Love Calò + Isan

On a foggy late-October evening, the Outer Festival returns for the third time to Castelfranco Emilia. The 2018 edition of this small but significant event for fans of certain alien sounds features, alongside the English duo Isan, David Calò aka Love Calò, the Italian dj and producer already responsible for some excellent work (seek out "Fashion Victims" under the name And), Indian Wells, and the French electro-pop duo Zombie Zombie. It all takes place in the splendid Chiesa di San Giacomo Apostolo and the adjoining Teatro Dadà.

The evening we'll be recounting features first and foremost the Italian David Calò, performing a dj set. The sounds he offers range effectively between electro-techno virtuosity and some seriously impactful tribalism, all backed by evocative visuals. His roughly forty-minute set doesn't shy away from sharp surges in tempo, skillfully mixing track changes and live sound variations to create, within the church setting, a genuinely enchanting atmosphere. The hybrid nature of his musical vein, split between djing and production, comes through fully, revealing great creativity in forging and blending sounds.

Antony Ryan and Robin Saville then take the stage with their by-now-famous scenic setup of lights, two laptops, a few keyboards and other sound equipment, including MIDI controllers and samplers. Their sound gently cradles the audience live too, capable as it is of creating a dreamlike intimacy. With peaks such as "Remegio", all hypnotic vocal flows and beats, Isan deliver a show built around muffled, cyclical sounds that are at once sharp and gentle. What's distinctive about their approach to live shows lies in the preparation. The philosophy behind Antony and Robin's collaboration hinges on a separation of roles and distance. Unlike many other artists, Isan don't rehearse before shows – aside from quick setup checks in the hotel room on the evening of the event – nor do they meet beforehand to decide how to present their music. Improvisation, combined with mutual trust and an instinct honed over twenty years of collaboration, plays a fundamental role, and it really shows in the sound produced, especially given how much the tracks are altered and reworked compared to the album versions.

As shown on their comeback after six years away, "Glass Bird Movement", their creative vein is far from spent and demonstrates just how fundamentally important their style is to the electronic scene: a truly unique way of making music, live included. In a performance that's rather ungenerous in terms of length (around an hour), all the qualities amply displayed over twenty years of career are put into practice, tactfully blending electro, IDM, ambient and indietronica. We look forward to the new album, described as "in the works" in a recent interview.

Despite being a small-scale event reserved for a limited audience, the organizers deserve admiration for attracting sounds of this calibre, holding their own against giants like the Robot Festival. These kinds of endeavours deserve publicity and encouragement.

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