On the 23rd of November the Santuario festival took place in Madrid. It was one of the most awaited dates this year for lovers of the darkest sounds. The line-up had managed to bring together a good selection of the best of the new blood (with the return of Linea Aspera, two bands from the leading Dais label: Tempers and Kite, Principe Valiente and Catalan sensation Darkways) along with several old school artists (headliners The Sisters of Mercy, EBM legends Front Line Assembly and the return of Cycle, Culture Kultür and Stereoskop). Arriving at the Groof venue, located in the neighbouring municipality of Pinto, I couldn’t help but think back to the first DarkMad and all the things that had changed since then. I was going to the festival with two old friends who weren’t very used to these events: one I’d met in Milan who shared love for electronic music and another former Primavera Sound attendee with whom I used to chat about music when I was in my early twenties. I was eager to know what their reactions to the festival would be as they were not used to this style of music.
As soon as we arrived we took a look around the venue . This year the small stage had been left for the musicians to store their equipment while the main one had been divided into two. One of the problems of the festival was that in the quieter moments of some of the performances, the sound from the other stage was a bit audible. Luckily, though, there weren’t many quiet moments. We started the festival in the second stage, where, surrounded by a lot of smoke, the Valencian DJ Rafa Pastor, opened with a vinyl session. Rafa Pastor is one of the legendary DJs of the Valencian club Spook and also works runs a record shop called UltraSound, so you can imagine that he has quite a DJ bag. In his set he played classic EBM, with names like Tribantura and his ‘Getting Hurt or Killed’, ‘Clowns in Heaven’ by The Mao Tse Tung Experience (side project of Thomas Lüdke of The Invincible Spirit) and the fantastic Code Industry, re-released a year ago by the great label Dark Entries. The most Valencian moment was a ‘Stranger’ by Clan of Xymox that really transported us back in time.
Then we went to the big stage to see one of the bands I was most looking forward to seeing of the whole festival: the New Yorkers Tempers. Meanwhile, in the second stage Blood Desire was playing, a band from Madrid that I haven’t been able to see yet and I hope to see them next year in their concert with Romanthica. They are a band with a fairly loyal following, some of them friends of mine, who didn’t hesitate to choose to see them instead of Tempers and who later told me that they were good. Meanwhile, with their latest vinyl, entitled New Meaning, under my arm, I waited impatiently for Jasmine Golestaneh to appear, now accompanied by a guest musician who alternated between bass and keyboards. They suffered some light technical problems at the beginning with some guitar feedback, but things got better and better as the performance went on. Tempers managed to conquer our hearts thanks to their melancholic music that contrasted with the strong performance of Jasmina. They played some of their best songs, such as ‘Leonard Cohen Afterword’, they demonstrated their ability to handle all kinds of styles, even with that approach to indie that is ‘Capital Pains’, and they amazed us with songs as great as ‘Unfamiliar’ and the powerful ‘Strange Harvest’. They combined more atmospheric songs with some more danceable ones and proved to be one of the bands of the moment. We hope they come back soon on their own tour.
Like any event of this kind, it was also a chance to meet up with friends I hadn’t seen for a long time and to chat with some of the artists who had come to the festival: Manix, the boss of Caustic Records, dj David Aragón, Raúl Gayo from Ombra, Israel ‘Azotemental’, Nico ‘Dead Wax’ and Moira and Fernando ‘Shorai’, among others. When we got back to the small stage, New Wave Kills, one of the bands of the moment in Madrid, who we were able to see recently at the Siroco, were about to start. I didn’t want to miss a minute of Linea Aspera, so I ran to the main stage, but one of my companions was attracted by the band’s post punk sound as if it were the song of the sirens and he barely managed to escape.
Linea Aspera took the festival to the first division with a stratospheric stratospheric. The project of Alison
Lewis and Ryan Ambridge (who showed up in a stylish beret) delivered hit after hit to an audience that surrendered unconditionally from the first notes. They started with a slow and solemn ‘Preservation Bias’, which suffered from the sound overlap, and continued with a perfect selection of their best songs, which made the whole room dance non-stop. Alison sang fantastically and proved to have a truly hypnotic presence. Ryan was fantastic on synths and everything sounded great. We listened to great songs like ‘Hinterland’, with those wonderful synthesizers, ‘Entropy’ that caught us with its danceable melody, ‘Decoherence’ and, of course, ‘Lamanai’, sung with the passion of the Australian. Alison commented that it was the first time they had performed in Spain (a few years ago they had to cancel their performance at Ombra) and I hope that, after such a warm welcome, they will return soon. After a magnificent ‘Attica’, they continued with ‘Solar Flare’, another of the high points of the concert, something normal since it is one of their best songs, and they finished with an intense ‘Sypnapse’. Before leaving the stage, Alison shouted Viva Palestina, sent us a kiss and left with all our hearts.
As they were supposed to play at the same time as Linea Aspera I wasn’t expecting to see Principe Valiente, but in the end I was able to attend their performance almost in its entirety. Now they have become a duo, formed by singer Fernando Honorato, who also plays bass, and Jimmy Ottosson on guitar.With this line-up and with a very powerful sound, they played some of their best songs like ‘Strangers In the Night’, ‘Porcelain’ and ‘I Am You’. Fernando was great on vocals, with a very heartfelt performance while Jimmy Ottosson delighted us with very good guitars, sometimes with a more atmospheric and shoegaze feel, other times more post-punk. It’s a band we’ve been listening to quite a lot lately and we hope to see them in their own concert soon too.
We were really looking forward to seeing Accelerated Corrosion again after his successful live set last year, although he was unlucky to suffer some power cuts due to problems with the smoke machine. Still David was very professional throughout his set and had us all dancing to his mix of EBM and techno. He divided his set between new tracks, which we could hear there for the first time, and some of his older tracks like ‘TU’, ‘Counter 2’, ‘Parabellum’ or his own remix of Nightcrawler’s ‘Fire Within’.The producer has uploaded a selection that we could listen to on his own YouTube channel and there you can get a good idea of what we heard that night. We hope that soon we will be able to listen to all these tracks from our friends at Banshees Records.
One of the most awaited concerts of the night was Front Line Assembly‘s, after their last infamous visit to Madrid. They focused their performance on Tactical Neural Implant of which they played four songs, and this time Bill Leeb showed up and performed perfectly. Their show had a compact sound that I personally liked, although others would have preferred more definition. But what was evident was that they sounded overwhelmingly powerful. The first half hour was a blast, with a deafening and very powerful volume and with the audience stupefied . The second half was a bit more danceable and equally enjoyable. The concert started with ‘Final Impact’ which caught us off guard. They followed, without giving us a break with ‘Neologic Spasm’, and ‘Shifting Through the Lens’. At the start of this one, Jeff kicked the air and shrieked ‘Hua!’, and a thunderous sounding electronic drum machine kicked in. After that, they continued this sonic attack with the “fast and furiuos” ‘Plasticity’, with everyone on percussion in what I described as an ‘industrial batucada’. They slowed down the pace for an intense and captivating ‘Bio-Mechanic’ and got more danceable with ‘Killing Grounds’, which was very well received by the audience. They made me happy by playing one of my favourite tracks, ‘Resist’ from their Caustic Grip, a great sample of their nineties sound. ‘Deadened’ was followed by “Gun” and we were again amazed by all the musicians taking the percussion. They said goodbye with another classic: an apotheosic ‘Mindphaser’. One of the best concerts of the night and of the year.
Meanwhile, in the second scnario Stereoskop were playing, as Principe Valiente also reduced to a duo with Susana Egea on vocals and Alex Brujas on guitar. They had the bad luck that in the last rescheduling, they had to play at the same time as Front Line Assembly, a band difficult to see, which was the reason for many to come to the festival. Even so, many of us came to see the end of their performance in which they played songs from their latest album Silk like ‘My Side’ and they made us remember that time when we started listening to the the band with a fantastic ‘Sitting’ On a Fence’ in which both Alex with his pedals and Susana with her interpretation captivated us again.
Although the headliner of the festival was about to start, I wanted to listen to a track by Darkways, the latest darkwave sensation, and see if they were as solid as in the studio. And with the only song we could see, which was ‘Lies’, they showed us that they had a lot of experience and that they knew how to win over the audience from the beginning. They will be back in Madrid in June and we are not going to miss it.
I was telling my friends that you always have to see The Sisters of Mercy in case luck strikes and they give a good concert. And that night, in Santuario, the miracle happened and Andrew Eldritch and his band gave a very good concert. Already from the first songs, ‘Don’t Drive on Ice’ or ‘Ribbons’, the band, now with Kai on guitar, sounded quite good and Andrew could be heard singing. And singing well. Obviously he doesn’t have the voice of the eighties, but we had the best Andrew possible. Although they based part of their set on the new songs they will one day have to release, it didn’t take long for the classics to drop like ‘Alice’, which was followed by an atmospheric ‘Summer’ and a magnificent ‘Mother Russia’, which was captured by hundreds of mobile phones. And they continued to fly high with an apotheosic ‘Marian’. During one of the songs, a girl came up to me and said, ‘He’s got a voice that I would such his cock. Write it down’. These new Sisters have managed to turn their faults into virtues and so the new songs, such as ‘Eyes of Caligula’, ‘More’ or ‘But Geneviese’, focus on creating atmospheres and intensity and ensure that the concert has no dull moments. ‘When I’m on Fire’, another of the new songs, sounded great and already deserves to be in the group of the band’s classics. They closed with three classics: ‘Temple of Love’ which was preceded by a long intro and chanted by an audience that couldn’t believe what they were seeing. We finished with an immense ‘Lucretia My reflection’ and ‘This Corrosion’. Incredible.
Thanks to the delay we were able to see Txarly Usher’s new project, Telaraña with Orkatz Ira on guitar, Mario Gutiérrez on bass and Peibol on synthesizers. They make post-punk/coldwave with a deeply classic sound. Last year they released an album, titled Angustia, which I just put on as I write this and I think it is highly recommended for any post-punk lover. Evidently, few people can sound more authentic making this kind of music than Txarly. On this occasion he had nowhere to get on, but he did show that he is a tremendous showman and we couldn’t take our eyes off him. They played some of their songs like ‘Temblores’, ‘Fatiga’, ‘Fluoxetina’ or ‘Pánico’ and that tremendous tribute they did to Parálisis Permanente in the form of a version of ‘Tengo un Pasajero’.
Cycle‘s success coincided with the years I lived in England, so I was never a fan. That and the fact that they played at the same time as Black Nail Cabaret, a Hungarian duo I quite like, made me choose the latter. Although, I had time to go to the big stage to see how Carlos Ortega, the new singer, was doing and I thought he was giving it his best. A fairly large audience had gathered to see David Kano’s band, who have managed to make the band sound quite modern. As Fernando Shorai told us, the technician made each instrument sound in its place and I guess the fans would be delighted.
It was already quite late when the Hungarian duo Black Nail Cabaret appeared, one of the most awaited performances of the festival. The Hungarian duo surprised us with their staging, with a brief introduction of synthesizers and her appearing completely in white and with her face covered with a kind of rag. They showed great elegance in songs such as ‘My Casual God’ and ‘Totem and Taboo’, in which the singer finally showed her face. Beause of the late hour, they focused their repertoire on their most danceable songs like ‘Teach Me How to Techno’ although we had moments like ‘No Gold’, with all the drama of the original and a very strong performance by Emese Árvai-Illés. They said goodbye with ‘Bête Noire’, one of their best compositions that we enjoyed enormously. Fantastic.
In the big room we saw David El Niño who played Vitalic and Technasia‘s ‘Force’. There were a lot of people and they were all dancing. My friends liked the music a lot and stayed a bit more than me listening to the legendary DJ.
Culture Kultür, the band led by Salva Maine was back and their performance at Santuario was the first of their comeback. We had seen Salva earlier this year singing with his dark folk band Har Belex and we knew what a good front-man he is. Culture Kultür is a band that marked an era and it was only natural that their comeback gathered a good number of fans. They gave a great show of future pop with songs like ‘Drum Machine’ and ‘War is Over’, always danceable and some with almost trance touches with a sound quite faithful to the original nineties. The solidary lyrics of ‘Refugee’ sound perfect coming from a voice as warm as Salva’s, although he is also capable of using a more aggressive register as we saw in ‘Promised Land Blues’, one of the most powerful tracks in their repertoire. As with the rest of the bands, let’s hope to see them again in a solo concert.
Although we have seen them several times, but The Complexity managed to surprise us again. It was late, we were already tired but the band from Madrid managed to give a magnetic and surprising concert of something we could call EBM or maybe something else. Helped by an incredibly loud sound and blinding lights, Alex in his inseparable suit and as theatrical as ever, Carmen on keyboards and Frank on electronic drums embarked us on a sonic journey difficult to describe. They started off experimental and surprising, although it didn’t take them long to play their popular version of ‘Un día cualquiera en Texas’, which sounded really hard. We had EBM rhythms, a quite industrial and modern sound, criticisms of the financial system and quite long songs, among them their ‘The Executive’. Very intense. I loved it.
I was sad to miss World To Zero, who I had last seen at a Dominant event, but it was already after four o’clock and the next day I had some parental obligations waiting for me. And let’s finish with good news: the festival has already confirmed the date for next year.
