Melt! Festival 2004
World Wide · 04.11.2004
By Ольга Черепан
16-18 July, 2004
Laurent Garnier, Ricardo Villalobos, DJ Koze, Peaches, Alexander Kowalski, Luciano, Captain Comatose, and others. The line-up speaks for itself. A similar line-up had been announced at the other electronic-music festivals held in Germany that summer. But what sets Melt! apart from all the rest is its unique location. The grounds of an abandoned brown-coal deposit faintly resemble the boundless steppes of Ukraine. Giant excavator machines, set on the peninsula of a small lake, form a kind of futuristic amphitheatre bearing the proud name City of Steel (Gorod Stali - ed.), or Ferropolis.
On the grounds of Ferropolis (about 90 kilometres from Berlin), originally conceived as an industrial museum, the Melt! festival has been held since 1995. Before that, brown coal was mined here. Thanks to one student's idea, the monster excavators came to serve as an unusual backdrop for events of this kind.
This lunar landscape in the provincial spot of Grafenhainichen, from 16 to 19 July, welcomed thousands of electronic-music lovers for the seventh time.
After the torrential rains of 2002 and the cancelled festival of 2003, this year the organisers set to work with fresh energy and inspiration. Melt! had never seen such a large-scale campaign to promote new talent and such a shrewd selection of already established artists in its entire seven-year history. In all, 107 musicians delighted the many-thousand-strong crowd of fans with their live performances and DJ sets - from the warm-up by the post-rockers of Tortoise to the soothing Andre Galluzzi. Electro from ADA and Ellen Allien, cheerful soul from International Pony, Senor Coconut with his multi-instrumental orchestra, DJ Koze with a stunning set of "noble" techno, sets by bands - the new sixties-style rockers Mando Diao, the electro-rock Northern Lite, Phoenix, Beige GT and T.Raumschmiere, Peaches' brutal performance, the provocative Captain Comatose, Mike Skinner aka The Streets with his street slang and melancholic pop-house from 2Raumwohnung. Shitkatapult label founder Marco Haas traced out musical pirouettes with his crew of the same name. DJs of world renown: Richie Hawtin, Ricardo Villalobos, as well as the guru of French electronic music Laurent Garnier - supplied the crowd with quality techno. The Kanzleramt and F-Communication labels, each celebrating its 10th anniversary, prepared a special programme for the festival. The Youngsters, who turned out to be very much "The Adults" in real life, and Alexander Kowalski, who on the contrary surprised everyone with his rather young age, delighted the audience with their live sets. Across the four dancefloors, one of which ran around the clock, there was enough room for everyone.
The musical spectacle was accompanied by the brilliant work of the lighting directors who, creating one-of-a-kind visual effects, turned the City of Steel - fearsome in daylight - into the fairy-tale lunar city of Ferropolis.
Now a little practical information that will be useful to those planning to go to the Melt! festival next year.
As early as the second day we set off to eat well in the neighbouring town of Grafenhainichen, which is 15 minutes' drive from Ferropolis - you can get there by bus or hitch a ride. Hitching a ride turned out to be easier. The little town proved to be a small, cosy village with single-storey houses, cobbled streets and friendly people. Here we ate very well and cheaply at a little Italian restaurant and stocked up on provisions at the local supermarket, which helped us save on the night-time bar. We got back just in time for the Senor Coconut Orchestra's set and carried on the celebration, at which everyone conversed in different dialects of the one language everybody understands - the language of music.