roBOt Festival 2015

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  • Early in the evening of Friday, October 9th, a couple of dozen people parked themselves on the marble floor inside the 11th-Century Palazzo Re Enzo in Bologna. They were inside the palazzo's Salone Del Podestà to hear Lena Willikens soundtrack Hiroshi Shimizu's bleak 1933 film, Japanese Girls At The Harbor, at the eighth edition of roBOt festival. The Salon Des Amateurs resident drew on chilly, windswept selections, including some of her own productions, which she manipulated live with various effects. As she played, autumn darkness crept through the palazzo, shadows of giant chandeliers flickering across the high walls. Festivals live and die by their ability to provide unique performances in unique settings, and Willikens' soundtrack proved roBOt festival is capable of delivering these things. Later that same night, Willikens spun a DJ set on the outdoor stage at BolognaFiere, a huge convention centre reminiscent of Sónar By Night. During this session she expertly raised the energy levels with a string of lean, crunchy-sounding records. Willikens wasn't the only artist invited by rOBot to play more than once at this year's festival—Diagonal Records founder Powell also had two slots on the Friday night. His first, which happened inside the palazzo, was a full-throttled live performance every bit as fierce as his later DJ shift at BolognaFiere. Most of the acts billed before 2 AM at BolognaFiere on Friday—Blanck Mass, Lee Gamble, J.E.T.S.—played to sparse crowds, with people reluctant to arrive at the venue early. (This same trend was noticeable on Saturday night.) After 2 AM it began to fill out, with Sherwood and Pinch again proving a rock-solid festival act, while Ben UFO and Jackmaster diligently banged it out back-to-back in the main room. On Saturday, festivalgoers walked through the palazzo's rain-slicked courtyard and into the Salone Del Podestà to check live shows from Prefuse 73, Clap! Clap! and Nozinja. All three were solid—Italian artist Clap! Clap! was the most energetic, while local interest was focused on Nozinja, whose live performance was both colourful and charmingly loose. Later, at BolognaFiere, Holly Herndon showcased her new live show, a three-piece with Colin Self and Mat Dryhurst that explored cool visuals, voice manipulation and festival-sized kick drums. A scheduling switch saw Floating Points and Daphni's back-to-back set pushed back to 4 AM, good news for anyone who wanted to catch both their set and John Talabot on the RBMA stage. The main casualty on Saturday was the outdoor stage. Despite a nice set from Marco Shuttle, barely a handful of people braved the chilly conditions. Considering the festival's rapid growth—just two years ago roBOt's late-night programme was crammed into small nightclubs in and around Bologna—it's understandable that organisers would want to play it safe and avoid overcrowding and the various pitfalls that come with it. But when I arrived on Saturday to check Nathan Fake's impressive live set, I was worried the night would never really get going. Things had changed by the time Floating Points and Daphni took to the decks a couple of hours later. Locals had filtered in to soak up the festival's final blowout, and the main stage was lively and packed when Four Tet's remix of Eric Prydz's "Opus" got its inevitable airing. The tune's epic breakdown sent the crowd wild. It felt like rOBot festival had peaked at just the right time. Photo credit: Simo Cappe
RA