Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.08.2005, Page 52

Grapevine designer Hörður
Kristbjörnsson, one half of the
dynamic DJ-duo Skratch n Sniph,
loves music festivals. He can’t get
enough of them. Or at least of the
Sónar and the G! Festival. In this
extremely intimate Q & A, he tells
all the Grapevine readers what
makes a festival hot enough for his
liking. And that is hot indeed.
What are the names of the
music festivals you attended
this summer? Woodstock
2005? Techno-Woodstock?
It’s called Sonar Festival for
Advanced Multi-Media… ah what
the hell. And G festival Faroe
Islands. Techno-Woodstock would
actually be a kick-ass festival. Live
remixing of the Woodstock 69.
Tell me, you’re hip. You attend
hip festivals. What makes a
festival hip?
The hip people that show up make
it hip.
So it’s not the music.
No I wouldn’t say it was the music.
It’s all about the hype. If it’s cool
magazines or cool people, people go
there just to go there.
What magazines are you
talking about? You were
supposed to say music and I
would mock you.
The lifestyle magazines like I-D,
dazed and confused and all these
hipster lifestyle magazines. Douche
bag magazines, mainly from
England.
So you intentionally put
yourself in the path of hipsters.
No, I went to Sonar because it’s
the kind of music I listen to. I’ve
been there three years, but this year
I realized I shouldn’t have gone.
Because this year it was crowded
with people who were there just to
say they’d been there.
What are the highlights of
Sonar festivals in the past?
De La Soul this year.
I saw them recently and
they sounded canned and
rehearsed, not something I like
in my old school.
I thought they were okay. They
were playing old stuff and their old
albums… I just like.
Other highlights?
Mocky, this guy from Berlin, he’s
from the band the Puppetmasters.
Subtle, from Oakland. They’re like
a hip-hop with electronic beats.
Miss Kittin. The future Ms. DJ
Sniph. Soft Pink Truth, one half
of Matmos, the producers behind
Björk’s Medulla and Vespertine.
And Jamie Lidell. His performance
was interesting. People were dressing
him while he was playing, wiping on
make-up and glasses, it was just an
interesting performance.
Are you surprised to hear
that I not only know none of
these artists, but I don’t think
I know anybody who knows
anybody who has heard of any
of these artists? How many
people came to hear them
in Barcelona at the Sonar
Festival?
20,000 for the whole festival. But the
thing is it’s divided into two venues,
day and night. By day you’re in a
museum made into a concert place
for three days. By day you see a lot
of progressive and mellow music,
some clicks and cut and weird music.
By night it’s at almost an aircraft
hangar. It has three concert stages.
There you can see the DJs, it’s more
upbeat.
It still surprises me how this
large a music movement can
exist outside the attention of
many music fans.
It surprises you? Like I said, the
people that show up there are people
who want to say that they have been
there. But originally it was a smaller
By Bart Cameron
on tour
SÓNAR
Barcelona
Sónar Festival
for Advanced Music and Multimedia Art in Barcelona
and G! Festival in the Faroe Islands.
THE CHEAPEST WAY
TO GET TO FESTIVALS:
Fly Iceland Express to where the party is at
GRAPEVINE CONSUMER SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:
Except where the party does include Europe
Jamie Lidell, turbans on the other hand are last season.
A Subtle recommendation, golden gloves and skunk hair tops
are so next season.