Now it’s LIB’s 20^th birthday and sanity has thoroughly eclipsed. Long forgotten are the times when bass music didn’t completely dismantle your brain. Rezz, Zhu, Glitch Mob, Mindchatter, Liquid Stranger, and Tokimonsta spearheaded the effort. Other artists like Phantogram, 070 Shake, and Ozomatli provided moments of respite between the chaos. Mind you, this is a five-day festival. There’s enough time to experience everything, but the pace is the trick.

Lightning in a Bottle’s geography compliments the lakefront. The Woogie stage is a northern star on the peninsula where typically more trance and house music is spun. Along the way there, you’ll find a myriad of satellite stages, shops, quaint pockets, and at one point a nice warm communal fire to rejuvenate at. It’s easy to get turned around, it feels like everything is always slightly off to where you last put it. It’s Alice in Wonderland scored in halftime dubstep.

Thunder and Lightning stage wrap around the water until you get to the desert campsites. Most of the music is scheduled for Friday – Sunday, which is naturally when the lake becomes its most crowded. Be that as it may, LIB’s stages for the last 2 years have never been as packed as other festivals. That’s one of my favorite things about it – you can go to the front of the stage if you wanted, or easily find a spot elsewhere if you prefer better audio. It’s meticulous and intricate, the vibrant atmosphere makes you forget how much effort goes into making it a smooth experience.

The number of solid Phantogram songs that I completely forgot existed is embarrassing. They’ve been jamming for more than a decade and in doing so stacked out their discography. “Fall in Love”, “Mouthful of Diamonds”, and “Run Run Blood” – the two-piece harbored a moody vibe that other acts failed to fly near. Rezz closed out on Sunday by taking that energy and clipping it. The Canadian glitch-bass alchemist launched remixes of Linkin Park’s “One Step Closer” and RATM’s “Killing in the Name Of”. Sophisticated flips that echoed the original artist behind screaming distortion walls we colloquially know her for.

My favorite of the festival was Moore Kismet, an 18-year-old glitch-bass artist who is leagues ahead of their contemporaries. Kismet’s music is an octahedron – it reflects an abundance of emotional electricity, in so many directions, and goes absolutely so needlessly hard. They are a master at micro editing, in producing music with thousands of different textures and paths that all flow down the same river. If G Jones is the darkness, Moore Kismet is the light. Both comprise the top of the game right now, and illustrate how intricate, emotional and connecting bass music can be. It’s truly a privilege to be able to see where their music will go in the near future.

Ozomatli played with Chali 2na and Cut Chemist, and I’m curious to see if other EDM publications cover it. On one hand, it’s not their wheelhouse. But will they oversee such a creative set? Frankly, the performance was a black sheep – Chemist only spun on vinyl, their instruments had playable frets and notes, and the rapping felt more like Kool & the Gang (Chali is getting old let’s not kid ourselves). They were one of the best performances of the entire festival, no contest, perhaps in spite of the excess of electronic music? Cut Chemist weaved a narrative with his sample choices: “In the beginning.. the music was simple” queued Ozo to start a drum circle. “Then.. it became more complex..”

Zhu’s set leveled up since his Countdown headline. Like literally, he’s 20 feet in the air on a walkable platform above fire dancers. Fitting his mystique perfectly, especially since there hasn’t been a Zhu performance before midnight in a healthy while. 070 played prior – it’s interesting to see how she was able to fit her performance into a festival that’s more or less already defined.

For example, and for the uninitiated, 070 Shake is the voice behind Fred Again’s “Danielle (Smile on my Face)” (Danielle being her actual real name). The crowd went wild for that track, yet lukewarm for the songs bookending it. The result is an inconsistent set, but one I enjoyed nonetheless. She has a solid command of auto-tune and I’m a simple man.

In reality, LIB is more than the sum of its parts, and dear god there are a lot of parts. It’s the only festival where the in-betweens are just as exciting as the main stages. I remember grabbing some lemonade adjacent to a small village where someone with a megaphone was playing Lego with an audience. Next to that, a perfect replica house from the 80s launching non-stop club music, immersed in drab wallpaper. Further down the road a large, trekking, fluffy beast was throwing a mobile rave – loyalists walking enticed and in tow. Campsites turn into boiler room sets. It never stops and in doing so feels like a census-designated area, if only for a moment.

It’s a safe festival that continues to be worth your time. One to consider when planning out your schedule for next year. Until then, keep an eye out for our upcoming interview with Nala, or check out last year’s coverage to compare and contrast the vibe. Lastly, lock into their socials, both for the main fest and the Do Lab to keep tabs on the forecast.

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In that sense, this festival was both the end and the beginning. A very loud and shiny bridge connecting two pillars together, as any New Year’s celebration does across the world. But the difference here is twofold:

Volume. Let’s not pretend contemporary electronic music isn’t indulgent. All you’re getting here are risers into drops into risers into drops into laying on the floor and taking it all in. It’s what the people want. Are the people wrong? 

The second is a vibe, or perhaps a theme? I haven’t seen anything like Countdown Fest. The sheer dedication to the premise of the “alien invasion NY event” was bewildering and aggressively vivid. Performers placed into the crowd as guerilla insurgents dressed like aliens with hazmat handlers scooting from point A to point B. You could mind your own business and not notice the group of robots dancing in synch with brain-bleeding sub-bass bumps. Everything here was meticulously planned for immersion: stages, decorations, actors, it was overwhelming.

It’s a double-edged sword though, at least to weird pretentious music journalists like me. The marketing for Countdown was cheesy and unappealing. I had no idea the extra mile Insomniac went by ensuring a safe and unique experience – at least not by promo alone. Like okay, your socials are run by a quirky alien that ~ †ålk$  L¥ke ‡h1s ~. That doesn’t interest me. What does make an impact are the noticeable details: quick turnovers, arts & crafts stations, theme park rides, superb audio, and there was even some dude giving out haircuts. 

But you’re not here to get a fade, you’re here to enshrine a core memory. There were four mainstages, in descending order of grandiosity: Mothership, Nebula, Area 51, and Twilight. Each employed a vague genre for most of the night. Area 51 was mostly for the wooks, with Jantsen and Ahee -esque acts. The mainstream favorites like Madeon, the Chainsmokers, and Zedd took over Mothership for two nights. Twilight and Nebula were mostly left with tech house and bro-step: JAUZ, Flosstradamus, Maya Jane Coles, and Habstrakt to name a few.

Deadmau5 was possibly my favorite. His visuals are gorgeous and the new Kx5 tracks are melodically wonderous. Even some of Joel’s oldest tracks still hit: “Maths,” “Ghosts,”
“Cthulu Sleeps,” it’s difficult to make a “timeless” electronic song and this dude went and made twenty. “When the Summer Dies” is such a good song, utilizing Lights’ properly Mau5’d vocals paired with the kinetic typography in the background. Perfection.

Minnesota is still a really underrated DJ but his people were waiting for him at Area 51. He played a particularly enticing Ludacris/G Jones remix, in addition to his standard armaments “Devour” and the IDHS remix of “Confusion”. Nothing too out of the ordinary with his brothers-in-amps: Virtual Riot carried that torch until the end of the night, the same flame lit by Saka hours earlier. 

The latter has blown up in 2022 and his growth has been nothing short of inspiring. It really makes you have faith in the process that truly unique music floats up in time and after seeing him at Lightning in a Bottle last year, I have only excitement in seeing Saka’s next move.

We were welcomed to Nebula stage by the very subtly named Good Times Ahead, a DJ duo comprised of, you guessed it, two men in their late twenties wearing necklaces. Albeit crass, I quite enjoyed their “Legend of Zelda” remix as did the rest of the audience. ARMNHMR plowed the stage thereafter although I quite preferred Yellow Claw’s energy to theirs. It’s a lopsided comparison. the Claw have been in the game for about a decade with their over-compressed festival anthems, directly from the crystal springs of Holland. Los Amsterdam has aged surprisingly well if you’re a hedonist, because tracks like “Hold On To Me” (featuring our aforementioned Good Times Ahead) and the transient-laced “Open” are formidable in 2023. On the flip side, ARMNHMR’s mixing didn’t impress me much for someone who didn’t know them. They also lacked aliens with ray guns dancing on stage so, I mean, come on now. 

Speaking of Amsterdam’s finest, jump over to our Mau P interview we published last week to get some more insight on the outlook of one of 22’s biggest DJs. He opened for Jason Ross and Deadmau5 on the Mothership stage; threw his trademark techno bop “Drugs in Amsterdam” like ninja stars during a Californian sunset.

Galantis’ set was a feature film. I really didn’t care for the music until going through the live experience. He played a three-song sequence that completely banished me into the shadow realm: “Seven Nation Army” (White Stripes) into “Chicken Soup” (Habstrakt) into “Robot Rock” (Daft Punk). The audacity. Visuals were mid but I was still in awe of the mainstage by that point: ribbons of massive speakers, tantalizing strobes for what felt like a kilometer backward. A particle, moving in rhythm with other happy particles, in a hanger the size of Star Wars carriers. 

If Galantis was a movie Zhu was the romantic evening surrounding it. He was the last act of the night on the Mothership and began the set with a low-key ambient movement. It was closer to 2 am at that point, so naturally, most of the townsfolk were waning away. The intro was soft and slow, gorgeous and cryptic – until it wasn’t. Dropping thereafter a rhythm so energizing I think my phone battery boosted by +3%. You don’t need me to tell you he played “Cocaine Model” although I like to think it was because of the girl holding up the sign: “ALEXA Play Cocaine Model by ZHU”. We’ve come a long way from the time he was that anonymous, hooded, night-sky DJ. I mean, we haven’t, but it feels like we have.

What I haven’t mentioned yet is the rain. Massive respect for Insomniac for keeping everything safe yet exciting in the face of the sky’s retribution. The torrent was manageable on day one but New Year’s proper was a true deluge. It felt less like a music festival than it did a water gym in Pokémon, with bass rumbles instead of boss battle music. And yet the rides were still operational. The stages were sequestered, the artists were dry, while the festival enthusiasts were huddled but raging appropriately. Genuinely it is impressive how they kept operations running in the midst of this, with the number of anomalies that come with the production and facilitation of a music festival. The trust I have in safety at music festivals certainly wavers, but Insomniac leveled up this weekend. 

And so 2023 inaugurates. With it comes a plethora of great music we haven’t heard yet, the anticipation of which is spent with jams we already love. Countdown was probably the most memorable NY event I’ve personally ever been to. If not because of the bass music, then because of the production and design. If not that, then because of the rain. I never realized a music festival could be this immersive – yes Tomorrowland has the stage architecture, EDC has the flamboyancy, and Coachella has… a Ferris wheel – but these aren’t immersive. These festivals don’t have side quests or NPCs or actors in the crowd fueling immersion. It’s difficult to comprehend the scope of it without attending especially when the marketing gimmick is an alien with broken English, but even that is thematically aligned. 

Amidst bass drops, melodic house arpeggios, the boons, croons, and all the drama that comes with delving into contemporary music culture, we here at Quip Mag hope you go forth this new year with the same astonishment that we reflexively vocalized when entering the NOS festival grounds on December 30^th 2022:

“Woah”

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Davies is originally from Manchester and is currently residing on the Isle of Wight, where he started his own label, Wight Label Records. Today he hosts the Wight Label Records Radio Show and tours Europe, DJing parties. With Bestival originating in the UK, it made perfect sense to have Martin Davies as a special guest. While his usual repertoire consists of melodic, deep, house, his beach-side set was built on disco undertones, with tracks like Faze Action’s “I Wanna Dancer” causing waves on the sand.

By the time Rob Da Bank entered the DJ hut, the path to the beach turned into a line quickly regulated by flanking security guards. The main stage was host to Born Ruffians, with a tight crowd of people singing along to “Needle,” “same as everyone spinning underneath the sun.”

On the other side of the park, the Big Top stage was beginning to fill up for Cashmere Cat and what would turn into an exploding party in a few hours. Magnus August Høiberg, a Norwegian DJ/producer who goes by the name Cashmere Cat (not to be confused with Cajmere) is one of those performers with a humble attitude. Similarly to Jamie xx, Høiberg didn’t interact with the crowd at all, but his set of skills is nothing to be shy about. With a solid bunch of appearances at the DMC World DJ Championships, Cashmere Cat was masterfully going through the Mirror Maru and Wedding Bells EPs.

Immediately following Høiberg was Lodewijk Fluttert, a Dutch producer known as Bakermat. Over the last couple years almost everything Bakermat released became a summer hit, so much so that he had his own stage at Tomorrowland in 2014. Joined on stage by his usual saxophone player, Fluttert went through his hits from “Teach Me” to “Another Man,” with an ear to ear smile on his face from the beginning to the end.

The next artist crew to take the stage was local success story, Keys N Krates. Having exploded onto the mainstream dance music scene with the track “Dum Dee Dum,” Keys N Krates have recently dropped an equally successful Every Nite EP. The main track from the EP, “Are We Faded,” has already been remixed by a variety of people, on multiple stages and was a sure way to pack in the tent with shouting, jumping fans reaching for the sky. Having a gift for crossing genres from various decades, Keys N Krates are also regular guests at the Red Bull Thre3style, so these guys really know how to get the crowd going. This set was alive.

A newcomer to the music scene, ZHU, was second last on the Saturday night bill. No one knew who Steven Zhu was until sometime last year when “Faded,” (and subsequently it’s remix by ODESZA) exploded on the internet. ZHU is one of those artists who prefers to be seen for his music alone, he doesn’t do many interviews and performed behind a veil which stretched across the entire Big Top stage, serving as a screen through which you could occasionally get a peak at Steven Zhu.

In less than a year, ZHU has acquired a massive fan base. The mosh pit for ZHU’s set ended a few meters outside of the Big Top tent and those who could not get close were scattered, dancing in the nearby area on the grass.

With photos still flooding, one by one, onto Instagram and people reminiscing about the weekend, it is clear that Bestival has made an epic entrance into Canada. We hope to see you back next year U.K., let’s make Toronto Island your second home.

photos by Erik Shaw

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This year Bestival is going to invade Canada’s Hanlan’s Point Beach, Toronto Island on June 12 and 13, 2015. Featuring performers from across the globe the line up announcement undoubtedly made waves across the province and beyond.

The festival has proven to be an “undisputed leader when it comes to off-the-wall production” in the UK and for the Canadian edition the organizers are promising more than just a festival, in their own words this is going to be “a creative wonderland.”  In the introduction Bank said they were beyond excited to take the festival outside of UK: “We’ve spent 12 years working up to this moment and are so proud to be teaming up with Toronto to launch the good ship that is Bestival overseas.”

The headliners are Florence and The Machine and NAS, who are both touring throughout the festival season with their return productions. What we are most excited for here at Quip is the subsequently following leftfield acts: Flume, Caribou, SBTRKT, ZHU, and Jamie XX, just to name a few.

Bestival has a potential of becoming Toronto’s counterparts to major festivals like Osheaga and Lollapalooza. We cannot wait to see what the UK crew has brought for us and to keep the excitement going we are giving away a pair of Bestival passes to one lucky fan. It is easy. It could be you.

You can enter to win a pair of passed to Besitval Toronto using one of the methods listed below:

1. Tell us you want to go to Bestival Toronto by tweeting at @QuipMag using hashtag #WinBestivalTO and following @QuipMag on Twitter.

2. Follow @QuipMag on Instagram and like + comment on our Bestival photo expressing your interest in winning the passes.

3. If you are not on either platform you can simply comment on this post. Make sure to use your real email address as we will use it to contact the winner.

We will pick one random winner from all the submissions and contact them via direct message or email shortly after the contest closes on April 19, 2015.

Other important stuff: Contest starts Monday, April 13th, 2015 at 10am and ends on Sunday, April 19th, 2015 at 10pm EST. Winners will need to be able to show photo ID. One entry per person. The contest is open to all residents of the Canada excluding Quebec. Must be 19 years of age or older at the time of entry. Members of Quip Magazine or it’s affiliates are not eligible.

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