Dissonanze 2010

Dissonanze turns 10. It was exactly in 2000 that the festival began, going on to become an event capable of drawing the continent's attention by bringing together the most diverse musical souls. Over the years the lineup has undergone significant evolution, with the crowd that packs Rome's Palazzo dei Congressi every May growing exponentially. This year too, on May 21, 22 and 23, the ritual plays out with a truly excellent line-up.

On Friday night, Moritz Von Oswald Trio kick things off. A truly superb set lasting around fifty minutes, a tribal flow built on dub-techno structures. Vladislav Delay on percussion, Von Oswald and Max Loderbauer on effects, sequencer and laptop deliver a stellar live show to a crowd that's largely uninterested and decidedly rowdy. During the performance the trio is mocked and told to clear the stage for Plastikman, whose set was scheduled right after theirs. Pearls before swine, as they say.

It's Richie Hawtin himself who takes the stage, greeted by an ovation. More than ten years on from the gem "Consumed", Hawtin revisits the dense, pulsing atmospheres of his Plastikman project, managing to capture the magic only in patches, amid stretches that are far from lysergic and perhaps pushed too hard.

A little bored, I move over to the Foyer of the Aula Magna to catch the set by Neon Indian. Backed by a guitarist, a keyboardist and a drummer, Palomo lets loose on the hypnagogic trails of his excellent debut, just the right amount of freaky and playful. Despite a sound mix that's certainly not up to par, Palomo manages to get the sixty or so people watching his live show moving. Decidedly enjoyable.

The evening then continues with DJ sets from Barem, a rising South American star, Richie Hawtin, on much better form here, and Troy Pierce.

Saturday night brings a decidedly packed lineup, though there's a nagging worry that several sets will inevitably be sacrificed to scheduling clashes. The evening opens at half past seven with the concert by King Midas Sound, perhaps the most surprising live show of the whole festival. On the terrace, a barrage of decidedly dark-soul trip-hop/dubstep unfolds, with massively powerful basslines and kick drums blasting out in all directions. A forty-five-minute flow that enchants and surprises given its markedly energetic edge, whereas their debut full-length album perhaps betrays an excess of shyness by comparison.

Not particularly interested in the set by Gil Scott-Heron and Gonjasufi (after all, it was the night of the Champions League final, when will I get the chance to see it again?) – on which general opinions were in any case lukewarm – I come back fresh and happy from the performance by Shackleton (and the decidedly intense final ten minutes of Pantha Du Prince, who has never won me over live). Shackleton is a white guy, an absolute nerd, complete with regulation moustache, and he unleashes impossible-to-dance-to dubstep, with intricate webs and patchwork textures, a bewitching, (dis)organized swarm of sound.

Meanwhile I move over to the terrace to catch a solid half hour of Jamie Lidell. The lanky Englishman is thoroughly entertaining, offering up a wildly eclectic and varied set: from electro spasms to seductive pop flirtations, from the blackest soul to a cappella singing.

Thoroughly likeable and engaging, he manages to win me over despite my initial reluctance to listen to him.

After Lidell, alas, the evening fizzles out, with insubstantial sets from Phenomenal Handclap Band, Martyn and Jeff Mills (3 hours!), while exhaustion keeps me from catching Passarani's performance, which I'm told was terrific.

All things considered, I was perhaps expecting something better. Overall, the feeling is that many sets were sacrificed, whether to scheduling or overlaps. I'd like to draw a veil over the prices (small beers at 5 euros or cocktails at 10, and not a scrap of food to be had) and a less-than-impeccable organization (zero signage on where the Foyer and terrace were, endless checks for a named accreditation pass). Still, a genuine experience worth having.

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