In November this year, I made my way over to Utrecht in The Netherlands for a week away at the amazing Le Guess Who? Festival.
I was lucky enough to see a plethora of incredible artists, across many venues throughout the city, but the festival mainly took place within TivoliVredenburg; one of the most impressive music venues I’ve ever seen. Winding pathways and escalators connect mezzanines, bars and, of course, a huge array of gig spaces within the building. These spaces range from smaller venues such as Cloud Nine and Pandora to huge spaces like the 2000-cap Ronda and Grote Zaal (“Great Hall”). I’ve collated some thoughts and feelings from my time at the festival here, but it’s worth saying this is a fraction of my experience over the four days I spent seeing live music in that amazing city.
B. Kool-Aid
One of my favourite albums this year came from this duo, comprising of vocalist and incredible artist in his own right Pink Siifu and producer Ahwlee. The summery aesthetic and cool mood of “Leather Blvd.” was captured perfectly on stage, with hypnotic live drums and keyboard accompanying Awhlee’s beats – sometimes foregoing them entirely. Siifu commanded the performance throughout; he held the audience in the palm of his hand and he knew exactly what to do with it – his cool, meticulous vocals blending hip-hop and a woozy, jazzy take on modern R&B sat perfectly in the mix, and I really felt like I was listening to an enhanced, more in-depth version of the album as opposed to a live performance.
Highlights: “sound good”, “Cnt Fk Around”
Lost Girls
I went into this one blind, I had an empty hour or so on my first evening at the festival and these guys seemed interesting. I was stood close, but very far left of the stage just behind the monitor mixing desk, and as a result I had a very clear sound from the engineers’ in-desk mixing speakers. I’m glad I did, as a bulk of the beauty of the performance lay within the precisely arranged synth melodies and quiet, arpeggiated guitars – the subtleties of which I fear may have been lost towards the back of the venue. Jenny Hval’s vocals are wonderful, with the closing track “With the Other Hand” being a clear highlight of the set, and a showcase of her songwriting talent. That chorus melody is still in my head a whole festival and a few weeks later.
Highlights: “Timed Intervals”, “With the Other Hand”
Slauson Malone 1
Slauson Malone 1 is a collaborative performance between producer, vocalist and multi instrumentalist Jasper Marsalis (AKA Slauson Malone), and cellist Nicky Wetherell. More than any other perfomance I saw this year, this toed the line between a gig and a performance art piece. Abrasive drum machines and autotune-tinged screaming give way to gentle acoustic plucks and tender vocals, with Wetherell contributing a dynamic, enthralling cello performance throughout. Near the start of the set, Marsalis jump into the crowd, creating a faux-mosh pit around himself, launching into members of the crowd while the music itself took a lull. He actually ended up singling me out, shouting in my face and eventually collapsing at my feet in a sort of foetal position, screaming into the microphone and writhing on the floor as the low rumble of feedback built up over the speakers. It’s worth mentioning that he had some really good songs too.
Highlights: “Voyager”, him stopping his set to walk around the crowd and ask people individually “what time is it?” for around three minutes.
Armand Hammer
Billy Woods and ELUCID’s most recent album together, “We Buy Diabetic Test Strips”, is another project up there with my favourite releases of the year. JPEGMAFIA had a big hand in the production of the album, alongside other legendary names in underground hip hop such as Black Noise and El-P. The result is a broody, enigmatic work, a claustrophobic soundscape through which Woods and Lucid deliver some of their most evocative and beautifully written verses to date. I love this album, but I was curious to see how the duo would make it work in a live setting.
Turns out, it works brilliantly. Lit from the back, shrouded by what must be the legal limit of smoke machine vapour for an indoor venue, the music looms over the crowd, each verse delivered perfectly and punctuated by outlandish sample flips and hard drums. Around half way through the set, Pink Siifu, who had been watching from the side stage, jumped on for a couple of collab tracks. A glass of red wine in one hand, and the rest of the bottle in the other, he was clearly in his element. It feels good to watch the camaraderie and friendship of artists out in the open like this, while they still deliver introspective and thought-provoking work. Any air of pretension about this music disappears once you’ve seen it live.
Highlights: “Tabula Rasa”, “Woke Up and Asked Siri How I’m Gonna Die”, Pink Siifu hopping on the set for a few tracks
Tom Skinner
I was looking forward to seeing what Tom Skinner, the master percussionist behind bands such as Shabaka Hutchings’ Sons of Kemet, and, more recently, Thom Yorke’s The Smile, had to offer as a solo artist. Sons of Kemet were a highlight of the COVID-blighted LGW 2021, coaxing a nervous, seated crowd out of their anxiety about the impending winter lockdown in the Netherlands into smiling, dancing, and letting loose for a transcendent hour and a half. The Smile, although I am yet to see them live, seem to have a youthful, experimental energy to their live shows that isn’t there in Radiohead’s latest performances, as masterful as they are. Is Tom Skinner the driving force behind this energy? Will he have the crowd uncontrollably dancing within the first few minutes, as he has done on tour with his contemporaries for years? …No. No he won’t.
In retrospect, if I had ever listened to any of his solo work, I would know exactly what to expect – intricate and playful jazz chord progressions, with expressive, complex percussion sometimes taking the lead, sometimes sitting towards the back, but always driving the music forward. However, I went in blind, and I was treated to an understated but gripping performance, challenging the audience just the right amount without losing the crowd’s attention whatsoever. A much needed break, personally, from the more energetic hip hop shows over the last few days, and a personal highlight of the festival.
Highlights: “The Journey”, “Quiet as it’s Kept”
MIKE
MIKE has gradually risen to the top of my list of favourite artists this year. Following the collaborative album ‘Faith is a Rock’ with Wiki and The Alchemist in September, he delivered an excellent solo album in ‘Burning Desire.’ The latter is both moving and fun, featuring beautifully crafted lyrics delivered over dark, winding, introspective instrumentals—many of which he produced himself. I was eagerly anticipating his performance at LGW, and he certainly lived up to expectations.
Around three tracks into the set, MIKE observed that the crowd needed a bit of loosening up. A noticeable contrast emerged between the die-hard fans, who knew every word, even to the newest tracks on the setlist, and the curious music fans who might have expected something more typical of your average hip-hop act—with skittering hi-hats and booming 808s. To bring everyone together, MIKE engaged in a bit of audience participation: on the count of three, we were instructed to hold our hands outward and shimmy as if keeping up with an imaginary hula hoop. After a few seconds of this, the crowd unified in amusement at how silly we all looked. The more stony-faced, serious rap fans’ façades broke immediately, creating an amazing mood for the rest of the set.
Highlights: “Ho-Rizin”, “African Sex Freak Fantasy”, “Hunger”, the weird little wiggle he made us all do
Faiz Ali Faiz
Grote Zaal, the vast venue on the ground floor of TivoliVredenburg, is by far the most impressive venue in the building, which is saying something. The rows of seats towering overhead, the labyrinthine geometry of the stairs and pathways surrounding the crowd on the floor, the intricate acoustic design that gives any performance a burst of colour and a tasteful reverberation that must’ve taken a genius to calculate – it was designed to be filled by the best music the world has to offer, and that’s exactly what LGW brings to the table. In years past I’ve seen Fatoumata Diawara completely dominate the stage with her expressive, jubilant sound, masterful songwriting and world-class band. I’ve seen full orchestras in this room, as well as small groups from the other side of the world play their indigenous folk music to thousands of foreign people for the first time in their careers. But Faiz Ali Faiz’s enchanting performance may be the best thing I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in this room. Sat in a lotus position, accompanied by seven other vocalists, some sporting harmoniums, tablas and other traditional Pakistani percussion, he commanded the stage. His voice perfect for the traditional Qawwalisinging, he lulls the audience in with gentle, twisting, tonally complex vocal performance, and builds into a crescendo of seemingly impossible scale and volume. The group vocals are tight and harmonically rich, the rhythms are hypnotic, the content hum of the harmoniums trance-inducing. A truly spiritual experience, and a perfect end to my week in Utrecht.
