Widowspeak is a Brooklyn-based band that consists of vocalist/guitarist Molly Hamilton and guitarist Robert Earl Thomas. Although the line-up has changed throughout the history of the band, Widowspeak has continued to define and expand their sound down to its purest and most essential form. In All Yours, Widowspeak returns to the influences that characterised their previous efforts, Almanac (2013), and The Swamps (2014), with an album that’s a whimsical touch on country.

Some of the most gripping songs call up and play up the country factor, not fighting, but going with harmonicas, transforming the melody such as in “Girls.” And like “Girls,” “All Yours” mimics this dreamy country formula for a familiar sound that takes hold of your emotions. If you listen to this when you are getting ready in the morning, you might find yourself putting on overalls and a pair of Hunters (or the other closest thing you might have to cowboy boots).

“My Baby’s Gonna Carry On” is a little funky number that turns into a psychedelic meditation. “Dead Love (So Still)” jams just as well with a full bass line. All Yours has its moments of energy in their slowcore collection of songs, but its easygoing nature turns positively lethargic in several tunes. “Cosmically Aligned” has a delightful aloha spirit to the guitar, but otherwise moves like molasses. “Coke Bottle Green” as well as “Narrows” is paced at a slower march. That country space in which Widowspeak created and recorded the songs seeps through these finished tracks.

Escaping to the Catskills/Hudson Valley region, Widowspeak did not look back to the city except in the lyrical matter to their songs. Many of their songs ruminate on the idea of moving on, but the luxury of space, and the economical guitar-playing are also noticeable in All Yours. This isn’t to say there weren’t pleasant surprises such as when Thomas takes over the microphone in “Borrowed World.” A first for Widowspeak to have him sing front and centre, and the results are enjoyable indie folk fodder. The beautiful effect of the piano towards the end of “Borrowed World” is especially lasting in its gentleness. Primarily, All Yours is an earthy and hypnotic record, like a piece of farmer’s grass to be chewed on.

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Born Gold (Gobble Gobble) and Braids were Purity Ring’s supporting acts of the night. All Canadian acts, Braids was particularly memorable live. Originally from Calgary, this art rock group has made the inevitable move to Montreal, but Braids is not your average indie electronic duo. They shook things up with a guy-girl-guy triple threat combo. Coming off their third release, Flourish // Perish, Braids favoured prolonged jams, and some were hit or miss live. Their physical presence on-stage was staying to their appointed spots until the end but the ethereal, extended cuts were powerful and moving.

In contrast, Purity Ring knew how to make a strong statement that enhanced the live element to their music. With custom-built crystal sceptres that controlled lighting and sound, Roddick was in the middle, crafting simple but mesmerizing moments that hooked eyeballs towards him. As he hit the lanterns to make them pop, synchronized to the beats, James used the stage to make for great Instagram photos for fans. James was channeling a wood nymph from the 60s with tangled hair on purpose, and a pale high-waist ensemble. Lit-up against waterfall sheets of lights from purple to pink and white, Purity Ring smartly tapped into growing expectations for live shows to create a special experience that easily lends itself to documentation as well. The visuals fit in with the whimsical but bold music. From hits like “Fineshrine” to newer songs like “Stranger Than Earth,” Purity Ring was a balancing act between James’ ghostly voice and Roddick’s gutsy instrumentals.

Whether or not Purity Ring avoided the sophomore slump in their recent offering, Another Eternity, what they’ve learned from touring festivals and collaborating with hip-hop artists shines through. A confident performance with a theatrical and imaginative set-up, Purity Ring is enchanting live.

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Jeremy Earl, the lead singer and guitarist of Woods, released early Real Estate singles back in 2009 through his Woodsist label. The mutual camaraderie that developed between the two bands was history. There is rarely a missed opportunity in interviews where Courtney doesn’t express his respect for the neo-psychedelic band from Brooklyn.

With their indie folk moves, Woods carried the evening’s mood of peaceful, comfortable melodies. With Light And With Love is Woods’ proper studio album, made out of eight recordings created from spontaneous sessions of creativity. The latest LP saw them dial up the polish on songwriting, and on-stage, Woods was dynamic and loud, showing their various sides. Sometimes acoustic and sometimes pop.

A few years ago when guitar bands were the trend sound, Real Estate was a band Pitchfork had a crush on for having a timeless quality in their interlocking guitar parts that were clean and full of quiet magic. Atlas, last year’s record, did not change the formula Real Estate was known for, but refined it. Live, Real Estate was unadorned and lush. “Crime” and “Easy” were memorable jangle songs.

Self-described as “the girl next door music”, Real Estate has always felt less like music to soundtrack the summer to and more like songs to get lost in the suburbs to. Respectable, and less concerned with what’s hip than what’s actually good, Real Estate brought a sense of content, a feeling similar to the intimacy home concerts have to offer as an alternative space for sound.

To a packed house made up of fans listening with appreciation, Woods and Real Estate were laidback and serene acts.

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As someone whose reputation for dubstep and house singles is respectable, Fitzgerald is the man behind steamy, taunting tracks like “Thinking of You” to the sensual after-hours feel of his Child EP that is equal-parts yuppie lounge and illegal venue. Fitzgerald fits comfortably with S-Ampel to Dusky so Fading Love, his debut LP, out April 28^th on Double Six is a discreet step towards something else.

The lead single, “Full Circle,” features vocals by Boxed In frontman Oli Bayston, and it is tender with gloom in its songwriting movement. As a track about the “unfulfilled promise of stagnant relationships,” “Full Circle” is a break-up song in a record sourced from Fitzgerald’s personal life. The unchallenged mood of club beats is broken up into motifs that knit Fading Love together, and it also points to the new direction Fitzgerald takes in songwriter territory.

The album rarely lies heavy on the heart with its club motifs dispersing like a gentle mist over the song instead of catching on like a batch of tinder. There is stagnancy to this record, and the overall impression is that it does not accumulate so much as it vanishes like a pent-up sigh. “Beginning at the End” and “Shards” are expansive works that head down a certain path and arrive at their individual destinations without fanfare or much ruckus.

Clean but warm and rich, Fitzgerald creates a chain of harmonic memory that echoes the song that went before it, noticeable from the last half of “About Time” to “Full Circle.” Softly illuminating meaning and connection, Fading Love is like when the shining sun is out when the sky is raining. A nuanced palette of conflicting moods that is represented in the arresting combination of its upbeat sluggishness and its use of emotional tricks that keep Fading Love at bay. Detached in its abstract qualities, Fading Love ends on a strong note with the one-minute charmer “Frank Is Sleeping” to “The Waiting.” Radiant with the sobering truth that “I’ve been waiting too long for you,” Fitzgerald finesses a subtle pop song in “The Waiting.”

With Fading Love, Fitzgerald can be counted among Jon Hopkins, Caribou and the like.

Album release: April 28, 2015

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Pomo has been gaining a steady profile since leaving Vancouver for Montreal, with the release of The Other Day, a fantastic debut EP via HW&W, and one of the factors to his growing popularity, besides the feel-good grooves, is his touring schedule. Pomo has been snagging favourable opening slots for himself, last year opening for Skylar Spence back when he was still called Saint Pepsi at Fortune Sound Club, and it’s great to see his music associated with similar up-and-coming artists that are beginning to reach wider audiences. Dropping tracks like “Start Again” as well as his AlunaGeorge remix, “Supernatural” into his set, Pomo worked towards upbeat momentum.

Although Spazzkid was not on support for Giraffage during this leg of the tour, local opener, James Deen, proved more than up for the part. Listening to Deen’s On Vacation EP that was released earlier this year, it’s a no-brainer why the Kelowna transplant whose work of trap bounce, similar to the happy style of Australian producers like Wave Racer and Cosmo’s Midnight, would start the night right. The jury’s out on whether Brennan Henderson will, like Saint Pepsi, also have to change his name to avoid legal action from the real James Deen, otherwise known as the American Porn Star Next Door.

Light vibes and gentle builds, Giraffage was sweet with a minimalistic attitude. Quickly incorporating new, original tracks like “Tell Me” and “Hello,” Giraffage exuded personable energy with his perpetually relaxed smile. Giraffage’s released recordings are often optimized for listening during sedate activities that do not require a lot of movement, so it is interesting to see an artist like him live. The entertainment factor would be there, what with his extensive touring history, on the road with established EDM idol, Porter Robinson, and  XXYYXX earlier on in his career. Delivering a futuristic set that was a blend of previous influences, PC trap, cloudy hip hop, downtown indie tempo, Giraffage was enjoyable, to say the least.

If last Wednesday was a showcase, it was bedroom artist talent. Innovative electronic beats collide with humourous pop culture references on the internet, a win-win situation with real world tremors. Return soon, Giraffage.

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Depressed and isolating himself in his room to make music, Yin soon caught the favourable notice of big blogs like Pitchfork and XLR8R with his onslaught of richly engaging R&B remixes that resonated with listeners at home as well. Touring on support for XXYYXX in 2012 and Flume in 2013, Yin’s efforts paid off with the positive spread of word-of-mouth about his music. Simply put, observing Yin’s profile increase exponentially in popularity, when he was one more bedroom producer releasing bootleg remixes on Bandcamp, is watching a success story unfold in action.

A stylistic chameleon, Yin began learning how to play music with the drums at age 10. His teenage love was metal, which speaks to his voracious appetite and lack of discrimination towards polar genres. Right before signing with A-Trak’s label, Fool’s Gold, it appeared Yin would be a likely fit with any number of spacey hip-hop imprints such as Soulection or HW&W. His previous releases, such as the single, Even Though, released through Kitsune Maison, as well as his remix album of The Dream’s Love/Hate were strong indicators of this. However, with his debut Fool’s Gold EP, No Reason, coming out last fall, Yin skillfully switched courses again.

No Reason was promoted as Yin’s first sample-free album, something that made it stand apart from his past works. Having made a reputation for himself as a bootleg connoisseur, this feat culminated in the R. Kelly “Ignition” bootleg Yin released on Soundcloud last summer. Not only did the rapper himself pay Yin the compliment of re-tweeting the track, but it was also, in Yin’s opinion, poised to become his biggest remix. However, Yin’s bootleg met an untimely death with R. Kelly’s label stepping in, demanding it be taken down. The very real threat of legal action seemed to fuel Yin’s creative choices. He chose to source his samples from scratch, using specifically recorded a capella vocals as well as internet sounds from a dial-up connection to push notification such as in “Hello.”

Most significantly, No Reason was not glitch hop, the sound Yin is memorably associated with. Instead, in a return to early Giraffage form, Yin expressed dream dance vibes through pop again. Pretty Things, his 2011 EP, had odes to chillwave and dream pop in tracks like “Waste Yr Time”, and even Needs had tangible memories of vaporwave. Pop was certainly not new terrain for the producer. Prior to taking on the Giraffage moniker, Yin was releasing chiptune tracks under his Robot Science project. If Spazzkid, his current supporting act on tour, is an indication of Yin’s current path of exploration, his deconstructions of pop in a PC world will continue.

From interpreting R&B hits to touring with Porter Robinson and Lemaitre, Yin is a poster boy for bedroom producers, and the bursts of talent that can be found in the rough.

See full Giraffage tour dates here. 

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Gary Richards is a busy man, if you didn’t know already. Not only is the founder of HARD, the music festival brand responsible for putting on highly anticipated events such as HARD Summer and Holy Ship!, Richards also moonlights as Destructo, a techno DJ whose songs Justice likes to play in their sets. In fact, it was right as Richards had to leave, I was about to ask whether he gets recognised more for being Gary Richards or Destructo. It’s a moot point, anyway. Known for combining business knowledge with quality sounds, Richards has built up a reputation in the music industry as a figure who delivers the numbers without sacrificing taste.

Currently on his Ship2Ship tour with Anna Lunoe, Motez, and T. Williams, I chatted with Richards about his latest EP, West Coast, aptly named for its collaborations with Compton rappers like YG and Problem. Richards also had thoughtful views on copycat promoters and banning kandi at events.

Irene Lo: Your West Coast EP’s surprising for a DJ who’s known for techno bangers, but it makes sense for a promoter who’s booked performances like A$ap Mob, Lil Jon. I’m curious about how working on West Coast was different to your previous EPs.

Gary Richards: Working with rappers is a lot different – making a track to have more space for vocals, and just going into the studio with these guys. It’s a lot more fun than staring at the computer all day.

IL: The video for “Party Up” was entertaining in a different way to your previous videos by Agate Alexander. Do you put a lot of stock into your music videos or have you been lucky handing over creative control?

GR: I definitely want the songs to have a visual component about it. For “Party Up,” the original idea was we get on this bus and half the people are people who go to HARD, and half the people are people from YG’s world and they mesh, but I think YG’s people took over [laughs]. I wanted to do that kind of video one time, you know what I mean?

For “Higher” and “Technology” – there were no lyrics so it was better to have a concept because what would we be doing? We’re not singing anything. Both ideas were [Alexander’s] ideas. For “Higher,” I had very specific ideas about what I did not want, and how I wanted to portray what higher meant to me, and she nailed it. “Technology,” she asked me if I knew what a “real doll” was and I said no. There’s a factory where they make these dolls for ten grand and people will buy them and go on dates and have sex with them. She’s kind of crazy – she came up with this whole idea. She does all my videos for Hard too. All the funny ones. We got a good collab going. I let her do her thing.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgpnWJu7rog

IL: You’ve been releasing EPs fairly regularly, have you been devoting more time to crafting Destructo tracks, or just found yourself with more free time since Live Nation bought HARD?

GR: Well, I’ve always wanted to do more. Since Live Nation bought HARD, it’s enabled me to focus on music and be creative. In the beginning, the first EP [Technology] wasn’t anything more than “I’ll just try this.” Boys Noize liked it, and was like, we should put this out and then I ran into the guys from Justice and they said they play “Technology” in all their sets, and I should make more songs. It inspired me because fuck , if the guys from Justice are telling me to make more songs, maybe I should make more songs. That was a pretty pivotal moment.

IL: Ship2Ship is coming to Vancouver later this month with Motez and Anna [Lunoe]; what made you invite them on tour with you?

GR: I just love their music, first and foremost. They’re great people. T.Williams is on there too. Sleepy Tom’s cool but a lot of times we get in these clubs, the first DJ – they’re playing “Levels” or banging out EDM. I want to create a night where you can come to the show from start to finish, hear four different styles, all quality, all fit together. I was lucky enough that everybody was available we could do it.

IL: The promotion of smaller artists is one of the reasons I like HARD events – how do you keep up to trend on new sounds?

GR: ‘Cos I DJ, I’m always looking for something new to keep my head in the game. I’ll find tracks by Thee Cool Cats or Vanilla Ace and I’ll play them in a set. If I see they start delivering track after track then I’ll reach out, make a relationship. That’s what I’m most excited about too – developing new artists. I take it very seriously and I think because I’m a DJ and DJ a lot, it keeps me always paying attention.

IL: Another thing that sets HARD from other festivals in North America is a strong, eclectic international influence like the support of Australian, French, and British producers. Do you believe in North America there is a market with potential when EDM is what people automatically think of when they think of electronic music?

GR: It’s the promoter’s job. You can be a promoter like me – dig deep, do your homework, develop things, and turn people on to new stuff. And you can just want to sell tickets and book Tiësto again. To me, it’s a challenge. How can I put these names together, do the business that other people do and still deliver new quality stuff? It’s harder but it’s more rewarding, and I think what we’re doing is something that will last longer. Right now I’m trying to put together HARD Summer, there’s definitely some acts the top wants to play, and I’d rather just have the cool shit at the bottom and see if we can do it, if the people will support.

I think we’ve built up that audience where we can do that. Other parts of America could do it too but it’d take a lot of work on the promoter’s part to get the audience to think like you think. They’ll follow you if you give them good shit, but it’s been eight years of getting people into what we’re trying to do and now they’re on board… but LA’s a lot different to, say, Nashville. But if I lived in Nashville, I’m sure it would be the same thing. I just have to put in the work.

It’s the promoter’s responsibility. When you’re the promoter, there’s a lot you can do to mold artist careers and audience ears. You have the keys to the setting of what people will hear at a festival. It depends on how you want to lay it out – do you want to copy every other festival or do you want to be different?

IL: Last summer, the announcement that kandi and pacifers wouldn’t be allowed in HARD was one of the more noteworthy click-bait headlines. As someone organizing raves in the 90s, did you think about how concert-goers would see this negatively, as a non-inclusive decision?

GR: No, I don’t look at it that way. I’m the most open person in the book. I believe as long as you don’t hurt people, you can do whatever you want to do. The concepts we came up with were handed down to us from the fire department and the police. It’s a dress code like you go to a hip hop club and you’re not allowed baseball caps ‘cos they’re trying to keep gangsters out.

At this event we’re trying to keep a positive attitude, keep it not a giant rave. We’ve got to be a little more responsible in the way we act and if we don’t, we can’t have the event. It’s not “hey, don’t wear your bracelet” – I don’t care what you guys do. But there’s certain rules we’ve got to have in order to have these events. You got to pick and choose your battles.

Photo by Piper Ferguson

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Part of the Electric Input, an electronic collective of artists primarily based in Vancouver with members in Kamloops (Nouveau) and Seattle (Shorthand), Jimmy ExYouth (Jimmy Escobar) opened the evening. Connected to Diplo’s Mad Decent label through his work in Expendable Youth, ExYouth was a familiar choice for those who attended the after party to last year’s Seasons Festival, where Tchami rounded up Easter Long Weekend at Shine nightclub that sadly closed its doors last September. It was Sleepy Tom, a high-profile local, who began to fill the dance floor in earnest.

Like Sleepy Tom, Tchami (Martin Bresso), also released his debut EP through Fool’s Gold, the Brooklyn label founded by A-Trak. Promesses/Shot Caller tied this preacher’s sound neatly around syncopated bass lines, and soulful vocals. The danger of this was that an hour into Tchami’s set, it all began to turn into another club exercise of waiting for the drop, and formulas figured out are not exciting. Yet Future House, a name the Parisian producer tagged in jest on Soundcloud, has something undeniably primal to it that, when it gets its hands on the right track or beat, sets off the crazy in people.

As one of the engineers that worked on the Lil Jon/DJ Snake collaboration, “Turn Down for What”, Tchami’s got an intuitive feel for reinventing the wheel. When he played his remix of Oliver $ and Jimi Jules’s “Pushing On?” That bouncy drop! It hits the spot, and it keeps on going. Tchami, beloved on blogs, runs the small risk of backlash, but his intentions with music, as it was clear from the songs he chose to play that night, reminded everyone – don’t take things too seriously.

There were memorable slices from UK house such as Disclosure singles like “F for You” as well as the raunchy opening from Bodyrox’s 2006 hit “Yeah Yeah.” A one hit wonder from an electro-house duo that never captured North America’s ears as they did back in merry old England, “Yeah Yeah” was a pleasant surprise. It was reminiscent in mood to Tchami’s stand-out reworking of “You Know You Like It”, from future bass producer/singer duo, AlunaGeorge, another naughty tune with defiantly coy schoolgirl vocals.

Another rowdy crowd-pleaser was DJ Kool’s “Let Me Clear My Throat”, a not uncommon song on most club nights, Tchami nevertheless stirred up a collective frenzy like a resident DJ on a roll.

With strong supporting acts in Sleepy Tom and Jimmy ExYouth, Tchami live was a good time guaranteed.

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Strip away the superficial similarities, and you will find that Nicolas Demuth (the creator of Parra for Cuva) is an instrumental producer who most likely wouldn’t touch EDM with a ten-foot-pole, if his opinions about Backstreet Boys, DJ requests or having his music mashed to “Gangnam Style” are anything to go by. Raised in a small town in Lower Saxony, Demuth grew up learning to play classical and jazz piano before he relocated to Berlin for sound design. His roots suggest the significance that the delicate, gentle chords delivered in a downtempo manner have on his music.

“Devi”, featuring the Los Angeles-based artist, Nieve, flutters joyfully along at a comfortable speed that never tries to push us too hard, to corner us into a positive or negative emotion, but pursues a peaceful medium. And it’s a welcome relief to albums that can come off cribbed from a crush diary. The innocent, balanced piano keys in “Unfold” are sweet and tender, almost wistful and naïve, but PFC is careful to never let the emotional pull take a turn for the maudlin. There’s elegance and grace to his soft melodies that create a soothing effect on the soul.

But while that may be the case, it’s tracks that feature guest vocalists like Casey K on “Majouré”, or Monsoonsiren on “Champa” that stand out from the instrumental ones that, because of their even-handed nature, are not easy to pick from the crowd after a while. Given that PFC is a project that started attracting attention with the partnership of vocalist and longtime friend Anna Naklab, this doesn’t come as a shock. Two EPs from 2013, Fading Nights and Something Near, used Naklab extensively on the records, and “Wicked Games” is equally memorable for the same reason.

The exoticism in Majouré lies in its natural spirit, making it a record that transports the listener to a greener, rejuvenating world, where the morning light shines in through the bedroom curtains, and the dew glistens on the leaves.

Digital release set to drop on December 1, 2014

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Being alone is a fantasy expressed in the vague sentiments murmured by Hemsworth and his various guest artists. Being alone, far from leading to vulnerability, is protection against it. “Hurt Me” begins with grand, symphonic strings before working itself up to a distorted feminine voice repeating, “so don’t you hurt me.” An otherwise melancholy song, the last quarter in “Hurt Me” emphasises less on this than on a chiptune turnaround, laser beams pew-pewing all the way. “Blemish” also blends in a lighter sound in within a pensive palette, and it does this by using synths to manipulate the twang of the guitar for a softer, inquisitive touch. The happy melodic vision of chiptune is something Hemsworth has been playing with easy familiarity; “Cream Soda” featuring Japanese beatmaker Tomggg (Tatsyua Fujishiro), available as a free download on Hemsworth’s Soundcloud, is a recent example of this.

Vulnerability, and yearning for connection are common desires in “Walk Me Home” and “Snow in Newark.” In “Walk Me Home,” the New Zealand singer Lontalius says “don’t leave me alone” as much as he says “leave me alone.” “Too Long Here” is a deadpan vocal affair (“I keep to myself”), but its elegant piano keys and trap horn interruptions make it similar to the fragile bass Cashmere Cat’s known for.

With Kotomi and DOSS helping out, “Surrounded” is a chopped up track that exudes uncertainty and restlessness, and it’s emotionally stirring, more so than the songs that came before it. Feelings of loss are conveyed in such a way that they are duplicated in the listener, and this is a state with no relief in lighter elements to switch things up. It’s with the last track, “By Myself,” Hemsworth creates an illusion of impenetrability. Cloaked in cloud rap vapours, “By Myself” is a dark high of chilling sensuality and it sticks with this mood, refining and expanding the idea for a moving five minutes.

Alone for the First Time is full of neat flourishes that add a jolt of different energy into landscapes that would be emotionally uncomplicated otherwise, but what makes the record enjoyable is Hemsworth’s ability to write unified songs that add up to a gestalt whole.

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Thursday was the night that Otis Jackson Jr. AKA Madlib AKA Quasimoto AKA the headliner, was forced to cancel due to unexpected issues of a personal nature. It was a shame that the versatile, innovative, hip-hop producer had to cancel since it was a highly anticipated show, but the promise of a TBA make-up performance at a later date, as well as Stones Throw providing another one of their artists, DaM-FunK, in Madlib’s stead, made Thursday a win for lovers of groove.

DaM-FunK spun smooth, cool beats that simmered with a fine heat, a steady, constant that never intensified or burned itself out. DaM-FunK would regularly take the mic to talk about the racial use of the N word, which added a provocative, spoken element to the soulful drums and funky guitar riffs. Before Dam-FunK took the floor, Young Braised was on, a local rapper who had his back towards the audience the entire time. Thanks to Soledad Muñoz, twin stacks of televisions framed Jaymes Bowman as they shone out a live feed of him rapping about Haruki Murakami, among other things. Braised and Muñoz explored authenticity and separation in life through screens, with Braised’s face turned to the wall and Muñoz manipulating his image to look straight at us.

Sandwiched between an American and a European, Young Braised was a burst of local flavour. Positioning local artists within a global context is what makes NFF stand out as a festival, and it was the same on Friday with Jesse Bru and Cloudface taking the stage early. Bru, the Montreal transplant from BC, was on the first floor, where the stage was set up in a cosy space created by the winding staircase that led up to the second floor. In comparison to the upstairs stage that carried a dense and heavy atmosphere conducive to the dark techno that would be a familiar sound heard through the night, the stage on the first floor was positively brightened by upbeat house.

While German producer, Jacob Korn, delivered an hour of fun house, irresistible to move to, another German, Helena Hauff, would be working on a badass set that took its dancers for an absolute pounding. Like Alina Astrova, who performed Thursday under the moniker Inga Copeland, Hauff dropped a combative set that was intensely demanding and delightfully troubling.

Projection-based video art like Wallpapers by a collective of artists (Nicolas Sassoon, Sylvain Sailly, Krist Wood, Laura Brothers, Brenna Murphy, Rollin Leonard, Lorna Mills, Rick Silva, and Sara Ludy) was displayed upstairs, where psychedelic prints, gif loops, and vegetative patterns rotated at intervals. Tucked around the corner, hidden just behind fabric curtains, was Light Bar, an installation bar created by Instant Coffee to explore light therapy by mixing tiny mojitos for the depressed.

On the final night, the space on the second floor was repurposed into one big room that remained impenetrably black. British DJs, Visionist and Wen, made use of it with Visionist’s hard, thundering bass vibrating the ribcage, and Wen playing dirty with twisted, strong beats.

While NFF wrapped up at Science World officially on Saturday, free outdoor performances as well as after-parties made it hard to tell when it actually ended. DJs Sotofett and Fett Burger, Norwegian brothers who started up the techno label Sex Tags Mania, scored the afternoon away with sounds like reggae, R&B, and garage, to name a few, to a chilled-out crowd on an unnaturally sunny day.

It was a dreamy send-off for a popular and challenging arts and music festival. It’ll be a worthwhile wait to see NFF top themselves again next year.

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