Berlin Atonal – the brainchild of one Dimitri Hegemann – first made its appearance in the early 1980s and has since represented revolution, innovation and anticulture through opening its doors to the various depths of electronica, noise and their surrounding genres. After a good eight-year run however, Hegemann departed to focus on the now established institution Tresor. Berlin Atonal’s hiatus would span 23 years until current festival directors Laurens von Oswald, Harry Glass and Paulo Reachi took over the reins, organising and curating the event since its 2013 rebirth. Now, the festival scatters its stages across Tresor and the small colony of venues which surround it: OHM and the mighty Kraftwerk, both of which are situated in the same complex. Year after year, Berlin Atonal has seemed to push the horizons for both contemporary and fringe-based sonic and visual arts, with little partition of creativity (save for the walls that separate the three venues.)
Spread over five days, daily proceedings begin in the early evening and are contained in Kraftwerk until the midnight mark. The first day’s Main Stage offerings notably included the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, whose work has been testament to Atonal’s long-standing forward-thinking ethos. The group provided some intelligent sound design, calling upon a variety of instruments from keyboards to what sounded like theremins, the end result being a dynamic convolution of frequencies and euphoric harmonies. The pièce de résistance? The workshop’s live version of the Doctor Who theme song which caused equal amounts of awe and joy to be able to see a national treasure in its audial flesh.
Once the Brits had finished their performance on the Main Stage, the obvious choice for the remainder of my Wednesday night was Stage Null. Situated just under the bulk of Kraftwerks main floor, Stage Null is well-conditioned to provide more dancefloor-oriented material in a more manageable space. Carla dal Forno was an act I’d been meaning to catch for a long while and the Blackest Ever Black affiliate did not disappoint. The Australian’s hour-long onstage performance was very powerful. She took to the stage solo, armed with just a guitar. Dal Forno’s vocals filled the space magnificently with her melancholic synth-pop renditions. Though not an inch-perfect match in comparison to the studio version in terms of key, her live performance of “What You Gonna Do Now” sounded organic and created a strong sense of claustrophobia in an otherwise immense space.
Demdike Stare are an act that cannot be seen enough. The Mancunian duo often divide their live performances with obvious disparity. If one minute they are conjuring a deep, brooding fear via nauseating drones, the next is sure to lie on the verge of breakneck drum and bass. Their fluid take on machine use for numbers at around 150BPM is enough to keep things fresh on the ears however, and they have acquired an idiosyncratic knack for throwing curveballs throughout their shows.
The only problem with a festival such as Atonal is the number of clashes in the timetable. World premieres, one-off performances, legends of the game and newcomers alike join the stage in concept performances, assuming a myriad of fresh noms de guerre for the occasion. The beauty of such diversity and risky programming is stumbling upon artists which would never be considered in your average line-ups. Such was the case for the find of the night on Thursday’s programme: Yousuke Yukimatsu. The Japanese DJ owned the dinge of OHM’s red-lit space. While drifting through techno, bass, drum and bass, he somehow dropped Metallica’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls” during his set.
Each stage had the full potential of its aesthetic utilised. Whether it was Varg and AnnaMelina presenting FLORA under a halo of dead bouquets, or Emptyset playing their gut-wrenching set amidst a piercing laser display, the stimulation of both eye and ear is what made each experience so unique. It was clear that each artist had prepared their performance accordingly.
Though the festival places emphasis on the challenging and obtuse, it wasn’t short of party style offerings. Tresor was the place to be for such things, naturally, and the dungeon was packed with sets from the likes of Moritz von Oswald, Shifted, Ulwhednar and an especially mind-blowing set from Russian-born DJ Anastasia Kristensen, who lived up to her current hype with an opening set on the Friday.
As a festival, Berlin Atonal has no direct competition. The venue, the line-up and the production are nigh impossible to replicate. The festival is a place for new and old to come together to try something different. Something risky. This year’s performances ticked all the boxes in this aspect, carrying on the legacy of founder Dimitri Hegemann’s intentions: “I’m a space pioneer,” he once said. “My mission is to transform industrial ruins into cultural spaces. I have ideas. We save cities, you know?”
Words by Jena Sivakuma.
Photos courtesy of the festival: Thursday at Berlin Atonal (top) and Anastasia Kristensen (bottom) by Camille Blake, Yousuke Yukimatsu (middle) by Helge Mundt.
Corrections: An earlier version of this piece stated that Yousuke Yukimatsu played Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”, and that Dimitri Hegemann was the festival’s current director.