"Without Love, This Doesn't Exist": Amplifest Weekend Two Unites Experimenters and Collaborators
If weekend one of Amplifest was a multi-course meal of metal, weekend two felt like a dessert cart of experimentalists, improvisers and post-everything layer cakes.
“I think this year is our most intense lineup,” Amplifest organizer André Mendes says.
The second weekend began on Thursday with a film screening and a set by Shy, Low. Cave In brought the hardcore heaviness immediately after, and then Caspar Brötzmann served up the first helping of guitar experimentalism.
It seems to have been no accident that many of this past weekend’s musicians have collaborated in the recent past. Brötzmann is one of several musicians in attendance to have collaborated with Aaron Turner, who touched off Friday’s prime-time lineup with Sumac ahead of Buñuel and Deafheaven and followed with a Sunday drone set that held the Beerfreaks Stage spellbound for the better part of an hour.
…
…
“I’m part of a musical community that’s continually inspiring to me,” Turner says. “It’s a wonderful network to be a part of.” In addition to Brötzmann and envelope-pusher Keiji Haino, Turner has previously collaborated and/or toured with others who featured over the weekend, including Fennesz and prolific guitarist Tashi Dorji, who dueted with Sumac drummer Nick Yacyshyn on a relentless, jazzy improv set.
…
…
“We’d never played together, but we know each other from touring together,” Dorji says. “Improvisation is explosive. If you’re willing to not be fearful and fall off that fucking cliff of possibilities, it’s cathartic.” Like other acts on the Amplifest lineup, Dorji had a full hour with Yacyshyn to work with. In addition to deploying a screwdriver on his guitar, Dorji twice used masking tape as a kind of capo. “Tonight, it worked,” he says.
The production of this grand reunion is no small feat. Stage manager Vítor, who says he “lives for soundchecks,” says coordinating among artists and preparing the stage is pretty much a 24-hour job during the festival. He’s carved out a small chunk of time for Hellripper and Spectral Wound, but is otherwise on the clock. Like Mendes, he loves what he does. “My life is live music,” he says.
…
…
Weekend two offered not only space to genre-pushing bands from outside Portugal, but also to Portuguese bass fiends Scúru Fitchádu and post-rockers Indignu.
“There’s a very deep tradition of melancholy [in Portugal],” Indigo violinist Graça Carvalho says. “We’re very comfortable in this mood of saudade, so we have a different approach to music.” Their forthcoming album Adeus is steeped in this nuanced variety of longing. The violin passages soar above a sea of Afonso Dorido’s prog-influenced guitar and a propulsive, hardcore-infused rhythm section.
Like others in the northern Portuguese scene, COVID raised existential questions for Indignu, but the band made lineup changes ahead of Adeus and found things “falling into place” in the year leading up to the festival. Indignu was in good company “pouring out” their full feelings onstage to an international audience.
…
…
Godspeed You! Black Emperor was the culmination of the weekend’s rock acts before Scúru Fitchadu and The Bug featuring Flowdan strained Hard Club’s subwoofers during a final dance party of an evening. The Canadian post-rockers had a set of six projectors at the ready behind the sound and light booth, and during the set a projectionist was at the ready shuffling between custom-burned reels and shots of dystopian Modernist high-rises. Many attendees lay on the floor while the band celebrated the 10th anniversary of ‘Alleluja! Don’t Bend! Ascend!.
…
…
From Belgian black metallers to a couple from Vienna revisiting old favorites, Amplifest consistently felt like a harmonious gathering. Most of the bands I spoke to say this has always been the case.
“I love Porto,” Turner says. “It is a difficult place to reach within the context of a normal European tour, [so] it’s a special event just to come here.” He calls out other previous friends and tourmates at Amplifest such as Envy, who played among the weekend’s most effusive sets shortly after Turner’s solo set on Sunday.
“This is all about love and building community,” Mendes says when I’m able to catch him for a few minutes. Nearby, a sign stresses that Amplifest is for everyone regardless of who they are. “Without love, this doesn’t exist.”
Special thanks to Sara Cunha for coordinating the interviews for this coverage.
