FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Music

We Went to FYF Fest and Only Saw Dance Music

And in case you're wondering: No, hipsters still don't dance.

It was only a few years ago that FYF Fest was an Echo Park-spanning circuit festival that leant towards underground punk and garage rock – So punk-rock, in fact, that one of the 'F's in 'FYF' stands for 'Fuck'. When the event began developing into a major festival, it was acts like Simian Mobile Disco and Four Tet that represented the electronic world amidst the blaring clangor of guitar music. Even though dance has ascended to a dominant cultural position since then, FYF has stayed true to their perspective and favored the dark and cerebral while nestling into a unique programming niche as a whole - It's like a less schmaltzily self-referential version of Pitchfork Festival.

Advertisement

In keeping with the indie scene's swift and total rejection of anything remotely resembling 'EDM,' it's dance-adjacent, vaguely nerdist acts like Flying Lotus, Caribou, Daniel Avery and Todd Terje representing our fair untz. Although FYF is still very much a guitar-oriented event, and we'd love to regale you with our perspective on Interpol's back catalogue or comment on Mac DeMarco's appropriation of his dad's record collection, we're a dance music outlet, so put those fucking guitars away and pay attention!

The majority of the electronic music on the line-up was housed in The Arena, a re-purposed basketball stadium that was the original Los Angeles home of The Lakers. It sits right in the middle of the grounds at Exposition Park. The Arena is a cavernous space, shrouded in smoke with an expansive backdrop that glittered like Space Mountain. Somewhere in between Chet Faker and Todd Terje on day one, it hit a capacity limit and masses of people were stranded both inside and outside while Terje performed a revelatory set of mustachioed prog-disco. Day one was rife with logistical issues, but thankfully most were sorted by Sunday.

Right before Caribou hit the stage after Terje, they loosened the crowd control and the dancefloor flooded with people. Caribou's Dan Snaith occupies a unique space in-between organic and electronic music. His band slunk from psych pop into acid house, from full band jams to dropped beats. And even though the crowd was attentive and plentiful, I'm still not convinced that hipsters know how to dance. Like, f'reals, just wiggle a hip one time and see how it feels. Try it. It's fun. We promise!

Advertisement

FYF was probably the most conservatively dressed festival I've ever been to. Most festivals we cover bring about sensory overload from the eternal cavalcade of body parts shamelessly blaring their arrival into your eyesight, but there was no neon on the premises, nary a wayward buttock to be baulked at. In fact, I only saw two or three belly buttons all weekend, and not a single nip was slipped! Way to keep it classy, FYF.

Grimes closed out the Lawn stage on Saturday and was fucking awesome. The first part of her set was straight up dance and would have fit right in at the raviest of raves. Bathed in green light and flailing up a storm, she brought out production-partner Blood Diamonds and even descended into a bout of trap before closing with the hazy bedroom pop she's known for. She's taken on an ambitious direction, but the response was overwhelmingly positive and her set carried the grandiosity of a closing performance. Word is the OWSLA afterparty featured Grimes b2b Skrillex b2b Blood Diamonds b2b OWSLA new girl Mija. Worlds colliding or something.

If you're as electronically inclined as we are, chances are that you barely left The Arena all weekend. We were right back in amongst it on Sunday. Another lo-fi pop superstar, Toro y Moi, debuted his new dance-centric project Les Sins and was followed by Night Slugs' Kelela. Then Caribou's Dan Snaith took to the stage once more as Daphni, his own dance-centric moniker, and we all rejoiced in the magical power of side projects. Even the singular bro at the festival, a feller dressed from head to toe in LA Clippers gear, was vibing out to the thoughtful beats of Canada's finest as he shimmied ungraciously towards any female who didn't immediately threaten to pepper spray him.

Advertisement

In between notable sets by Daniel Avery and John Talabot, DARKSIDE crammed the arena with one of their final performances before Nico Jaar and Dave Harrington take a hiatus from the project. For an hour, they pushed and pulled through a constant, meditative pattern of swells and releases. Their music is contemplative and layered, prone to meandering bouts of atmosphere that inevitably swell into house rhythms. It's like very upfront ambient music, but somehow equally comparable to post-rock as it is to dance. I get the feeling that if Nicolas Jaar wasn't involved in the project, few would even perceive it as dance music at all. Harrington even dropped a couple guitar solos for chrissakes! The project has been short-lived, but was iconoclastic and has opened up a musical space.

Any chance to catch Flying Lotus is a necessity. The LA native has ascended to some form of beat music deity, and with You're Dead! forthcoming and rumors of him dropping rhymes and singing on the album, there was a real sense of intrigue about his performance. Here's the thing, though: As a producer, FlyLo is second to none, so if he's gonna add elements to his set, they have to be equally as good to even keep up. It's not that he's a bad rapper, it's that he's set the bar so high for himself that it's almost impossible to match.

Jamie XX closed out the arena. His set began with some restraint and I thought the foppish London indie-pop star was just gonna take it easy and drop house beats ad nauseum. I was very wrong. At a certain point, he transitioned into garage and never looked back. He dropped some absolute techy bass tunage and it was a worthy climax to the weekend. It was some of the most forward-thinking and upfront dance music of the festival.You know you've done a good job as a DJ when the crowd is so hyped that they applauding all the way to the exit.

And that was that. Maybe The Strokes played, maybe they didn't. I don't know. Either way, we managed a whole weekend of awesome dance music, and not a drop was dropped. Imagine that. The level of enthusiasm intrinsic to drop-jockeying runs entirely counter-intuitive to the unspoken hipster ethos of playing it nonchalant, and we were totally stoked to ride out the crests and waves of all the trippy sadboy beats the festival managed to assemble. FYF, to you, we say, fuck yeah.

That festival life:
Lightning in a Bottle Recap: A Whole Different World
I Traded Kandi Bracelets Fot a House at Mysteryland
Seth Troxler: "Dance Festivals are the Best and Worst Places in the World"

Jemayel is a crap dancer but he owns it - @JemayelK