- Electrosanne, like the city on Lake Geneva that hosts it, is tiny, welcoming and very well-run. Last weekend, the festival hosted its tenth annual edition, bringing nearly a week of excellent music to the beautiful surroundings of Lausanne. As has been the case for the past six editions, the festival's main setting was Place de l'Europe, a kind of misshapen square in one of the sunken parts of this very hilly city. No matter where you are in the site, bridges and higher streets are always in your field of vision, creating a pleasingly cocooned atmosphere.
The compactness of both the city and the festival were a blessing throughout. Four clubs hosted official post-festival nights on Friday and Saturday, none of them more than a five minutes' walk away. The hotels were so close that anyone who was feeling particularly lazy could have enjoyed the festival simply by opening a window (props to whoever snapped me out of a sleep-deprived funk with Pional's "It's All Over"). Extra-curricular activities were also plentiful and easy to get to, the best being a picnic on the shore of Lake Geneva, which you can reach in about ten minutes from Place de l'Europe via the city's single-line subway system.
As usual, the festival was split into two parts, with the daytime portion running from 5 PM until 2 AM or so at Place de l'Europe, followed by afterparties in the four nearby clubs. The festival-proper took place over two outdoor stages: the "main" Place de l'Europe Stage and the RBMA Stage. I spent most of my time at the RBMA area, where Palms Trax opened Thursday's lineup with a characteristically blissful, vintage-house-tinged live show. Daniel Avery and Roman Flügel turned in a set that flew by like very few other four-hour back-to-backs I've seen. The sound at the RBMA stage was sometimes a touch quiet, though this is an understandable sacrifice at a centrally located festival in one of the swishest cities you'll ever visit.
With no post-festival club schedule on Thursday night, Friday began with Francois K's bass-heavy party house at Place de l'Europe, which was busy then and absolutely packed later on for a typically high-energy performance from Nina Kraviz, which peaked with Paranoid London's "Transmission 5." Mumdance's belting, grime-heavy show at the RBMA stage was one of the weekend's most exhilarating sets. Koreless followed it with a largely ambient live performance—a difficult transition, though by the end the crowd were fully immersed, with one woman at the front taking it in from atop her boyfriend's shoulders. "I don't know if they were being ironic or not," Koreless said to me afterwards, "but I also don't really care." Mount Kimbie's Dominic Maker rounded out the stage with a DJ set that included a late, unplanned back-to-back with Koreless that was as fun as it was haphazard.
For some reason I often forget just how joyous it is to watch Underground Quality boss Jus-Ed in full flow. His Saturday-evening set on the RBMA Stage, which pivoted on relaxed but propulsive house cuts such as Black Orange Juice's "Messing Around," was as powerful a pick-me-up as his generous, grinning crowd interactions. That left Floating Points to close the festival in front of the largest crowd the RBMA stage had seen all weekend. Nuggets from his apparently bottomless disco collection (T-Connection's "Do What You Wanna Do," Jeanette Lady Day's "Come Let Me Love You" ), plus his always-stunning airing of Carl Craig's remix of Delia Gonzalez and Gavin Russom's "Relevee," ensured he did so in truly glorious style.
I visited two of the four post-festival clubs over the weekend. On Friday I avoided the larger D Club in favour of the smaller Romandie, where I caught a two-hour set from Lee Gamble. He was excellent, but it was Saturday's post-festival entertainment that proved the highlight. Le Bourg was a trek away in Lausanne terms—all of five minutes up the street—meaning it was a little less crammed than Romandie had been the night before. Its scaled-back, almost speakeasy vibe was perfect as a slightly weary last-night option, and the rolling house and '90s rave detours of Marc D'Arrigo and Ngly provided a sustaining, occasionally revelatory soundtrack. From a first-timer's point of view, Electrosanne's tenth edition was a resounding success, and it should be the first of many such milestones.
Photo credit: Johanne Morrison (Daniel Avery), Marko Stevic (Lake Geneva)