‘This is one dj you don’t want to fuck with’, says a voice halfway through Mad Miran’s DJ set. And so it is. The young Amsterdam Miran Bel Hanafi (26) grins broadly because she gets the closing moment of Dekmantel Festival on Saturday and transcends herself. She strings together electro, acid house and fast zombie rave and really starts the engine of her set at three quarters with a roaring track that lands on warm synthesizer tones from producer Thugwidow.
This way you let an up-tempo set catch your breath. The apotheosis of Mad Miran’s fast-paced original set is a bouncing record that sounds like a box of ping pong balls bouncing through the semicircular corrugated iron shed. How do you mix that together? Miran does it with verve and unbelievable pleasure. Later they will say that this set, provided by the British online television channel Boiler Room shared with millions of viewers at home, did the same for her career as previous Dekmantel sets in the Boiler Room shed have done for big names like Carista and Job Jobse.
The Amsterdam Dekmantel Festival is a quality mark for underground music and a springboard for local talent. That was already the case with the first edition in 2013 and that still applies after three years of absence due to the pandemic. The last edition was in 2019, more than a third of the artists that were booked then can still be seen and yet the festival feels contemporary. It sounds like there is momentum for British rave, a nostalgic longing for the freedom and warmth of the early days of house. You hear a lot of drum and bass, jungle, 2step and garage: broken rhythms and breaks with sweet vocals pitched up. Speed is creeping up everywhere – higher, highest!
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Photo Tim Buiting
Thinking in boxes is out
Whether it concerns DJ Sully, Sherelle, Josey Rebelle, Anz or the three founders of the Hessle Audio label: there is plenty of room for the UK sound – although that term remains a catch-all. It might be better to say that genre restrictions are gone. Boxing is out, inclusion is the code.
You can see it on the festival stages in the Amsterdamse Bos. Earlier that Saturday, DJ Dee Diggs sheds a tear toward the end of her opening set on the main stage, where she just played a house classic from her hometown of New York, Todd Terry’s Club Weekend. Her tracks give a sense of connection. The rainbow colored visuals refer to Pride week; meanwhile, her agent Ilyas Fdis makes movies. He explains that the name of his agency ‘Minor AM’ is a nod to the word ‘minorities’. Eight of the eleven artists he represents, mostly part of the LGBTQIA+ community, are at the festival. “You can see that they have thought about representation at Dekmantel,” he says. “In a few years that will be the standard.”
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Diversity is also reflected in the edgy dressed international visitors: they range from men in pink harnesses to music hipsters with bags with record label logos. And yes, the men with soldier chests and Aphex Twin shirts are there too.
You can hear that inclusivity especially with the new The Nest stage. Here, eclectic and experimental beats can be heard in great sets by the likes of Simo Cell, PLEAD and Phillip Jondo, who mix Arabic vocals and a Turkish drum. Everything is possible, everything is allowed and the public is looking forward to it. Or take the special chemistry between Amsterdam’s Jasmín and French DJ OKO – despite the power cut twice. OKO plays the more melodic tracks and Jasmín plays the experimental beats and Latin rhythms.
Live music
Earlier in the week there were also concerts on the four stages around the IJ (Bimhuis, Muziekgebouw aan het IJ, Parallel and Shelter). Although a real classic as opener was missing, there was still plenty of beautiful live music to discover. Such as the beautiful soprano vocals of New York’s Ana Roxanne and the sloshing beats of British producer Lorraine James, who found funk in the midst of chaos.
Of course, there is again plenty of choice stress. Are you going to end the Saturday with garage legend DJ EZ? Or do you go for the more subdued house records that British gourmet DJ Call Super weaves into his set like a carpet? Or after the euphoric nostalgic hits of the American lovers Octo Octa and Eris Drew?
Once again there is more good music to be heard than your eyes and legs can handle. This means that after almost ten years of organizing festivals, Dekmantel remains more relevant than ever.