MOVEMENT TORINO MUSIC FESTIVAL – REVIEW
The hotel room is trashed. We’re downing whisky red-bulls and doing jumping split squats. A strange man keeps introducing himself as Julian before laughing and explaining that’s not his name, and repeating. There’s a girl staring in a mirror freaking out because “my forehead just got bigger”. An Iranian guy is passed out on the bed with a Dutch model agent.
Two hours previously, Stacey Pullen declined our offers in an elevator of “heading into town for a few Disaronno shots.”
An hour before that a Scottish journalist reportedly from Mixmag asked Derrick Carter “So what do you do?” whilst trying to steal a cigarette in the smoking area.
Welcome to the last day of Movement Festival.
It’s the 10th anniversary of what may just be Italy’s best-kept secret: the sister festival to Detroit Movement. Held in a former Fiat factory this vast 5-room monster takes place over one epic day at the end of October, featuring the likes of Nina Kraviz, Stacey Pullen, Alan Fitzpatrick and Derrick Carter. For those of you who want to get as weird as we did, there’s also an official pre-party held at a separate venue – this year fronted by Kerri Chandler and Davide Squillace, as well as an eerie sit-down sort of techno-lecture on day 3 hosted by RBMA.
“We’re obviously the sister to Detroit Movement, much like the city of Torino, in it’s own way, is the sister to Detroit” explains the owner Juni. “But Movement Torino has it’s own soul. We’re all about trying to create something beautiful and moving out of what’s basically a dirty underground party”
Tall order, but Movement delivers. The main event’s five 4-story high rooms are stripped out to nothing but white strobes and blue and light bursts. The place has the cold-yet-sweat-inducing feel of Berghain. Those fancying vocals quickly migrate to the house enclosure – a sea bathed in red where Henrik Schwarz is either preparing an elaborate meal for 6 or working on an ever more complex live act. Over in a sea of fist-bumps is DJ Sneak, the house gangster. No nonsense. No hype. Taking it back to the old school. T-shirts available at the bar.
Drift through the fog of cigarette smoke and loud Italians in regulation all black leather and you’ll find yourself where we did for most of the night: watching Floorplan turn things just a bit weird in perfect sync with our group which had at that point descended into a whisky-and-red bull fuelled madness. Meanwhile back on the bewildering expanse of the main floor Len Faki is powering up a still totally heaving crowd of mostly Italians. It’s 4am, but it still feels like 1. The place is fluid, crowd on the move room to room, sampling vibes.
A curious mix of wonder, awe and suspense, a kind of overtired mania set in as Floorplan drops Kaytronik’s rework of Sunday Morning by Seven Davis Jr. This place.
Techno and trashed hotel rooms. Beautiful scenery and sub bass. Fist bumping and changeable foreheads. It was leftfield, it was totally unexpected, it was Movement. Go see it for yourself.
