunday. Dixon and Âme took to the decks on their deck—the first—while Henrik Schwarz performed live. On the second, Detroit's finest Carl Craig and Stacey Pullen repped their city, and on the third Luciano and Loco Dice's continued their headlining set from earlier that night at the Vitamin Water stage. But while the four-level showboat offered quality music, the real treat of this party was listening while checking out the view as we sailed the Techno Sea -- Vicki G. Siolos
NYC's Spinoza opened things up at No Way Back
We'll say it to anyone who will listen: Derek Plaslaiko may be one of the most underrated DJs in the United States. (Along with Nikola Baytala.) Because Plaslaiko doesn't produce much, though, you'll rarely hear much about him. Plaslaiko started from an indie rock open of Blonde Redhead (which we initially misidentified as Deerhoof) and played a stunning set that climaxed with the sort of hard-hitting trancey electro that we thought time had forgotten. Just when we thought the party was winding down, though, Traxx showed up, injecting a fourth (fifth?) life into the party by tag-teaming with Carlos Souffront. To see someone head-banging as if they're head was on a spring while playing some of the weirdest acid house we've ever heard…well…you couldn't help but pay respect. Even if it was 9 AM. -- Todd L. Burns
Monday, May 25
Sunglasses reign supreme at Old Miami
I'd love to tell you I was waiting in line at 7 AM with the over-stimulated masses to enter the final DEMF circle for the self-indulgent, but I had to get some rest and arrived at 1 PM to the Old Miami's comically adorned backyard. It's easily the strangest techno oasis on grass, with raved-out lawn ornaments, benches, trees and a koi pond. I take back the Dante reference: Truly, this is (techno) God's country. Worst-kept secrets Jamie Jones and Damian Lazarus were finishing up their hazy, psychedelia-laced techno, as Ryan Elliot and Matthew Dear waited in the wings. At 5 PM things were still churning on as I jumped into my car and drove back home to Chicago. -- Duke Shin
Vitamin Water stage at Hart Plaza
Detroit techno is in a strange place nowadays: Veer too far from the classics, and you risk embarrassment. Hew too closely to them, and you find yourself with nothing new to say. The Vitamin Water stage on Monday was a perfect example: Los Hermanos banged out everything you'd want to hear—ending with a stirring rendition of "Jaguar" that interpolated Star Wars' "The Imperial March" to a largely appreciative crowd, while Kevin Saunderson continued to remind us all why he was known as the "Elevator" by pandering to the crowd, but doing so with (enough) new material that you know he probably thinks he's on the cutting edge. Carl Craig? Ever the showman, he cut the careful balance between the two and played the set of the day. -- Todd L. Burns
Beatport stage at Hart Plaza
With spirits unusually high after nearly four days of non-stop partying, the Beatport stage continued the vibe for Movement's final installment with sets from Ellen Allien, Tiga, Bad Boy Bill and Benny Benassi. Allien has been DJing glitchy/experimental sets around America, but Monday afternoon was more like a rockstar BBQ. Interacting with the crowd, her vinyl set included Moderat and Kid Cudi's "Day & Night." Tiga, meanwhile, started off with slow bangers and prime cuts of baile-influenced American electro meats, before bringing it home with his own remix of Fever Ray's "Triangle Walks." This was the perfect segue into the house-heavy acts that closed out the night. Bad Boy Bill & Benassi delivered the Pacha vibe—dancers and all. -- Vicki G. Siolos
Made in Detroit stage at Hart Plaza
A four-turntable set using only techno records is difficult to pull off, but Detroit Techno Militia's DJ Seoul vs. T. Linder delivered on the final day at the Made in Detroit stage. Intense and relentless, the duo scratched, threw down one quick mix after another and at times played four records at once. Of all the sets during the weekend at the stage, however, Audion's was the finest: Performing underneath a single blue spotlight, he began with a long, spooky buildup before he turned up the heat. It was everything you'd hope of an Audion set: Dark and weird, yet danceable at the same time. And, later on, a dozen men and women joined Dear, clad in ski masks bearing the signature Audion black and white stripes, dancing around his setup. -- Elly Rifkin
Red Bull stage at Hart Plaza
The Red Bull stage is always the most diverse in Detroit, and this year proved to be no exception. Kero started things off on Sunday with some monome-generated electro-tech, and Flying Lotus followed up by bulging the seams of the stage's mighty sound system with tracks from his forthcoming album. Afrika Bambaataa's crew of MC's and dancers distracted from his classic hip-hop set, but the crowd-pleaser award has to go to Busy P, by a long margin. The Ed Banger label head had a youthful swarm eating out of his hand as he rolled through cuts like LeLe's "Breakfast" and Uffie's "Ready to Uff." Bassnectar finished up; giving the dubstep heads something to cheer about after Benga's no-show earlier in the day. -- Mark Strauss
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