Welcome to our second and final deep-dive into the Intonal festival that took place in Malmö last month. You can also check out the festival’s full archive of photos on their website.
Finances inevitably become a talking point when you get into the basics of organising an event like Intonal – the five-day festival organised by Inkonst, which is the city’s main venue for electronic and experimental music, as well as for performance art and dance. An important enabler in the production of the festival is the Shape+ platform, which is an EU-funded project through Creative Europe. Its goal is to create a network for innovative music and art in Europe through meetings between artists and between artists and audiences.
Intonal is one of several partners to Shape+ (Rewire is another one) and for the last few years, creators selected by Shape have been showing up on the festival circuit. It has also been growing in scope, with bigger names like Clarissa Connelly, Tarta Relena and Sissi Rada participating this year. This helped put e.g. Tarta Relena on a stage at Intonal.
Whereas I would of course also have loved to see e.g. Dali Muru & the Polyphonic Swarm or Fiesta en el vacío from this year’s roster, I still think Intonal did a beautiful job of creating a diverse and inspiring program, both within and without this partnership. For example, they invited Italian composer Irene Bianco to a mini-residency where she created a commissioned piece for Intonal together with the local artist 55 Cancri e (who’s appeared at Record Turnover events in the past) and visual artist Adèle Thornberg.
Their audiovisual piece premiered on the first main day of the festival, following harrowing performances by Polish artist Antonina Nowacka and American legend Charlemagne Palestine in the Saint Johannes church. Nowacka is another artist that is part of Shape+ and was in the featured of our first part of highlights from Intonal.
The main days of Intonal also included the following highlights:
Dame Area
I’ve been lucky enough to catch Barcelona industrial/EBM duo Dame Area twice before – last time also in Sweden, 2024. Every time it’s a been a complete mental meltdown, Intonal being no exception. There’s something about seeing Dame Area for the first time that just sends people wild. You could see it clearly at Inkonst, as they started out calmly but as vocalist (and co-songwriter) Silvia Kostance got more and more unhinged people were convinced to let go of all inhibitions.
It’s apparent that Kostance and Crux come from a punk background because at the show’s most intense moments it’s not unlike attending a hardcore show. Another reason why that is an apt comparison is because they create all the music live, with hardware laid out over a big table as well drums and their home-crafted metal sheet that is used both as a percussive instruments, as a mic and as a source of searing noise.
People from Malmö know that Inkonst is kind of a second home for several producers and artists in the local music scene. And in a sense playing Intonal was a homecoming for Dame Area, one of whose early records came out on Kess Kill – the old label of Rivet, who now also works at the venue.
They played a lot of tracks from their latest record Toda la verdad sobre Dame Area, which unlike their previous records, has been based completely on their live show. Tracks like ”Si no es hoy cuándo es” are almost enticing crowd singalongs by now.
Fine
On a completely different note, Danish band Fine had performed to a seated audience just a couple of hours earlier. While the Copenhagen band turned up as a four-piece it is mostly the project of Fine Glindvad (yes, that is a name in Danish). She is a part of the collective of artists around Escho and has also worked with Clarissa Connelly and Astrid Sonne. Sharing several characteristics with Norwegian duo Smerz, Fine has a deep nostalgia for 90s icons like PJ Harvey and Beth Gibbons.
Existing in a reconfigured history where lofi, trip-hop and R&B were best friends, Fine’s music is made to be alone with. So I was curious to see how it would play out live. It’s also been awhile since their album Rocky Top Ballads came out on Escho. A new single came out just days before the festival however, and I think it’s the best they’ve ever been.
Likewise, the show was heartwarming even if there wasn’t much interaction with the crowd. Fine seemed very happy to be there and completely charmed the audience with their sincerity and that beautiful lead guitar sound. It made me think of the only time I got to see Cat Power. Let’s hope that this new single of theirs is a teaser for another Fine LP.
Yas Meen Selectress
The main event of the festival was, as tradition dictates, the Black Box Disco Club, where ¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U was headlining. I’d just seen him at Rewire and for me the absolute highlight in terms of dancing experience was the set by Yas Meen Selectress right before. To be honest I’d never heard of the Cairo-based DJ before and I was blown away.
Apparently, she spent many years in New York and also played a Boiler Room event there a couple of years ago. Now she is part of the Dhamma collective in Cairo, which she co-founded to platform female DJs in her hometown. For a taste of her greatness you should check out her set from The Lot Radio last year. Earlier this year she even played at Prada’s questionable Prada Mode ‘festival’ in Abu Dhabi.
What made her set at Intonal so much fun was that it didn’t feel like a Prada event, it was completely down-to-earth. You rarely hear such a variation in rhythms – from breakbeats to four-on-floor to polyrhythmic percussion – and somehow she created an even flow in-between them.
Sadly, I can’t see that she has done any proper interviews, except a few words around her mix for Pan African Music several years ago. There, she says that her goal is to decolonise the club scene, which is something Scandinavia needs badly, where most DJs are still white and come from privileged backgrounds. There are exceptions of course, like our beloved Paydar in Copenhagen.
Another thing that is special about the final club night of Intonal is that it’s open to people not attending the festival, through a separate ticket. I think this is a vital strategy for opening the local party crowd up to new experiences and creating a deeper interest in more out there sounds. The club has always been hugely popular even though many attendees might not be familiar with the DJs. Sometimes this can create an unwanted clash between the initiated and people who just come for the hype. But this night that didn’t seem to be the case, and I definitely think the music selection helped in creating an atmosphere of free expression.
Top photo of Dame Area by Alexandra Grigorean
