- Kazantip is more than just a festival. It's not just the twisted metalwork sculptures or the weird little bars dotted around the site (echoing Burning Man, which is a major inspiration). It's not even that it has a rich political theme (detailed by Will Lynch last year), setting up a "Republic" with ministers and a "PreZident," and guarded by military-style "Typhoon" guards (they look mean, but they don't bite). It's that this unique event genuinely goes beyond being a great party—which it is—to create something that feels more significant.
There was, of course, plenty of excellent music at Kazantip. I spent most of my time around the Befooz stage, an outdoor area enveloped by a white structure shaped like a three-leafed clover. There the kicks rang out loud and deep, and the artists took advantage of this. On the Circo Loco night, the Martinez Brothers smashed it through till sunset the next day with high-octane, bumping house with discrete melodic features, like the vocals from Mickey Moonlight's "Interplanetary Music." On the Ellum Audio night, Danny Daze ventured into twisted circuit-bent territory, and Maceo Plex played a warm and varied set that included a house remix of Aphex Twin's "Polynomial-C." Dixon was particularly impressive: every track he played was excellent in its own right, and they all made perfect sense flowing into one another.
DJing on the main stage—an open-air amphitheatre with the words "Fuck U" in crazed lettering in the background—Moderat put together a series of big, recognisable tunes, starting with Ramadanman's "Tempest" (a staple for them), and moving through Daphni's "Ye Ye," Ben Klock's remix of "Is This Insanity" by Martyn and "At Les" by Carl Craig. One of the festival's few live sets came from PillowTalk, who warmed the afternoon stage with songs made for the dance floor, including "The Outcast," whose wistful ambience perfectly matched the beach setting.
But really, the music was just a backdrop. Visually, for example, Kazantip is breathtaking. A ceremony takes place a few times over the festival, where hundreds of people gather on the beach, take a yellow balloon, make a wish, and then release them together at the moment the sun goes below the horizon (sunsets at Kazantip are beautiful, and an event every day). At night, the whole site is lit up by a boggling array of lasers, coloured lighting and searchlights. A wide and imaginative variation of costumed dancers frequently appear on the stages and podiums: storm troopers, robots, girls with huge hats like something out of Fantasia. And that's not to mention the sea, which stretches to the horizon without interruption, giving a kind of edge-of-the-world feel to the Republic.
But the most remarkable thing about Kazantip is the state of mind everyone is in. It's subtle and implicit, and difficult to describe. In the Kazantip Republic, there's a new set of rules, and as a result you feel free from the social pressures and barriers of the outside world. People interact and express themselves just as they feel. On the dance floor, for example, everyone was jamming out in a way I've never seen before. It's easy to be cynical when reading the festival's constitution, which talks about a project with utopian aims, but ultimately, Kazantip is exactly that.