AFX / Cunningham / Flat-E / Array Spectacular in Turin

July 18, 2005

The Traffic Festival in Turin hosted a one off mega audio visual treat when AFX, Chris Cunningham, Flat-E, Arrary & N>E>D played the live stage spectacualr.

Words & Pics from Flat-E ::
A free festival organised by the Turin government. A massive wadge of the Italian public turned up. Some counting cats were banding around the 15,000 punter mark which, going by the volume of whoops and shrieks wasn't far off the mark.

09:00 DJ N>E>D
10:00 Chris Cunningham AV set
11:00 DJ Aphex Twin (with Flat-E visuals & Array dancers)

It got dark very very quickly. Then came Cunningham who certainly was not here to sugar people up. An onslaught ensued, he dropped in a feast of frantic filmic brilliance. Rubber Johnny made an appearance, Monkey Drummer and bits of Come on My Selector. Then things entered a whole new level with a cutup of Flex which I thought was magnificent (despite being startlingly close to my loop dream that had shaken up that morning). The response from the crowd was unbelievable. At all the gigs we've been to relating to electronic music, I'd never seen anything like it. A giant pit opened up and the almighty chants of "Come to Daddy" bellowed from the crowd. In fact, what developed was a crop-hole-pit. A series of circular mosh pits resembling the intricate designs found in some crop circles. It was a great sight.

Chris Cunningham's set finished with a version of Window Licker to massive roars from the audience but you could tell that they hadn't finished and weren't planning to move anywhere. They'd saved a good 2 hours worth more for Aphex.

The dancers were carried on stage by 2 Italian stallions and stood lifeless in front of a screen each to the left and right of a main giant screen behind Aphex Twin. The dancers were both in very slim wedding dresses, their movements were elegant and perfectly synchronized like two music box ballerinas. Aphex Twin's set consisted of layers of all sorts and built up and up. The more he went for it, the more the crowd got behind him and the set snowballed into this gargantuan energy sphere of sound and light.

See more about this & other Flat-E projects on their website

Permalink | July 18, 2005