Last weekend I experienced almost 16 hours under the upside down man, and after you’ve been on that journey for so long, you struggle to truly come back to Earth afterwards. 5,000 people turned up to the airport that is Printworks on Saturday to see the likes of Vaal, Recondite, Patrice Baumel, Mano Le Tough, Woo York, Tale of Us, SHDW and Obscure Shape, and more. My highlights-
On arrival Vaal was setting the scene in the Press Halls. She was playing all manner of experimental, dark and bassy sounds, which is what we have come to expect from such an enigmatic young artist. These were alongside a few classics like Polarstern from Mind Against, which never fails to drive anybody listening batshit crazy. I took delight in the fact I would be seeing another mesmerising set from her again at Part II, in 12 hours time. Patrice Baumel followed, with a much more upbeat, and bouncy set reminiscent of his prolific Voyage mix, featuring his classy new track Engage.
Then there was Kiasmos, who need no introduction. It was a live set, so the audience got the whole package, Looped, Swept, Lit, Thrown- the lot. It is always wonderful to see how much enthusiasm these two put into their sets, for them it is very much a performance. If you get the privilege of seeing these two perform live, you can expect them to be jumping around at the front of the stage, Janus Rasmussen’s, hair flopping about all over the place, elbows here there and everywhere. Standing there bathing in the glow of white and blue lights I even saw a girl crying to herself at one stage. Even I felt a bit like bawling like a baby when Bent came on. It’s emotional stuff.
Room two, The Charge Bay, was a nasty, dark little sweat-box when we got there to see Woo York. They were blasting through their devastating recent productions, such as Alien Worlds, Uranium Echoes and Afterlife’s very own Hypernova, all with electrifying acidy new sounds thrown on top in order to achieve all manner of lethal effects. You cannot beat the gallop of a Woo York beat. It picks you up and casts you into dark, magical new landscapes. The Woo York experience is so outrageous and other-worldly you barely know what to do with it but charge around like a rhinoceros on speed. This dark techno bunker seemed like the perfect location for it.
Recondite soon came on the scene, and when he’s there you know about it. With his seemingly infinite library of his own music, you have absolutely no idea what the man is going to do, but you know that you are in the hands of one of electronic music’s most esoteric geniuses. A man who only listens to his own music. Who does he think he is? In this one he teased us with classics such as Buteo, and a load of completely recondite stuff presumably from his new up and coming album. He achieved a perfect harmony between melancholy sounds from tracks like Sol, and the harder hitting stuff. He dropped Phalanx in, with force. My friend turned to me and said ‘this is the greatest track of all time’. I agreed wholeheartedly.
I’ve seen Tale of Us five times this year and every set has been completely different. Most tracks have been unidentifiable, and you wonder where on Earth they come from. Were they created by humans, or designed by some kind of divine entity and just put there like the rocks and the trees? Highlights from their closing set were new stuff from the unstoppable Mind Against, and the scintillating Fideles (another Italian duo who have burst onto the scene with their new EP released on Afterlife) playing The Tensior, those deeply computerised sounds raining down upon the crowd. They ended the same as they did in Amsterdam, with Bodzin’s thumping, glittering Strand (Afterlife) and their soul stirring and innovative edit of Hans Zimmer’s Time, eight hours of music ending on one piano note. The gratitude that Tale show at the end of every event, staying behind to clap the crowd, thanking them with hand on heart, is a wonderful thing to see and shows that they are truly grateful, seemingly in awe of their fans who have supported them in creating this mesmerising other world for us all to live in.
After getting our coats we zipped across to Shoreditch High Street via the overground to the after party at Village Underground, a simple, no-bollocks venue with one stage- a classic warehouse a bit like a cave. This is a venue that Tale of Us have no doubt become very fond of after turning up last year to debut their new night in the UK playing for eight hours non-stop. They would have been absolutely over the moon no doubt to see how their night has snowballed insurmountably over the past year.
Vaal again plucked a plethora of gems out of her hat, starting off playing ambient tracks like Hunter/Game’s Distant Storms, then later stomping through the night with tracks like The Hangar, and Barnt’s take on Monument.
Then a nice touch from the curators; Tale of Us decided to hand over the keys to the decks to SHDW and Obscure Shape to close the night. Their own set was of course impossible to truly sum up with paltry words, and was one of the most varied sets you could ever hear. Fideles, Secret Garden was a beauty, then loads of dark unrecognisable stuff. Towards the end we went back about 5 years with Skream’s Let It Go and some Trentemoller. They even threw in Another Earth, which for five minutes transported everybody to exactly that.
Cue SHDW and Obscure Shape who then proceeded to attack us with obscene stomping beats and dark, haunting sounds for two hours. They played nothing but their own stuff, and the occasional remix, like the naughty Konstantin Sibold remix of Gesang Der Toten Dinge. Their finest track though is Aus Der Tiefe Der Zeit, which they played early on to dreaming ears.
It was fantastic to see so many live sets, so many artists who believe so much in their own work and their own sound. Afterlife was created this way, achieving the perfect balance between the best live creators and performers with the most visionary, knowledgeable and skilled DJs on the scene. All with a penchant for ethereal sounds that take listeners to a dazzling new sensory universe.
To go to Afterlife is to immerse oneself in dark lights, a euphony of sounds impossible to discover elsewhere, an elated crowd, and a constantly fluctuating atmosphere bordering on the extra-terrestrial at moments. With the quality of artists you see on the bill, and the lightning speed that melodic techno (?) is progressing and evolving, every Afterlife is guaranteed to be a unique experience that nobody will forget. Afterlife is certainly the best party in the world.
