The basement at Jacobsen was fraught with electro-hungry festival attendees when Rabbi Bananas started off the evening line-up in style. The music was an extremely experimental synth electro with enigmatic groove that fired up the crowd and gave Quadruplos a strenuous task: to maintain the dynamic ambience they’d managed to establish.
Quadruplos is the new offspring of Magnoose (of Mongoose – confused yet?) but alongside his companion, they busted out some really vexed tunes. To begin with their synth collective was a bit rough to grasp as it consisted of “uncomfortable” shrieks and unanchored tones but the chaos quickly formed a nice, melodic electro with a hint of indie-ish demeanor. So yeah, they fulfilled the task. While the notorious duo occupied the basement Chuck and Norris performed a solid DJ set upstairs. The awkward fact that the room was completely empty didn’t stop the fellow from sporting his best licks, but the cliché 80s samples were often a bit too much.
Beatmakin Troopa was next on stage and I had my hopes up, for the name sounds rather solid and I expected some heavy beats to be made. But that night, the troopa wasn’t groovy at all; his beats were minimal and the music was a dull, dramatic lounge with house effects. This would’ve been really apt if a dashing lady had been rubbing her special parts against a pole – but that wasn’t the case, so our troopa emptied the floor in a few moments. Upstairs the younglings in Captain Fufanu had begun their rollercoaster of audio delicacies. You could definitely say they are this year’s revelation and those crowd-pleasing prodigies sure deserve it – ‘cause they can strike a tune. Pedro Pilatus and the Bear Hug, a duo led by Logi of Retro Stefson fame, took the stage next. You could maybe describe their music as the opposite side of Retro Stefson’s coin, but their electro ballads have the same careless zing and original vein to them.
DJ Ben Sol had taken over downstairs and blasted a classic combo of house-tech and other minimal goodies. To begin with, people weren’t so keen on this ‘club’ atmo as the floors boasted more of drunken romances than slaphappy dancing, but as Ben’s set got more intense the crowd kicked in. Jungle Fiction was the third youngster band of the night – but they’re only 17 years old and their lack of originality can probably partially be blamed on that fact. Jungle was definitely something that popped up in your head when they blasted their new-age boogie, but although you could lose yourself in their young and fresh tunes their samples and electro licks were almost without exception foreseeable and cliché-ish. Firas (Filthy Few) were next in line to wrap things up and they definitely sported what Jungle Fiction lacked, as their squealing electro left nobody untouched. Their set was an oblique audio alley between crudeness, absurdity and glee: definitely a good thing.
DJ Casanova & DJ Frímann are definitely no amateurs. They finished the program downstairs with a heavyweight house expedition. And so it was appropriate to wrap up this intriguing and fresh night a Jacobsen in dance frenzy – courtesy of the knights of house, Casanova and Frímann.
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