Photo credit /
Andrew Whitton - Lead, Aphex Twin, Eat Your Own Ears
Will Bunce - ABRA, Forest Swords, Moodymann
Samantha Milligan - Kode9, Nina Kraviz, Grass
Gobinder Jhitta - Flying Lotus
Max Miechowski - The Barn
Justine Trickett - Lady Leshurr, Female singer
Carolina Faruolo - Tug Of War
Field Day 2017: Five key performances
- PublishedJun 7, 2017
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- On Saturday afternoon, as the sun roasted necks and forearms at Field Day's Bleep Bandstand stage, Kode9 played a solemn ambient track. A woman wearing a red dress and sensible glasses started to scream. Her friends, wearing various expressions of embarrassment, were laughing, as though she'd done this before. This scene only made sense because the track was "Beachfires" by Burial, an artist who inspires a special kind of devotion. I found other strange surprises at this year's edition of the Victoria Park festival, an event that gathers together Londoners of all kinds, from serious music heads to groups who come to soak up the party mood and posh beer. So many people wore sparkly Aphex Twin T-shirts—available at a stall that also sold limited edition 12-inches from the Warp artist—that the festival began to resemble a Richard D. James stag do. One of the day's singalong moments came from Moodymann, who, to the horror of some of the crowd, played Kings Of Leon's "Sex On Fire."
The sunshine put everyone in good spirits. In the early afternoon, when people ate ice cream and lazed on the grass, Victoria Park was beautiful. A good forecast can go a long way towards an enjoyable festival weekend. But it was the weird little episodes, jarring against the idyllic summer haze, that made Field Day memorable.
Here are five of the day's key performances.
ABRA As recently as last year, ABRA was referred to as a "bedroom R&B singer." But at the RA stage on Saturday, her outfit—pillowy white parka, sunglasses—and body language suggested a different sort of artist: a bona fide pop star. Her elbows dropped in time to "Love & Power"'s pounding 808s. During "Crybaby," one of the set's most popular songs, she faced the screen as she danced with her arms raised. On tracks where ABRA showed a vulnerable side, the mood was more indignant than resentful. On "I Guess," a post-mortem of a recent breakup, she sang the line "I want you to hold me, but you don't want to both-er, both-er, both-er," elongating the last syllable with a convincing mix of regret and casual contempt. The 40 minutes were big on fun tracks, where cowbells, snare rolls and bass rumbles evoked '80s freestyle. But the intimacy of these songs—thanks in part to lusty call-and-response moments—gave the set an impassioned charge. "One second, I want to see you," she said, taking off her shades as she got ready to leave. Her wide smile creased her eyes.
Forest Swords The visuals that accompanied Matthew Barnes and James Freeman's mid-afternoon slot on the RA stage illustrated an uneasy union between man and nature. There were seaweed-like rags draped over heads and shoulders, and canary-coloured ropes tied around men and trees. The contrast between what these images suggested—captivity, or being held back—and the rhythmic flow of the music was striking. Syllable collages, electric guitars and drumstick clacks moved as though carried by a current. Aside from a percussion-led track with claps, snares and stick taps, the tracks from Compassion, Forest Swords' latest album, stood out for their faded warmth and emotion. "Panic" sounded like a Motown 45 stretched on a rack. "The Highest Flood"'s chiming guitars and firecracker snares lit the track's magisterial vocal. If Forest Swords’ music often draws from source material that summons dread, the mood throughout these 45 minutes was profoundly celebratory.
Kode9 Some of Field Day's most casual moments, where the atmosphere was more like that of a small club than a festival, took place at the Bleep Bandstand stage. Raime back-to-back Yally—actually one person, Joe Andrews—featured garage and grime tracks that stretched and snapped as though tied together with thick rubber bands. Kode9, who played right after, seemed to connect his with pulleys and ropes. His DJing was defined by sharp climbs and bold contrasts, where grime and UK hip-hop records by Lady Leshurr and Giggs were mixed with footwork, jungle and fast 4/4 tracks. Many of these blends were executed in frantic yet surgical style. One minute, a Missy Elliot vocal ("Work It") would cast light on a gothic hip-hop beat; the next, two vocal tracks would rub together until they dissolved into glossolalia. By 5:45 PM, Kode9's set had reached a necessary plateau. He closed with a volley of soulful footwork tracks, including, aptly enough, DJ Rashad's "In Da Club Before 11 O'Clock."
Nina Kraviz Shortly after her 90-minute set had finished, Nina Kraviz assessed the experience in plainspoken terms. ("I just successfully played the MOST horrible show of my life," the Russian DJ tweeted.) The sound during her slot at The Barn, an air hangar-style arena with roaming laser arrays and large screens, was admittedly very quiet in places. That had a knock-on effect—since most of what she played was 4/4, some details within those records (acid lines, for instance) were hard to make out. Her selections, though short on rhythmic counterpoints, had a crowd-pleasing variety. There were epic choral vocals, nasty 303 howls, grotty industrial and Power Vacuum-style slammers. One of my favourite tracks had a sleazy male vocal, asking dancers to "feel my drum." Sadly, not everyone could.
Aphex Twin A few minutes before Aphex Twin surfaced onstage in The Barn, a young guy with a mop of blonde hair leaned over to his partner. "This is the best moment of my life, right now," he told her, "in this dark, shady place." His night was about to get even better. Richard D. James's first London show in five years—which was so full that people were refused entry into the tent—was a sensory overload, in which music, noise, lasers and moving images took turns to deep fry your brain. (The sound, it's worth noting, was considerably louder than it had been during Kraviz's set.) Over the course of two hours, he played electro from Duplex, scorched-earth techno from Shapednoise, Polygon Window's "Audax Powder," Underground Resistance bangers, gabber-like shreds and, near the end, a rally of jungle. On the 12 screens surrounding him, images of the crowd, royalty, former prime ministers and TV personalities lined up in a grotesque parade. That thousands of people had sought out such a challenging experience spoke volumes about the unique draw of Aphex Twin, an artist who simply does what he wants.
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