DB Fest. Day 3 & 4: Ill-Esha, Breakage, Mt. Eden, FriteNite, Ital Tek, Machinedrum

Now that Decibel Festival has wrapped up & I’m back in Victoria, I can happily say that I saw everyone I wanted to see, did everything I wanted to do and encountered a few surprises throughout the trip. While Wed/Thurs were busy with seemingly untoppable shows (opening parties, Amon Tobin and Night Slugs), Decibel Festival managed to vamp up over the weekend as more artists arrived into town and the citizens of Seattle really began to come out and enjoy themselves. As with any festival, you’re often on a mission to catch as many acts as you can and ensure no one that you had you heart set on seeing gets missed. Here’s a breakdown of my final 2 days at the festival.

After the dynamic Amon Tobin performance and the equally gratifying Night Slug’s showcase on Thursday, I was quite looking forward to what the weekend in store. Another one of the shows that I was really stoked on was the Bassic Necessities showcase at the Showbox that featured ill-esha (whom you may remember dropped an interview with us shortly before the festival, peep it here), Breakage and Mt. Eden.

On paper the event seemed to look like the perfect evening; ill-esha would be providing her signature glitch sound and progress onto Breakage’s classic drum and bass while Mt. Eden would be finishing the evening with some hard hitting dubstep. But the evening proved wrought with minor disappointments. First, as my friend & I approached the venue we noticed a large influx of young candy-clad (LITERALLY, candy everywhere) ravers milling about in front. Somehow we missed that this was an all ages show & to no avail, this immediately dampened our spirits.

ill-esha was playing as we arrived into the venue (~1030pm) and had the large dancefloor fairly packed already. The vibe on the dancefloor was electric and ill-esha’s feminine presence fully shone from the stage with her mixed singing and MCing. A full 360 degree scope of the venue quickly revealed what I had most feared about the show; too many messed up kids. NOTE: I fully support all ages events – they are a vital tier of any city’s grassroots electronic dance community – but the amount of 16 year olds high out of their faces on ecstacy – as well as the glowstick/soother/candy-necklace shtick –  was enough to make us quickly retreat to the 21+ area by the bar.

ill-esha played a great mix of sounds, balancing between some of her more well known tracks and then sprinkling in new unreleased dubs. She played until just before 11:30 with her last track being a drum&bass tune that seemed to be the perfect lead up to Breakage. I was especially excited to see Breakage and hear a bit of d&b but I felt like he teased the crowd by starting his set with a drum and bass track (which seemed to confuse all the kids in the crowd who looked disapointed) and then immediately launching into an hour of UK dubstep. I enjoyed many of the tracks that Breakage played, but there was very little that I hadn’t heard before – it reminded me of the Caspa or Magnetic Man Essential Mix.The closest track to drum and bass that he played after the first one was “Fighting Fire”, but everything else was dubstep. I was disheartened, but on a bill with Mt. Eden, it was quite apparent that Breakage was playing to the crowd. At the very least, his mixing was unbelievably tight – he employed low-pass filters throughout his mix to make clean & crisp exit/entry points between the hefty bangers he supplied (thankfully he played “Higher” from last year’s amazing Foundation). James Breakage certainly knows his way around mixing records.

From there, the rest of the night was all… really loud. Mt Eden played to a full dancefloor of sweaty people and predictably played their signature heavy, in your face American style dubstep. By the time they came on though I felt ready to leave; after being rudely yelled at by a bouncer when I inquired about what the protocol was for press in and around the stages and all the drug fueled kids who were gnawing their faces off, there wasn’t much that could save the night for me. We left and decided to try again tomorrow, keeping our fingers crossed that we wouldn’t have any more nights like that.

Our Friday night mis-adventure should not deter any reader from attending Decibel – the rest of our weekend was filled with much more positivity & amazing music/vibes. Saturday’s DB Party In The Park with California’s Frite Nite crew was a fantastic respite from all the concrete and city, allowing us to spend a much needed day of relaxing in the park to quality beats.

While only at the park for the last half of the showcase, we managed to catch Salva, Comma and Eprom (the ones we were most psyched on seeing). Seattle’s Volunteer Park provided one of the best, and most festival-like atmospheres, with full families, hoopers and older individuals all having a good time together with the festival beat-heads & (again) candy-ravers. In between the merch table and a balloon back-drop photo booth, I was delighted to see an info booth with drug prevention and information – this seemed especially fitting after our adventurous night previous.

Salva was on when we arrived and as we walked up I could hear tracks off his album Complex Housing all the way from the road. For the most part he mixed through a train of his own stellar productions hilighting the best of what the West Coast renaissance has to offer in 2011: analog funk, rigid 808 beat patterns & swagger for days. “Policy” & “Icey” really connected with the crowd. After Salva wrapped up, Comma came on and took things a wee bit darker and deeper. He dove into some spacier UK-inspired crunk and drew those at the back just watching up a little bit closer, thickening out the dancefloor with unreleased heat from Kromestar. When he dropped “Used To Give A FK” by Blue Daisy’s Unknown Shapes project, it really got people moving, the dash of profanity seemed to get people’s attention.

With Comma’s set drawing to a close he got up on the mic and introduced the headliner of the afternoon; Eprom. Eprom mixed in seamlessly to what Comma finished up with and introduced his set by announcing that much of what we’d be hearing would be new. Eprom played a set best described as crunky, glitchy hip-hop, similar sounds to his Bay Area EP with new tracks mixed in. “Dirty Diamonds” and “Ghost Hunter” popped up alongside unreleased banger “Honey Badger”. As each set seemed to last longer than the alloted 45minutes, Eprom played late and serenaded the whole park as we watched the sun set and listened to crunky beats.

After a great day in the park the general consensus for everyone was to hit The Crocodile Cafe to catch Ital Tek, Machine Drum and Kraddy so we headed back into town and made our way to our last show of the festival. After arriving into the venue we proceeded to walk into a sweat box thick with people, many of whom were  throwing elbows to make their way through the crowd. The opening DJs, Partners in Grime, definitely weren’t playing grime and seemed to be a little all over the place in their track selection. After a particularly bad mix we were turned off enough to go outside to cool down before Ital Tek, which ended up being a great decision as we spend the rest of the evening inside dancing our asses off.

ITal Tek played a much heavier set than I had imagined that he would; mixing between jacking 808-style energy and his newer psychedelic hip-hop excursions, it felt at times like he was at once channeling Distal & Starkey. The “stock” visuals behind him actually proved a fantastic visual foil to IT’s mechanical funk; everything from Alice in Wonderland clips to Anime characters, it was a great distraction from the close proximity of everyone all around us. As his set went on he migrated back through to some of his more ambient inspired tunes (think “Infinity”) and then promptly finishing his set, ducking back behind the stage as Machinedrum got going.

I was particularly excited to see Machinedrum. After getting to see him slay Victoria during the Rifflandia Festival, I was quite stoked to see if he’d dish out a similarly amazing set or take it in a different direction. He opened his set with #SWAGFUNERAL much to the delight of many in the crowd calling for it and then launched full on into a set full of footwork-heavy tunes. He dropped “U Don’t Survive” and “The Statue” from Room(s) (easily a frontrunner for album of the year in 2011) and occasionally slowed the pace for some wonked-out hip-hop beats. After lacing the crowd with Philip D. Kick’s “RIP” rework, he ended with my personal favourite “Alarma”. Machinedrum was a huge highlight of the festival for me; he had the club popping off and his stage presence created a great vibe in the entire place. And his set was delivered in a different fashion from the gig I saw the previous weekend, which was refreshing to see & hear. Dude doesn’t take being of the road for granted.

Throughout the entire night, there was a drum kit set up to the left of the DJ table and so far, no one had played it. That is until Kraddy stepped onto the stage. Kraddy used to be part of the Glitch Mob so I was kinda expecting a Glitch Mob type set, minus all the other members. And that’s pretty much what it was. Kraddy ran synths, samples & hype while his drummer thumped out the predictable Glitch Mob-esque mid-tempo riddims. The addition of the drummer made for a cool stage presence but some of the tracks were dragged out a bit longer than necessary just for the drummer to flex. Kraddy played a few new tracks, which he announced on the mic and also played a couple of mashups including one with a “Smoke On The Water” sample and one featuring a drop from “Bombs Over Baghdad”. Despite these occasional dips into rockist cheese, ending the set with “Android Porn” really finished the evening off with a great vibe. By that time the crowd had thinned but those left, including us, were trying to draw out the the last of their Decibel experiences.

Overall, it was a great note to end my Decibel festival on. After four days of great music and amazing experience down in Seattle, I will be making sure to add the Decibel Festival to my list of annual festival events.

Thanks to Heather Schofner for the top photo of Breakage, Jessica Smith for the photo of Salva!

- Dub Selekta