Analogue to Nachtdigital Conversion
Summer is starting to feel like a distant memory now thanks to this exceptionally rainy August, but before it fades completely I had better get round to posting some photos and commentary from our group excursion to the beloved Nachtdigital Festival in Germany. Ticking off their 13th edition, the Nachtdigital Festival is Germany’s boutique festival par excellence, planting two stages worth of choice music within a wonderland of handmade decorations scattered amongst the bungalow dwellings of the lakeside former GDR holiday camp. James Holden and Nathan Fake caught the Nachtdigital bug at previous year’s editions, but this year the ND team were kind enough to entrust us with a whole Border Community stage, so the whole disfunctional family of James, Nathan, Luke Abbott, Avus, Wesley Matsell, visual man Dan Tombs and law-unto-himself An’Unexpectacle were welcomed into the cosy Nachtdigital family for a weekend of good clean party fun in the picturesque East German countryside. James and I were truly sad when we had to return to London for Field Day (no offence to London’s own cosy, quirky festival effort intended), but luckily Rosana remained onsite with her camera to fill in the gaps:
Official musical entertainments didn’t kick off until sundown on Friday evening, which made for a relaxed day lounging in the sun whilst the live acts soundchecked (in Nathan’s case, treating the most punctual of campers to a free bonus full length live set as they struggled with their tents and swam in the lake, such was his enthusiasm for playing his hottest new tunes out louder than his neighbours would ever tolerate).
The Sekt that broke An’Unexpectacle’s back? (On reflection, it was probably the bottle of port that did it…):
As darkness fell, Nathan’s Welsh penfriend Wesley Matsell (or whatever the modern day term is for two people who are permanently connected via some form of internet messaging service) was given the task of opening the whole festival, stealing Avus’ acid thunder somewhat (the scoundrel! I imagine he needs that!) with a determined set of dancefloor electronica teleported straight down from (cyber)space:
Meanwhile, back on planet earth (sort of), An’Unexpectacle’s exhibition of choice for his first German outing was his ‘Blinded Tours’ service, wherein willing victims are blindfolded (and if particularly keen, further adorned with a decidedly creepy sequined disco-guantanamo hood) and led on a sense-heightening magical mystery tour of Matt’s devising. Valiant efforts were made by our roving reveller, but in the end, despite his best efforts and the expertly hand-crafted billboard around his neck, the language barrier proved perhaps too much (that, and the bottle of supermarket port coursing through his veins…).
An’Unexpectacle’s exhibitionist tendencies were then promptly transferred to windmilling enthusiastically along to Avus’ choice of BC anthems (first up: the sadly absent-in-person-but-there-in-spirit Fairmont‘s wonderfully wonky Flight Of The Albatross), an equally edifying activity that was rather better suited to the hour and level of inebriation.
After the Nachtdigital crew’s traditional annual choreographed group dance (this year based around the festival’s white chair theme – the same individually-numbered white chairs that were conveniently strewn about the site for timely rests, with more than one casualty sadly falling splintered by the wayside before the weekend was through), it was the turn of old hand Avus, with a mainstage set of suitably Poppy proportions.
The current Holkham Drones incarnation of Luke Abbott’s live show packs some serious (yet suitably idiosyncratic) punch, as he proved when he took over from Avus-man Scott, delivering a festival-highlight set. Coming to a town near you soon.
Not to be outdone by our latest Norfolk album-bearer Luke, Nathan has been hard at work on a raft of his own hot new material, and is raring to go on the live circuit, eagerly (and some might say maniacally) thrashing out the parameters and permutations of his latest flashes of inspiration in the midst and moment of the heat and sweat of the dancefloor, as is his custom. A whole new generation of live demons are fighting to get out, and if we’re lucky, soon he will be ready to pass them over into our care, once he has figured out what they are trying to say.
Goodnight Olganitz!
Dan Tombs blends seamlessly into the camouflage of his own brightly-coloured projections: but if he is here, then who is controlling the visuals?
Oh dear…
As the morning mist moved in dramatically over the lake, it of course fell to third-time Nachtdigital guest James Holden to man the graveyard shift, or sunrise set, depending on how you choose to look at it. Containing quite a chill, the fog was hardly the stuff that Ibiza balearic legend is made of, but by the end of his set the sun was well-and-truly out again, in time to hand over the reins to Nachtdigital’s resident techno soothsayer Steffen Bennemann.
With very little territory left to explore (for such is the similarity of our collective musical outlooks and DJ wallets), Steffen nonetheless made a characteristically noble attempt to entertain those left standing, simultaneously staving off sleep for those who had retired to their tents and bungalows, as the beats just kept coming the whole weekend long…
Diorama-rama? (Remember this creation, that graced the front of Luke Abbott’s Tuesday EP?):
The whole Border Community extravaganza was presented under the “ND ♥ BC” banner, but perhaps that should read “BC ♥ ND”, as the feeling is most definitely reciprocated. They even made t-shirts and bags to celebrate, adorned with a pair of entangled-by-the-trunk elephants, which you can still buy in their online store, even if you couldn’t make it to the festival in person.
There has been some debate on both sides about whether elephants intertwine their trunks when they are fighting, or cuddling: from our end at least it definitely feels like love, so I am inclined to go with the second interpretation. Watch this space for more ND ♥ BC / BC ♥ ND action to be revealed very soon…
