Sooooo we grabbed a car last weekend and headed to Polands former capital Krakow to witness some electronica madness at the
Warp25 birthday event
from one of our favorite Labels: Warp records. Krakow looks like a really cool city to live in.
A lot of hipsters hanging around in the jewish quarter, good food at every corner, plus some nice street art for the eyes. I guess I don’t have to mention that everything is 1/2 price than in Vienna. So we couldn’t resist buying shit loads of great vodka and beer.
On Saturday evening it got pretty foggy but that gave the whole walk along the Wisla to the Forum Hotel a special “warm up” vibe topped by the orange distant glow of the streetlights. But now to the main event: Forum Hotel the old abandoned soviet hotel was picked wisely by the Warp guys. The setting this location could deliver was fitting perfectly to the artists and that kind of music. A minor disappointment was that Rustie missed his flight and was not there to play. C’mon man, get a flight a day before the 25th birthday of your Label. A major discovery was that LFO is fucking impressive playing live. For more pics you can now also check out our FLICKR account.
I was not entirely convinced of his skills until now. This guy is the bomb. Bookers of Vienna, get this man here, immediately. Bibio played a very dreamy chill-out Dj Set, perfectly accompanied by the floating visuals. And straight after LFO it got dark. All lights were turned down and then, the true masterminds of crazy ass electronica, AUTECHRE started their more than impressive one hour set, in complete darkness. I wanted to take a look from the side of the stage, but even there they blocked the view with thick black curtains. So you could just witness this raw pure energy with a limited perception to audio, which was quite interesting and even more impressive in my opinion. After that musical brainwash in a positive way it was Hudson Mohawke’s turn to bring the crowd back into the real life. And he succeeded as usual.
Interestingly some new tracks from the upcoming record are taking a strange direction. At least 2 songs sounded a bit “david guettaish” to me. It was like Big Room Trap with too easy guetta melodies. Of course he played 2-3 new tracks which were just mind boggling plus the old hits including TNGHT stuff. Especially the strobe lights did their job to make everything perfect. (watch the video). But overall this event was the best thing happening to me electronica wise for a very long time. These kind of artists in this city and this location for an event you will not get again in the next 25 years. So happy 25th to you, Warp. And thanks for the party, we had a blast.
And to see what this is all about here’s our short (or at least we tried to make it short) video recap: And yes it’s not shot with fancy DSLRs but iPhone filming was the only way without a press pass.