Dimensions 2016 Review

Dan Proxy gives us his run down of this year’s Dimensions Festival.

From the opening ceremony in an epic 2000 year old amphitheatre, where Massive Attack were spectacle, followed by Moodymann’s war cry of “What up doe!”

This, the 5th year of Dimensions Festival took us on a heady tour across the spectrum of house and techno, it’s origins and it’s variants.

Thursday night gave way to the Turf boat party with Alexander Nut playing what was to become the defining track of the festival – Kaytranada’s “Lite Spots”.

Original Chicago house was revisited and reappropriated with the inclusion of Larry Heard AKA Mr Fingers performing his remarkable live set for the first time in 20 years.

In fact throughout the festival most of the artists referred back to influential eras of bygone days, the theme being glorious times when music was celebrated for being original and as rich musically as possible.

The highlight of this was to be witnessed on the Beach on Saturday evening after Antal laid the foundations for the Dele Sosimi Afrobeat Orchestra to take us on a magical journey laced by their incredible live individual performances.

There is no better experience than seeing an assembled cast of stellar musicians creating their own funk jam and exploring the outliers of their musical capabilities for their discerning dancing disciples.

In a carnival atmosphere, with the sun slowly setting, Live African drums and Ghanaian chants reminded us that we were all active participants in this authentic ritual of dance.

The Feelings boat party on Sunday afternoon with MOOD II SWING was the epitome of a good vibe zone. Floating on the Adriatic, we floated higher and higher to Captain Lem Springsteen’s deep New York grooves.

As the boat returned towards the harbour, the whole crowd sung in unison the last song and crowning glory that was Mood II Swing‘s Vocal Mix of Ultra Nate’s “Free.”

It could have ended so perfectly there and then. But that’s the thing with Dimensions, for just when you think that you’ve reached the highest possible point, you enter the next level and the realization that this is just another plateau in a grand schema of the highest order.

We returned to the Beach to rejoin the crowd there being whipped into a frenzy by Hunee. Never before have I witnessed such unity as a pantomime game of cat and mouse broke out between revellers crowd surfing upon inflatables and security frantically trying to maintain some form of order.

As Hunee’s set drew to a close, the omnipresent call for “ONE MORE TUNE” seemed to echo in futility. But not this time. Against all odds Hunee was told to restart the music and the crowd erupted to the 5 minutes of overtime.

It doesn’t get better than this. Only it did.

Nightmares on Wax at The Clearing made us again question if everything so far had merely been a precursor, and finally K’Alexi topped things off in The Void by playing Marshall Jefferson’s “Move Your Body”.

In this old abandoned fort. I have never danced with such total abandonment.

By Dan Proxy