Nyege Nyege Festival, uganda: The irresistible urge to dance
‘At what other festival would the standard transport to the site be on the back of a muddy motorcycle (a boda-boda), clinging to its driver's back for dear life? And at what other festival could you take a time out by walking a few steps and drinking in the majestic sight of the Nile?’
Comunité, Mexico: panacea for the January blues
‘Down at the Jungle stage the Venezuela-born, Berlin-based DJ/producer Uchi was turning in a set of startlingly dark, esoteric noise; as I arrived she was dropping Christoph de Babalon's "Dead (Too)", a track I last heard coming out of my own stereo speakers in 1998.’
Brave factory 2017, Ukraine
‘Brave! Factory is run by the people behind Closer, the first high-quality house and techno club (and an art space, clothes store, record shop, rehearsal space and cafe to boot) to open in the city, and a place described to me over the weekend by more than one of Closer's regular international bookings as “easily one of the best clubs I've ever played”’
Atlas Electronic, morocco: No more lonely nights in the desert
‘Moroccan DJ Driss Bennis underscored Atlas's stated commitment to being “a cultural bridge” between Europe and Africa by dropping the Scottish producer Lanark Artefax's instant classic “Touch Absence” to a rapturous reception, especially from myself.’
Selina sims, colombia: you medellin kids!
‘The place notorious as the "most dangerous city on earth" during the 1980s heyday of Pablo Escobar's Medellín Cartel has undergone a major image change in recent times,. El Poblado, the southern district I stayed in, could be a hip area of Barcelona or Brooklyn.’
Nuuk Nordisk, Greenland: one of the world’s most outer-edges festivals
‘I never actually saw the Danish male-voice choir Vox Aros perform in a conventional music venue, but I did catch delightful impromptu performances by them aboard a bus, in the festival’s communal dining hall, and in the baggage collection room at Nuuk airport.”
Interval natural, Romania
‘Rasnov Citadel isn’t the kind of place a promoter could secure without serious groundwork in any country. The fortress is the country’s third-most popular historical monument and looms over the small town of Rasnov like a Transylvanian Edinburgh Castle, with Hollywood-style white lettering spelling out “RASNOV” to anyone looking from the streets below.’
club to club, italy: dancing cheek to cheek
‘Kamasi Washington and his band's glorious show was unsurprisingly my highlight, and a fascinating discussion event earlier in the day with the Swiss art historian Hans Ulrich Obrist a few hours earlier made it very much the Los Angeles jazz virtuoso's day.’
berlin atonal: plenty of fun to be had in the dark
‘The vast Kraftwerk venue, in both its enormousness and its stark, smoky look, is the kind of music venue one might have a fever-dream about Berlin having, without ever thinking that such a ridiculously “Berlin” building could actually exist in real life.’