Visions Festival
Various Venues, London | August 10th
The festival season is winding down to a slow trickle, sunlight is running out of places to hide and the night time is skewered with dropping temperatures. The three venues which play host to the 23 acts today are modest in size but rich in intense, acrid atmosphere, with each one doused in sweat and bustling with a wide scope of sounds. Despite the rapid resurgence of big electronic events all over London, it’s been a trying couple of years for credible, guitar-based city festivals. So props to the Visions organisers for bucking the trend and taking the plunge, and double props for making it really fucking great.
Luring in a big crowd to the stripped back warehouse style space of Netil House, The Wytches signal the first dose of sweat soaked rock. The Brighton based three piece ooze youthful confidence, tearing through Crying Clown and Beehive Queen as if they’re stood nose to brick in their bedroom screaming at the wall after a particularly bitter break up. The contrast between the day’s blazing sun and The Soft Moon couldn’t have been more marked, considering the Oakland group’s gratuitous use of strobe, dry ice and moody lighting, but they more than justified the decision to venture inside a packed Oval Space. Their blend of screeching feedback, chugging Kraut rhythms, militant snare rattles, heavily-treated bass rumbles and faintly camp washes of synth totally sidestep any notion of their darkwave/post-punk tropes being a little hackneyed, and their final neck-straining drum freakout climaxes a sturdy set.
Sadly, the same can’t be said of Iceage, who are by all metrics a letdown. A flat start draws zero audience response, and while the crowd begin directing more energy towards the stage, the Danish quartet never truly get out of second gear. Bar perhaps lead singer Elias Rønnenfelt (pictured above), the band look absolutely exhausted, pushing out rickety, flailing reproductions of the usually excellent raw punk nuggets on You’re Nothing, and badly smudging their sound into mush.
As the sun slowly swings beneath the horizon, it’s hard to think of a better act than The Haxan Cloak to play parallel to the impending darkness. His sophomore album Excavations, released through Tri Angle Records back in spring, was the most terrifying listening experience of the year, and it’s still yet to be topped in that particular category. The Oval Space seems to creak and stand completely still as hollow distress and alien whirls transform this tiny section of East London into a graveyard. The set up is minimal, just a selection of dials and controls, on which he occasionally drops in heavy, rising drum sections. The whole affair feels like a prolonged intro to a Burial opera, although reducing The Haxan Cloak’s sound with such a lazy comparison overlooks how much of an original, cinematic nail he’s smashed down into the coffin lid.
Ohio scuzz poppers Cloud Nothings, we’ve found, can be guilty of lacklustre and sullen performances if they’re playing in an inappropriate context. But any fears we had that the band would lack enough fire in their bellies are thankfully allayed. Tonight, they’re absolutely incendiary. Proving the perfect fit for Netil House’s barrier-less basement vibe, charging through cuts off last year’s Attack On Memory at blistering pace, they cause total pandemonium, with topless crowdsurfers high-fiving while cruising over heads and bouncers acting less as a buffer and more a springboard.
Although split between two venues, Visions feels more like an extended gig line-up than a festival. And in all honesty, it feels like the event could be stretched out across an entire weekend in the future. Let’s hope the organisers have the vision to build upon a near-flawless start for 2014.
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Words: Charlie Wood & Gabriel Szatan
Photo: Xander Lloyd
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