Over the years, they have built a reputation for both the audience but also a word-of-mouth between artists – thus, many contemporary acts and avant-garde composers want to perform at this festival. People like Michael Gira from Swans, Aaron Dilloway aka Wolf Eyes, Manonmars feat. O$VMV$M, Alvin Lucier, Lucy Railton, Patten, and Terrence Dixon among others made a special set for Skanu Mezs this year.

Unlike past editions, this is the first time the festival takes place in the beautiful, newly renovated old train station at Hanzas Perons. “Since the music is already confrontational enough, we said, let’s at least make the environment comfortable”, the directors explained, who also run the EU-financed project Shape, a roster of artists for innovative music and audio-visual art where anyone from the European Union – or working in the EU – can apply. As they like to say, “your taxes matter.”

The two-night festival broke his attendance record this year. About two thousand people experienced this unique opportunity to watch live performances from such a special array of contemporary musicians. Whether these artists are more academic-oriented composers, disruptive or innovative, Skanu Mezs states that they are always looking for adventurous music and art. A one-stage only concert hall with performances never exceeding the fifty minutes, that’s it. Nineteen artists took over the stage this year, and here are some highlights from what we’ve experienced.

W started with violinist Irvine Arditti (b. 1953), who began his studies at The Royal Academy of Music at the age of sixteen and joined the London Symphony Orchestra in 1976, becoming a co-concert master at the age of twenty-five. Another artist who has also worked in London but with the Contemporary Orchestra is Chaines, a Manchester-based multi-instrumentalist whose performance was one of the most acclaimed of the night.

American legend Michael Gira – best-known for his role as the founder of avant-garde rock band Swans, and how doesn’t like much performing under his solo name – presented an emotionally intense acoustic solo show, which offered a glimpse of some known works on their initial form. He has done some solo shows, but this performance was a very rare one. After him, White Suns took over the concert hall. The Brooklyn noise trio delivered a brutal blend of hardcore punk with vocalist Kevin Barry throwing some spoken vocals and screaming with an electronic feedback. A rather chaotic yet controlled performance.

Swedish electronic composer Daniel Rozenhall, who had worked with the record label Fylkyngen in Stockholm, did not perform. Instead, he presented his work with various synthesizers, concrete sound sources, and electroacoustic landscapes as the audio of the visual work of Swedish graphic designer and audio-visual artist Sten Backman.

“This festival is fantastic, very well organized, very good atmosphere. We are very happy to be here”, told us Rozenhall in-between concerts. “Our show is all pre-recorded. We have done several films like this for five years and we presented two works here: Dance of the Aberrant was a premier performance, brand new work. We also presented some work from my latest LP, Den Förföljdes Gryning, which we presented throughout Asia last year with a project called LLLSD (Lab for Life-Long Sound Dysfunctions). This is not a band but us touring together with other two Swedish artists, which was showcased around China, Macau, Taiwan, Okinawa and Thailand”, he concluded.

“I’m glad to be here, the festival is fabulous, we are very surprised there are so many people. We live in Stockholm, and in events like this, there are very few people attending”, observed Backman. “For years, I’ve looked for visuals. What I do for Daniel is a need to find things which visually wow me. I use 3D objects with points and track codes, and I play around with them; it’s a plugging for After Effects, and then I destroy it with Cinema 4D and back to After Effects. It is like a journey, coincidence and choice, like Francis Bacon. A beautiful way to work. I try to surprise myself firstly,” he explained.

The closure of the night was held by the Detroit psychedelic minimal techno act by Terrence Dixon, sometimes playing under his Population One moniker. For his show, he used three Roland 303 at the same time – not the classic unit but the ‘90s reedition – whilst wearing his Tresor t-shirt, the legendary techno label where he has released some of his recent work among Metroplex in Berlin. He describes his techno as “forward-thinking ghetto electronics". As a curiosity, guess what was his hotel’s room number? You guessed it: 303. Bingo!

Lucy Railton was one of the brightest stars on the second day. She performed solo with electronics but also with her cello – a beautiful electroacoustic show. “I'm very happy to perform here, the darkness and ambience during my solo show turned out more poetic than I ever thought”, she told us. Railton is a cellist working with modern instrumentalism, hard-edged electronic compositions and expressive musique concrète. Since 2008, she has been a dedicated member of London’s new music scene. She’s also an artist from the Shape platform. Alvin Lucier played after her what probably was his last gig. At his 88 years old, he needed a wheelchair to come on stage – unfortunately, Lucier broke his back a few months ago. Nevertheless, he wanted to attend Skanu Mezs, and the organizers couldn't be happier to have him.

Aaron Dilloway aka Wolf Eyes delivered a sick performance of experimental noise using analogue units, passing his voice through eight-track tape loops and vintage echos whilst screaming and making spasmodic movements on a chair. A true legend. The night continued with Manonmars featuring duo O$VMV$M – they are all members of the Bristol-based collective Young Echo. Despite Richardson moving to London, he keeps collaborating with producer duo Amos Childs (Jabu and Sam Barrett, aka Neek, who performed at Glastonbury this year).

They define their sounds as smoked-out ambient, which together with Richardson’s dark approach to the classic swagger that nods to current rap styles but a greater poetic style of observation – “I’m having fun in this festival. We are delighted to be here. It is cool. Our flight was a little bit delayed so, unfortunately, we didn’t get to see everything but so far so good. The venue is very interesting, I like how they are still remittances of how it used to be before it was refurnished. Tonight, we presented some tracks from the project we released together Manonmars and O$VMV$M last year, but we got some other music to share as well.” Another British act followed. 

The London-based project Patten – an artist of the Shape platform – is renewed for his hi-tech, immersive A/V shows and multi-platform approach, and whose new album is out via his own new label 555-5555 – after publishing EPs and LPs with Warp in 2017. His show didn’t disappoint. A complete set for an A/V experience combining moving laser beams with film work. "The Shape Platform run of shows has been cool. The timing with Flex, the new album, coming out was perfect. This show was crazy. Sick production team and up-for-it crowd. All the sets were all-time, from Alvin Lucier to Lucy Railton, Terrence Dixon to Manonmars. Epic programming. It was a special one for sure”, Patten concluded.

Just a bit earlier, we sat with festival directors Viestarts Gailitis and Rihards T. Endriksons to go a bit more in-depth about this year's edition and also get to know the mechanics of the festival after these seventeen years.