Dimensons 2022: Hits and Misses
These were my hits and misses of this year’s Dimensions Festival!
HIT: Mala DMZ @ Cosmos on Sunday
Last year I was playing at the same time as Mala so didn’t get a chance to see him. I’m no dubstep connoisseur and wasn’t at all part of the big wave when it broke in the mid 00s. I bought a few house/techno-friendly dubstep records and was obsessed with Scuba’s debut album A Mutual Antipathy, but never dug deeper than that. But in Tisno, in a similar dynamic to me seeing Jimi Tenor play at Waking Life, that’s exactly what made the experience of seeing Mala in action on the Sunday so inspiring. There is music I don’t pay much attention to on a day to day basis, but seeing someone who’s been at the top of their game for so long can really be a mind-expanding experience.
After weathering several days of relentless tech house it was refreshing to hear music with so much space in it, and Mala allowed it to breathe so much on top. The tunes ranged from atmospheric to gnarly to pretty silly-sounding, but even the latter was played with such conviction that we just had to give it up and bounce around. The only record I recognised all set was the last one, Joker’s warped sea-shanty ‘Boat’, a tune I remember dismissing when it came out for being one of the most ridiculous things I’d ever heard. In Mala’s hands, after 90 minutes of supreme control, its broken accordion, seagulls and R&B mutations somehow made total sense.
So yes, mind well and truly expanded. Thanks Mala!
MISS: British people being messy as fuck
One thing remarked on by everyone who went to Waking Life was the almost complete absence of litter. People just put everything, even cigarette butts, in the bin. At Dimensions? Fat chance. And the festival didn’t make it easy, providing separate bins for plastic, cans and compostable material but all of these dotted around away from each other, so you couldn’t just go up to a set of bins and choose the right one. When Radioactive Man was starting I went to Cosmos expecting to chuck the remains of my dinner, only to find there wasn’t the right bin, so I had to go back to the food area. By Sunday even I had given up on trying to sort my rubbish and joined everyone else in just chucking it in any bin indiscriminately.
I say everyone else - actually a lot of people just threw stuff on the floor, leaving trash scattered across most of the main festival site. Dimensions did have signage at the entrance and bars covering their suggested approach to litter and ‘being green’ in general, but I’d say these were largely ignored. Perhaps this kind of carelessness is something too deeply-rooted in British culture to really do much about, which is a bit of a depressing thought.
HIT: Radioactive Man and Soichi Terada play live on Friday night
This is becoming a bit of a theme. Maybe from now on I just want to see middle-aged musicians with decades of experience under their belt doing what they do best? Is this because I too am rapidly becoming a middle-aged musician, afraid of the new? Most probably.
Whatever the reason, I wasn’t alone in finding both Radioactive Man and Soichi Terada’s livesets on Friday vaguely life-affirming. The former gave us music with space in it, patience, wit, funk - all the things we’d been rather starved of up to that point. The latter played his hits with joy, charm and a heavy dose of showmanship, gesturing with a funny noisebox, singing into the mic and, finally, the pièce de résistance, miming the lyrics to a song with an origami fortune teller. A bit saccharine? You bet. But my lasting feeling - as the now 33-year-old (!) refrain of ‘Sunshower’ rolled aptly out of the beach speakers - was not only did he pull it off, he’s bloody well earned it.
MISS: You guessed it, I’m going to moan about the sound
The beach was too loud for me last year, and this year the Olive Grove joined it. I was excited to hear the systems had all been upgraded, but in general I found the bass overpowering on both of these stages when they were turned up for a full crowd. Also there was a constant loudness war between the two, which was quite audible in the Olive Grove booth itself during breakdowns.
I had wanted to play several tunes with long breaks but, apprehensive about the noise from the beach, considered changing tack. In the end I stuck with it and had to just put up with the dull thud coming through in what were meant to be the set’s more sensitive moments. The sound guy seemed solely preoccupied with the levels on the mixer (which I duly kept out of the red), rather than the actual sound out on the floor. And they were then very rude to G, which is inexcusable.
The only stage where the sound was not too bottom-heavy was Cosmos. During Mala’s set everything was defined, spacious, balanced, even as he played tracks with - of course - massive bass. Also the bleed from the other stages was much less pronounced here, so it could largely be ignored through his (and Radioactive Man’s) sets.
I will say that the new setups on the boats and at The Haze were very welcome. In fact we had a good little bop to Liquid Earth and Cromie at The Haze on Saturday night, with the modest but punchy bar-style sound providing a welcome break from the incessant booming of the main stages.
HIT: A vibesy boat
Me and G had decided to go vibes for the Spaced x BSU boat on Sunday afternoon, resisting the temptation to play straight pumping boat tunes like everyone presumably would want to hear. As it turned out both Tho & Loren and Hamish & Toby seemed to have had the same idea, so the whole three hours of the boat was super vibesy. Yes there were a few bangers in there, but it was nothing like the rather tiresome pumpathon of Thursday.
I managed to fit in Fantastic Man’s fantastic new record, a new tune from my friend Dana out soon on Basic Moves, and a couple of the records I bought in Kimchi Records on my last trip to Berlin. None of these were actually on record though since both me and G had brought USBs only. It’s the future!
G also played out one of her own tunes and it sounded utterly sick - cue broad smiles all round.
HIT: Eliza Rose @ Beach / Mother Earth @ Olive Grove on Saturday
I went to check out Eliza Rose cos I’d heard her name via this Jeanie Crystal guest mix my friend Sam sent me a while ago. It turns out she’s a big deal - in fact, a #1 in the UK charts big deal! Apparently she got the news just before she was due to fly to Croatia so had to delay her flights to go and do an interview at the BBC. Luckily she made it to Tisno in time to smash the Beach stage on Saturday afternoon: joyful UKG mixed deftly and getting people dancing. A version of Duke’s ‘So In Love With You’ had people singing along, then she also dropped ‘Another Crap Night Out In Eltham’, a tune I remember being rinsed about 10 years ago and was grateful to be reminded of.
I had to drag myself away from the Beach for my own set, doing so early enough to catch the second half of Mother Earth. They warmed up the Olive Grove patiently and cleverly, which I was very happy about since I wasn’t planning to come in all guns blazing. By the time they had finished it felt like everyone was in the right mood for what I wanted to do, so thanks to Mother Earth for preparing the ground so well.
MISS: Failing to remember G’s set and throwing up in a bush after my set on Saturday
I love to drink, and sometimes I drink to excess. This was one of those times.
HIT: Boyz II Them aka Russell EL Butler and ADAB bringing some sophistication to proceedings on Thursday
I was so aggrieved by the non-stop hands-in-the-air bangers on the Thursday that by the time Russell EL Butler and ADAB came on at Cosmos I was crying out for any sort of nuance or space or groove, and that’s what they delivered. An opening beatless spoken word moment about togetherness was their initial statement, followed by stripped back percussive grooves, including Ali Berger’s Wave Chords (which I reviewed here). About 60% of the people who had been at the stage promptly left. We applauded their departure and settled in for 45 minutes or so of crafty brain massage. But then…
MISS: A random guy on acid interrupting Boyz II Them
What actually happened in this incident I still don’t know. One version held that a topless guy ran into the booth and insodoing caused some of the cables to come out, stopping the music. Another version said that it was actually during Eris Drew & Octo Octa’s set (it wasn’t, unless it happened again later in the night), and that it was a fully naked guy on acid actively unplugging everything. Another said it required six security guards to wrestle him to the ground.
Whatever it was that happened, when the sound came back on it was somehow different and the two of them played far faster than they did before the break, presumably in part because the experience had been understandably rattling. The magic of the first section of their set had sadly been lost - a cruel twist for us given how refreshing we’d found it up to that point.
MISS: Ruf Dug playing the Murk remix of Spice Girls
(but also maybe..?)
HIT: Ruf Dug playing the Murk remix of Spice Girls
Coincidentally, when prepping recently for a radio show on the subject of pop remixes, I joked to friends about how phoned-in this one from Murk was, and yet here it was coming out of the Beach speakers on Sunday evening. On the one hand, you’ve got to credit Ruf Dug for actually going there, but on the other, he really shouldn’t have gone there.
HIT: The two French surfer dudes dancing non-stop all around the festival
HIT: All the nice people
Dimensions is definitely the event I’ve played at where I know the most people. That can make it tiring in some respects because it can be rare to find a moment to yourself, and the talking-on-the-dancefloor can get pretty intense. But its upsides are enough to balance that out: catching up with old friends, meeting completely new people or others who I’ve only ever spoken to online, people saying nice things about my DJing.
Sometimes putting names and previous encounters to faces is a challenge, but with the right strategies (and I am adding new ones to my belt every time) this can be navigated with minimum embarrassment on both sides. I did my own bit of fanboy-ing at various points during the weekend, ear-bothering Tama Sumo before her set on Friday and enjoying an artist transfer with Jossy Mitsu on Monday - it turns out we went to the same school.
MISS: That fucking bell tower
I complained about this as much as I could to anyone who would listen on the Thursday, until on Friday Wes Baggaley took over the mantle of main complainer so I didn’t have to. As the tower struck 11.30am, a plaintive “FUCK OFF” was heard ringing through the artists’ apartments, only just audible over the ringing of the bells themselves.
See you next year!