What To Expect From London’s Inaugural Re-Textured Festival
By Something CuratedLondon’s first Re-Textured Festival, dubbed “a multi-venue, multi-sensory festival concept,” will bring some of the city’s most iconic Brutalist buildings to life for four days, with musical performances and ambitious light installations, commencing Thursday 28 March. According to the festival’s organisers, brothers Danny and Kieran Clancy, “London has a thriving electronic music scene but we want to dig deep by providing an inspiring setting; we hope to give more underrepresented genres such as ambient, drone, leftfield, electronic and techno a bigger amphitheatre to be heard.”
From the 1950’s through to the 1970’s, Brutalist buildings flourished in London, and some of the most notable examples in the city are the Barbican Centre and the National Theatre. The industrial style of architecture is marked by slabs of concrete and block forms in a style that was often thought of as unappealing; in recent times though, the aesthetic is back in vogue. The E1 London, Southbank Centre and 180 the Strand are among the buildings that will play host to a series of audio-visual events over the coming weekend. The team behind the festival believe the architecture is as significant as the music, serving as the inspiration for a unique experience.
This thoughtfully curated event comes from the minds that created Krankbrother, owned and operated by DJ’s and siblings Danny and Kieran Clancy. The group promotes popular events featuring some of the most important names in the electronic and ambient music worlds.“Particularly with this line-up compared to line-ups we usually do for club nights, there’s a lot of artists, and one of the things that we really tried to do was bring artists to the forefront that don’t usually get to play a lot, and so we kind of avoid a lot of the regular headliners you tend to see on festivals and club shows,” Danny and Kieran explain.
The Re-Textured 2019 line-up offers a great deal of variety from talented up-and-coming DJ’s and artists, including Machine Woman, a Russian born sound artist and image maker whose work is inspired by “late night listening of down beat minimal electronica” and “melancholic world wide cinema.” Other musicians in the line-up include New York and Berlin-based composer Fatima Al Qadiri whose audio and visual work explores the experience of war, memory, Western perceptions of other cultures and sociocultural identity; and Demdike Stare, a dark ambient music duo featuring DJ Sean Canty and Miles Whittaker.
The first festival of its kind in London, Re-Textured 2019 promises to offer something memorable for art lovers, music fans and hedonists alike, while exploring the relationship between electronic music and urban landscapes. Check out the full schedule and purchase tickets here.
Re-Textured Festival (28-31 March 2019 – Various Locations, London)
Words by Sara Frazier | Feature image via Machine Woman