A Futuresonic Weekend

It's not often that I discuss music on this blog, but then futuresonic was much more than a music festival, it was festival of ideas, concepts, thoughts and feelings.

My first taste of the festival was visiting the cube gallery late on Friday to witness The royal college of art and Yamaha's exhibition of strangely crafted instruments, all requiring quite definate movement and tactility, emphasising the deep connection between sound and body. Part argument against the aparent lack of bodily connection in digital culture, part persuation that everything is sound, from the sporadic rhythmic clipping of a typewriter to the rustling and scratching of clothing, affected both by its material makeup and that of the human orchestrator.

Saturday had me sat in Nexus art cafe for much of the afternoon as people made their own tapes and constructed one off sound pieces with the clunking and rolling pressing equipment as artists performed on the stage. Again this was a physical sonic experience combining heavy machinic movements with careful folding and stamping. It was also participatory and inclusive, the audience interacting with the performers to break the barrier of artist and fan. By the time Denis Jones took to the stage people were purposely using the equipment in a way that heavily influenced the sound and direction of his pieces. It is exciting to see samplers being used in such a comunal and improvised manner, and also to hear interesting live music composed and recorded in front of you out of a mixture of laregly industrial machinary.

After such a relaxing and thought provoking saturday it was then off to Club Underground for the night to let Kode9 and friends transport us somewhere else entirely. I haven't been so immersed in dancing ever before and I can't remember thinking a single thing for the entiraty of Kode9's set, my body and mind completely overtaken by the sheer speed and depth of some of the records he was playing, lost in the pulse and addrenaline of the music, the bass thundering through my chest and deep into my legs, involuntary movement and overwhelming joy.

Walking home we tried to discuss what he'd been playing and how he'd been manipulating records but the night was beyond theorising, again it was physical, tactile and in a different way interactive, bodies and faces coliding and merging to enhance the mood, voices shreeking, little whelps of joy.

A friend realised that there is something about bass heavy music that affects her sinuses, I was reminded that what I love about sound is its physical and interactive possibilities, we all had a great weekend!