A report on France’s Scopitone Festival

A report on France’s Scopitone Festival

2 October, 2007 | 12.44PM

• Written by: Gérome Darmendrail
• Filed under: Music News:

For around six years, Nantes has been regarded as one of the most dynamic places in France.

Its ambitious architectural projects, expositions and relevant festivals have given the western city an excellent reputation throughout France.

Scopitone is one of these premier festivals — and it’s no coincidence that it also began six years ago.

Having hosted artists such as Matthew Herbert, Laurent Garnier, Miss Kittin, 2 Many DJs, Mylo or Ellen Allien, Scopitone is mainly dedicated to electronic music.

Nevertheless, music is not the only topic the festival; digital and visual arts represent another part of its identity.

Previously organized in July, the event took place this year in September.

It’s a choice motivated by cost (which is less in September than in July or August) and also by the growing number of summer festivals in France.

More importantly, the location changed for the first time.

Instead of holding performances in a large hall in the suburb of Rezé (which is located twenty minutes from Nantes by car) Scopitone was distributed into eleven different locations mainly on the isle of Nantes, a former shipyard area that is now becoming a hip neighborhood.

It’s a change that is warmly welcomed by festival attendees and offers artists the option to play in venues that are suited to their size.

For example, it was more interesting to listen to Wax Tailor’s cinematic hip hop in a seated theatre; had he played there last year, he would have played in an overbearing hall in Rezé.

It was also a treat to see the video installations in the former Alstom factory’s huge post-industrial space.

But what interested us most were the two main nights of the weekend, despite the fact that the festival was six days long.

The first weekend night of Scopitone offered an attractive line-up of Swayzak, Chloé, Ivan Smagghe, James Holden and Jeff Mills.

Located inside the new and attractive LC Club, which opened just one month before the festival, it has an impressive 3000-person capacity, making it look like an English superclub.

After Swayzak played, the party really started when Chloé [main image] and Smagghe took to the decks.

Chloé and Smagghe prepared a back-to-back set that they developed from working on their “mix up” compilation for Kill The DJ.

They performed what we expected: a dark, minimal set, efficient but difficult.

While a large part of the LC Club’s audience seemed to be more familiar with David Guetta’s sound, the music played by Chloé and Smagghe didn’t seem to be a problem.

Following the French duo, James Holden proved once again that he’s one of the best DJs in the world.

The Brit didn’t choose the easiest way to start things, going deep and dubby — despite the fact it was 3 a.m.

While the crowd was a little surprised at first as they waited for some more danceable tracks, they were rewarded as time progressed.

Two hours later, with perfect segues, hands were up in the air, and the crowd was praising the shy but talented James Holden.

Then came Jeff Mills.

It’s been a long time since Mills was one of France’s favorite DJs, but he reminded us of his status when all eyes followed him into the DJ booth.

Opening with a long intro not unlike a space odyssey, the Detroit Wizard mixed on syncopated beats, a style he’s known for.

The rest of the set was exactly what we used to hear from him: trippy, soulful, percussive techno from Detroit; in fact, it was like his set hadn’t changed since the ‘90s.

But people at the club didn’t seem to care — they enjoyed it.

The Olympic – a smaller, established venue well known by music lovers from Nantes – hosted the second main night.

This second night was more in the style of “New French Touch” with the Kitsuné crew, Ed Banger’s SebastiAn and Citizen’s Teenage Bad Girl; Jockey Slut magazine would have called it a “disco pogo for punks in pumps” party.

Fuckpony was also on hand, who probably asked themselves why they hadn’t been booked for the preceding night’s activities.

We appreciated the energy that Autokratz put into their live laptop set.

They’re a newly formed English duo on Kitsuné records that presented an effective twisted-up electro-disco-punk formula.

As Autokratz nearly broke their laptop, the kids in front of them didn’t seem to mind.

Teenage Bad Girl didn’t fail to keep up the pressure with loud bass, big kicks, vicious breaks and dirty sounds that remind us of Daft Punk and Mr Oizo.

By this time, the room was on fire.

The crowd kept dancing as Kitsuné bosses Gildas & Massaya took the decks and got into a glittering euro-disco-house mix.

Promising producer SebastiAn ended the night like a French Touch PR rep would have done; he played records by his friends Justice, Daft Punk, Para One, Surkin and Kavinsky.

While all of these artists are noteworthy, hearing them in SebastiAn’s set was much too predictable.

But it wasn’t a big deal, because the last holdouts on the dance floor just wanted to hear it louder.

And SebastiAn turned it up.

[All photographs courtesy Ludovic Failler]

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