Whoever follows our playlist or reads our print magazine knows that our music curation resembles that m&m’s-slash-roasted-chicken pizza-meme that is circulating out there. Stripped down baile chasing a new-age-y jazz tune? Yes please! Smoked out trap following rigid electro? Here we go. Ambient combined with hi-NRG hyper pop? Why not. Slowed down cumbia spicing up a selection of shoegaze-y indie rock songs? Say no more!
It’s probably fair to say that only rarely our minds and ears are confused enough. Which, frankly, is a bummer. A lot of festivals, labels, magazines, and venues present somewhat predictable line-ups most of the time. Not among them is LUFF. The Lausanne-based film and music festival, in 2023 in its 22nd edition, manages to surprise us year after year. And we love it for that reason as you might know from reviews of previous editions. So, what can you expect from a festival that has surprised you for the past ten plus years? Well, more surprises.
Take Thursday night of this year’s edition as a proof of concept: Nadah El Shazly and Elvin Brandhi were opening the night at the Salle des fêtes of the Casino de Montbenon, where the music program traditionally is presented, with their A/V-project Pollution Opera (with Omar El Sadek providing the visuals). Loud noises, beat-like gestalts, and the manifold vocal output of El Shazly and Brandhi were merged to tunes between folk, noise, techno, grime, and whatnot, that invited the audience to short passages of dancing every now and then. It was a first nice little taste what was yet to come.
Up next was Russell Haswell-protégé Hugo Esquinca: The Berlin-based artist offered an intense presentation of super harsh computer music, sitting on the floor of the pitch black room. The “concert” lasted for less than five minutes—although Hugo later claimed it was “at around ten minutes,” which everyone else in that group of smokers outside the former casino denied. The short duration was a pleasant surprise, and made Esquinca’s performance probably the second shortest contribution to this year’s festival after Austrian filmmaker Jan Soldat’s equally plain and brilliant short documentary “Speed Date” that clocked in just under one minute and yet was earning big reactions when it was presented at Cinématographe on Friday night as a part of the “Short Documentaries” program. The sometimes hissing, sometimes bass-heavy sounds Esquinca squeezed out of his computer were a necessary wake up call for what would follow. Because if you haven’t been 100% sure that you are awake, the next performance would’ve kept you in doubt for the rest of your life, probably.
On the stroke of midnight of that mild Thursday in October, Jon The Dog took the stage (or rather, as most of the artists at LUFF: the floor) to perform a set of Japanese lullabies. What’s wrong with that we hear you ask. Well, Jon The Dog is, as it was announced rightfully on LUFF’s website, a dog. A pink feather boa-wearing dog that was accompanying herself on an old, jarring organ. A dog utterly lovable and eerie at the same time. A dog with a filthy fur head banging in slow-motion at times. It was an intimate performance, offering solace—a well needed escape from the craze that is happening outside the walls of Casino de Montbenon. Welcoming, soothing, reassuring that everything’s gonna be fine.
Following Jon The Dog’s performance, Nikola Mounoud aka ··· made sure to guide everyone in the audience back to real life (again) with his appearance. Sound-wise ···’s offering was far closer to Esquinca’s set than to the performance just before. But instead of getting rid of all the sources of light, as in Esquinca’s case, additional lamps were installed. High performance lamps that were illuminating the room with dazzlingly white light you would only see on construction sites that have to be worked in the small hours. In this (for night owls) hostile environment, the former LUFF curator assaulted the audience’s ears with sounds only to be found in the deepest corners of your computer—or, maybe, on contraction sites (thus the lamps, right?).
So, good to go home? Hell no. But no worries, the next one is pretty chill. Like super chill. Chill to the max. Like proper hang loose chill. In line with the title of his show (and his latest album out on Black Truffle), “The Leisure Principle”, Otto Willberg presented a 40-minutes-or-so wha-wha-heavy bass solo, walking up and down. Up and down. Up and down. Obviously it had a totally different vibe than anything else that night. Yet it seemed just perfect. Perfect for that very instant—here at LUFF, on a Thursday evening in October 2023, just before 2am.
Closing the night was Shitty Shed with a noise-y, HC-informed set of fast paced yet danceable (well…) beats. Thoroughgoing, heavy, and loud.
Speaking of volume: The PA at LUFF might be just as insane as the curation. It should be talked about more extensively in the future. But just so you can get an idea: Word on the street is that it features 16 subs and that it could easily fill a whole football stadium with sound (while the Salle des fêtes can accommodate around 450 people and is NOT open air)…
Anyway, no matter what a LUFF music program reads like beforehand, once you are fully immersed it’s always a wild ride, one that you would only get at this remarkable festival. Trust the process, as we like to say. Merci et à la prochaine.