I arrived on Friday at the fringes of the lush city park Esplanade de Montbenon, where the casino is situated, the nucleus of this whole endeavor. The festival was already up and running since Wednesday, so the crowd seemed settled in and despite the pouring rain, in a good mood. Luckily, I caught the last performance of the day at the “L’off”-space, a cute red and white colored tent in front of the casino; large enough to fit around 150 people in there, small enough to get cozy. The “L’off” offers artists with an interdisciplinary approach to explore the cracks between the dystopian and the utopian, oscillating from rituals to experimental sound bits, never disconnected, always cleansing.
My weekend started off with Satin de Compostela and Juniper, two performing artists “giving mediaeval.” Accordingly, the stage was set as an arena, allowing the audience to gather around the happening rather than observing from afar. Slow, repetitive and howling guitar riffs filled the room, soon fed through a mixer to become distorted noise. The keyboard was (haphazardly) played, all while performing a sort of cathartic ritual. It resonated with the crowd, if not for its versatility or emotional impact, for its utter strangeness. The daunting, gothy, ambient-sound was fading out, Juniper was stroking the zither, both of them were kneeling on the floor. If anything, it was suspenseful, and the commitment on stage translated to the crowd. It was 10.30 PM, at this time, the cinemas are closed, giving all spotlight to the music program. In the “Sale des fêtes” of the casino, first up was London-based Komare, consisting of Dominic Goodman and Peter Blundell, two-thirds of the cryptic Mosquitoes, and somewhat adjacent to their No-Wave-sound-arrangements. People where gathering – sitting and standing – around the modest set-up, consisting of a rectangular red table, two seats and the duo’s mixing consoles and DIY-instruments on it. Negating resemblance to any genre, the closest influence one could, with a lot of imagination, attribute them to would be dub, but on laughing gas. Komare stretches time and sound, cracking them on a volume so intense that watching them becomes a multisensory experience, like sitting in a noise chamber, wrapped in a thick vibrational echo. The audience was amazed: Every move on their sound boards was surgical, further manifesting this outlandish spectacle, pushing the collective further down this disintegrating path to unchartered noise-territory. It was a promising start.
Next up was On Lee Yo, a multidisciplinary artist, also working and living in London. Her performances are a nod both to her musical and gastronomical interests. On Lee Yo held a workshop on Thursday, “Hacking Cooking”. She uses cooking, its process and consumption as fundamentals in exploring social patterns as well as for building communities. This workshop was one of many hosted by various artists, another honest effort from LUFF to think less as an institution but more as an initiator; sharing knowledge and engaging visitors in eye-to-eye experiences.
So back at the “Sale des fêtes”, were On Lee Yo was preparing her show, as Komare did, in the middle of the room rather than on the stage. The lights slowly went out, the only indicator that something was about to happen. She began cooking, stirring hot water in a pot on the stove, rearranging the kitchen utensils in a poised manner, all while striking a gong frequently between each move, completely unfazed by the crowds lingering restlessness. Slowly getting used to the soothing sounds of kitchen noise and rattling cutlery, On Lee Yo began to address the silent crowd. In a manner of pressing urgency and natural authority, she instructed us to build two tables with the crates and the wooden boards she had brought with her. We would need to be finished within twenty minutes, by then the ginger syrup and the tofu dish she was preparing would be ready for consumption. What ensued was a collective effort to please her, few units organizing, others making their way through to the components. People were rambling around her set-up, she was announcing the time left – she switched from 15 to eleven back up to 16 minutes within few moments, but nobody seemed to care or was too busy being involved. The scene resembled a restless crowd around the dj-setup at a block party, except On Lee Yo was literally cooking. The show ended as it started – slowly phasing out, all whilst creating an ambient soundscape consisting of clattering, murmuring and gleeful gibberish. Everyone was enjoying their ginger syrup with Tofu and I was amazed how easy it was to nudge the crowd from passive to active, from spectator to runner.
Last on my list for the night were the notorious Deli Girls, a queer alt duo formed by Danny Orlowski and Tommi Kelly, both living in New York City. Their message is as clear as it is relatable: Anti-establishment, pro-queer, all condensed on stage into ultimate rage. While producer Kelly combines industrial, nu-metal, noise, and dance elements behind the decks, Orlowski stomps around screaming as hard as possible about facets of dystopia like rape, intolerance and the blunt ugliness of society. They seem as authentic as they are intense, the show, accompanied by constant blinding strobe lights, was all pedal to the metal. Eventually, the wheels fell off the car; it is hard to shift the crowd’s energy after On Lee Yo’s wholesome performance, and more so to even match the intensity of Deli Girls’ raucous showcase. Nonetheless, performing live is largely how they made their name and the crowd did its best to pay them tribute.
I spontaneously decided to wait for Duncan Harrison, a Brighton-based artist and fixture of underground experimental in the UK. Unfortunately, the Dadaist approach to interacting with the crowd and creating sound out of vocal cut-ups didn’t really work. When he started to chew on the very shoe he was still wearing whilst reading something from his notebook, he lost me. Maybe it was to cerebral (or the opposite of it) for my exhausted ears; but then again, not one day has passed since I haven’t thought about this performance. I guess he made a lasting impression on me, hovering between appalled and impressed.
I kicked off Saturday with visiting the screening of «Freakscene – The Story of Dinosaur Jr.», a sincere profile on the US grunge-rock-band spanning from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, showcasing their trashy hardcore through unpolished performance footage and interview snippets. The band unanimously declared that «in the 80s, you didn’t play for an audience, you assaulted them.» On my way there, I got asked for directions by a man with glasses and a calming presence. Turns out it was Mark Vernon, a self-proclaimed audio archeologist and a strong advocate of the radio format. He had performed on Wednesday at the casino. We started chatting and he described the festival «as one of the most uncompromising noise festivals out there.» It is great to hear that the artists themselves see LUFF as a platform to share their art in the purest way possible.
Unfortunately, Evanora:Unlimited was cancelled, but Myen gladly filled the slot with a high-energy DJ-set that made the crowd go bonkers – at the very beginning of the evening. With fevering mash-ups fluctuating between (hyper-)pop, hardstyle and gabber, Myen was maybe the most mainstream performance I’ve seen at LUFF; but sometimes, it doesn’t need more than a high-intensity DJ-set (and an enthusiastically engaged DJ). The crowd left the tent on a high and slowly moved towards the casino, where Penny Rimbaud and Kate Shortt where taking the stage. Rimbaud founded the Punk-Band Crass in 1977, tonight his voice was accompanied by the urgent sounds of Katie Shortt’s cello. They performed “How”, a reinterpretation of Allan Ginsberg’s poem “Howl”. It felt like story time but with a sudden, self-contained emotional outburst rather than a happy end. Next up was Charmaine Lee, a vocalist based in NYC. She basically jazzed with her voice cords and breath, using feedback and amplification as well as microphones to distort her voice. It sounded as if someone would fast-forward a cassette, and although the sparse breath work left me a bit uneasy, the playfulness and personal approach to explore the possibilities and barriers of her voice chords left everyone stunned.
Personally, I was looking forward to Model Home, a high-volume duo from the States. Embracing rupture not as potential risk but as a stepping stone to unchartered territory, is what makes Model Home so fun to hear, and for that matter, witness: Patrick Cain builds his sound on the edifice of dub sound and DIY-clatter, all while rapper NappyNappa distorts, expands and shrinks his voice buy using the controller. NappyNappa, blindfolded with a surgical mask, kept the energy high. The crowd was ecstatic, and so was Model Home. Again, the artists where assembled in the middle of the room and not on stage, further breaking barriers and creating common ground. The performance of Shojiki connected the two movements of “rewinding a magnetic tape” and “rewinding a curing tape.” Curing tape is used for the purpose of temporary fixing of moving floor curing sheet, interior work and curing of buildings. It was bizarre, but fun to watch the two Japanese artists completely give into the mayhem, ducking beneath unrolling tape, standing on the table, climbing a ladder; while not talking a single word with each other. The spectacle was well entertaining and completely immersed in the perpetual peeling noise of tape rolls.
The French-speaking punk band Sida started off restrained, but quickly got into its groove, playing hard, constantly on the verge to hysteria, violently slapping guitars, drums, bass, and synthesizers. The closing act was the revered Silnaye, a driving force who focusses on rhythms of electronica, hardcore, and punk with basic electronic equipment, layering her filtered voice on top of it. The show was brutal and uncompromising, but still achieved to be highly intimate, having a very squat-ish allure to the last concert of this year’s LUFF edition. The crowd was up for it, dancing while covered in jittering strobe light, giving the music program of LUFF a fitting farewell.
On my way back to Zurich, I had time to skim through my notebook, deciphering what I hastily had written down. It was apparent that what stuck most with me was the festivals unrelenting effort to bring people together, but not in predetermined roles as spectators and artists, but in a communal sense. Engaging on grounds of experimental outlets like LUFF is highly recommended. It brings to light that we don’t necessarily always have to agree, but rather just share experiences. The stage was detrimental to the cause, artists appreciated the closeness and shared space within the crowd and vice versa. I know I did.
