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INTONAL the Swedish four day experimental electronic music festival has just closed its doors, but will according to the organizers be back again next year. INTONAL gathers the elite in the genres of minimal, electro noise, techno, electronica, drone and pure experimental music in one place. One of this year’s main attractions was the live performance of electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick, but there were many more interesting acts, both established performers like TM404 (Andreas Tiiliander), Tyler Friedman, Toulouse Low Trax, Kassem Mosse, and SØS Gunver Ryberg. And we know that the ambitions are set high as is quite clear from the posting on Facebook: “We want Intonal to be a place where seemingly difficult and inaccessible musical expressions are transformed into open and joyous experiences. We believe that if artists are granted freedom to explore their musical limits and move beyond existing conventions, open-minded attendants will be handsomely rewarded. Curiosity is the nemesis of boredom. Together we aim to create an arena where different kinds of art and music expressions can unite and be presented to a wider audience. Intonal is a true partnership, and we include our visitors in that word.

Stereoklang can testify to that the ambitions of INTONAL 2016 were clearly met and to start it all off we will jump directly into one of the main performers this time around – the pioneer himself Morton Subotnick.

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Morton Subotnick, most famous for the ground breaking piece Silver Apples of the Moon, performed with a one hour electronica piece where he meshed clicks, noise and ambient voices with repetitive soundscapes and dreamy pads. For the gross part a very intriguing performance and a delicate mix of visuals with sound. However, after one hour it kind of became too much of the same but it surely put the audience in trance. Perhaps more interesting was the performance of Thomas Ankersmit who brought a nice Serge Modular on stage and spent nearly a full hour exploring different wave forms and experimental noises. For us the imagery almost put us back into the time of WWII. The resemblance of an Enigma operator or war field radio communicator was not too far off especially as the distant cracks and electric noises at points sounded like you were in the midst of a war zone.

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But INTONAL is far more than minimal soundscapes and electric fields, there also a place for acts like LXMP and NOS ++T++ who with a massive amount of energy mixed repetitive drum beats on real analog drum sets, with chip tune melodies and obscure duck noises, almost in the spirit of Telex. Perhaps the most impressive part of these guys on stage were the fact that they were really playing all synths live on stage. In a time when far too many electronica acts just have their Mac Book on stage, and at most plays some over the top pads on a real synth, these guys were a refreshing take on live performance with synthesizers. Was it good? Well it was a frenzy of energy and a nice mix of music styles with influences and rip offs from classic 70’s tracks and sometimes in the clear spirit of how Silicon Teens used to make covers of old 50’s songs.

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Moving on we also had the more rhythmic guys on stage featuring acts like Tyler Friedman, TM404, Kassem Mosse, and SØS Gunver Ryberg. The massive loops and beats put the audience into a sweet trance mode. Repetitive beats with slick metallic pads and noise carpets provided a stark contrast to the minimalist stuff coming from modular machines earlier in the evening. To get a feel for the overall session we have added a live video capture from the performances taking place during Saturday below:

Stereoklang video featuring Ankersmit, Subotnick, Friedman, NOS ++T++, and LXMP live at Inkonst 2016
(short intro by KEPLR+16b)

 

DJs and Artists on SoundCloud:

Asked in a recent interview:
What concept did you have in mind when you’ve put together this festival and what’s the idea behind it?

Ulf Eriksson: It started as an international collaboration between Inkonst, CTM and Unsound. I had for several years tried to get funds for common projects but never had any luck. Anyway, 2014 I got some positive answers for a festival collaboration focusing on experimental music and art. Intonal was born. I called up Mats Lindström at EMS and told him about the festival idea and basically asked if he was interested to join. Same story with Inter Arts Center, another main collaborator. So what we had now was a really strong and interesting cluster of partners. We had two major international festivals, EMS, a world famous studio environment for electroacoustic music and sound-art, IAC, an interdisciplinary platform for artistic research and experimental art and finally Inkonst, the stage, the club and the core of production. I would say this cluster is the strength of the festival and what makes it unique. We have a lot of competence in different parts of the experimental scene, all put together into a weekend mashup. Intonal is a festival where academic music gets to meet club music and our aim is to create an environment where it feels very natural to move between the two. As an organizer, I feel a lot of joy when a “raver” gets a chance to experience some modern composition played on the Acousmonium (multi channel speaker system) and vice versa.

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As mentioned INTONAL promises to be back next year in the mean time make sure to check out the full list of performers from this year´s event and see what you missed out on. We here at Stereoklang only managed to see a fraction of all the goodies this time around but we will make sure to make more headroom for next year’s event.

INTONAL on Facebook >>
INTONAL homepage >>

ARTISTS
Morton Subotnick & Lillevan
James Holden & Camilo Tirado
Stephen O’Malley
SØS Gunver Ryberg
Rrose
Kassem Mosse
Apeiron Crew
Tolouse Low Trax
TM404
Peder Mannerfelt
Camilla Sparksss
SooJin Anjou plays Morton Subotnick
LCC
rRoxymore
Rrose plays James Tenney
Kara-Lis Coverdale
Thomas Ankersmit
DJ Phuong-Dan
Wolf Müller
Tyler Friedman
Maria w Horn
Mats Erlandsson
LXMP
67,5 Minut Projekt
NOS++T++
Acousmatic For The People
Sonic Art Chamber Music
DJ Olivia
DJ Palmalova
DJ Rivet (Kess Kill Special)
DJ Third
DJ Finn of Tomland
DJ Jurko Haltuu
DJ Elena Wolay
DJ Frankie Twilight
DJ Mai Nestor
DJ Mobiletti Giradischi
DJ Christian Pallin

INSTALLATIONS
Marcus Pal “Welcome in, Outside”
Janna Holmstedt “In the Greenary”
Nevin Aladag “Traces”
Fabien Giraud “The Straight Edge”
Franz Edvard Cedrins “Moutheye/Munöga”

TALKS
Gram[m]ofon with Mats Almegård interviewing Lillevan, Dj Olivia & Tolouse Low Trax
Lisa Blanning interviewing Kara-Lis Coverdale & TM404
Sound in the City seminar