The folk horror Midsommar has a second life on YouTube as a fan-cut rom-com: all lush, daisy-dotted fields, flower crowns, friends on psychedelic mushrooms and gleeful dancing around a maypole under a sun that never seems to set. This is exactly the vibe you get at Lentekabinet. Every year in late May, the festival returns to Twiske, a recreational wetland just a short bike and ferry ride from Amsterdam. Think Dutch polder with shallow lakes and low-lying grassland, yellow buttercups and dragonflies. Here, you’ll find Lotus, Poppy, Aster and The Swamp — which, in this case, aren’t flora but the four stages of the festival.
Our adventure starts mid-afternoon at the lakeside Poppy stage. It’s a balmy twenty-six degrees, so technically, nobody needs a warm-up. But Stella Zekri and Suze Ijó serve one anyway — on vinyl. Ahead of a previous Lentekabinet edition, United Identities founder Carista named Rotterdam’s Ijó as the act she was most excited about. You can hear why: classic, soulful house with a dash of jazz. She and Zekri make a great team, musically but also energy-wise, enthusiastically dancing behind the decks as they alternate records. Some plingy, plongy synths (surely that’s the correct term) add a floaty, melodic energy. Then the Underground Goodies mix of Brighter Days drops — oh, won’t you lift me up?
Ask the audience why they keep coming back to Lentekabinet, and they’ll name the headliners (Seth Troxler, Job Jobse, Honey Dijon) or the tight organisation. The latter counts both front- and backstage. Eris Drew once praised the sound crew as “exceptional.” This year’s edition came stocked with free sunscreen, plenty of shade and water refill points — like a helicopter parent who serves vodka and doesn’t question why everyone is entering the portaloos in pairs. Still, it’s the smaller stages that surprise you with live acts you didn’t see coming. Enter Naga Kirana, which plays Indonesian-inspired melodies with futuristic analogue synths. Lead singer Inda Duran has a fantastic, sultry stage presence while the band’s synth player attacks the keys with the intensity of a 1990s coder on a deadline.
One field over, you’re drawn in by Rihanna blasting through the soundsystem while the MC coos: come in, don’t be afraid. From afar, the logo looks like Boiler Room’s. But it’s better. This is Striptopia: a reimagined, pop-up strip club that’s all about performer autonomy and the sexiness of consent. Funnily enough, the straight lads seem too intimidated by the whole spectacle, making Striptopia’s stage a cute one made up mainly of women — half of whom are currently realising they’re bi (the other half already knew). Give it up for Moonshine!
Performing at the Lotus stage, Seth Troxler needs little introduction. So let’s talk about the stage itself, which has been upgraded into a scaffold setup with elevated dance stages all around the DJ booth — like a colosseum but made to hold stomping Salomons and Nike Air Rifts instead of gladiator sandals. Surprisingly, this was Troxler’s Lentekabinet debut. The legendary DJ has his roots in Detroit warehouses and grimy Berlin clubs. He played my first-ever ‘real’ club experience (at De School over ten years ago), which I’d snuck into using my older cousin’s ID. In that dark basement, the energy was feverish and ecstatic, as he blasted industrial house and techno bangers, the BPM never dropping below 128. It must be hard to bring that same non-stop energy and intimacy to Lentekabinet’s main stage with the sun still peeking out from the treetops. But Troxler did it very well.
On Sunday, chatting to familiar faces at the portaloos (portal-loos, really — they connect the stages), everyone’s favourite is The Swamp. It’s a hard stage to leave — as if you’re knee-deep in the quicksand of an actual swamp, still bouncing because the rhythm is too good. In part, that’s because of the Krackfree Soundsystem: a custom-built, mostly wooden system that delivers crystal-clear, absurdly powerful audio and is strong enough not to crack when the MC uses it like a trampoline.
T.NO opens with rich drums and plenty of bounce, easing in a crowd that’s only just consumed their hungover croque monsieur. The vibe here is inviting and festive – it’s a festival, after all – like a park BBQ with really good music. The Swamp slowly gets swamped as the sound crew sets up synths and mics atop the soundsystem. It’s time for Rozaly’s Riddimbox, a live project amplifying Curaçaoan sonic culture and more through the speakers at Twiske, with everyone’s favourite MC Toff Youth. Rozaly starts leisurely on the synths. You can hear some bubbling, soca, dancehall… But the pace suddenly takes off, like a VanMoof electric bike on turbo mode. The rhythm takes you to the most unexpected places. At some point, Toff Youth tosses an inflatable unicorn into the crowd, which is swaying like the Caribbean Sea, and I have so many questions. Where did he get it? Is there a lifeguard on duty? Is anyone else seeing this unicorn?!
Lentekabinet – or Lentekabi, as semi-locals call it – has become a meme-able, cultural phenomenon amongst Amsterdam’s Instagram-literate crowd. One local meme admin even made a Lentekabi Bingo. Spotted Zoë Kravitz and Harry Styles? (Yes, they were there.) Brought up the code yellow rainstorm of the festival’s 2022 edition? Saw Job Jobse for the sixth time? Bingo! It does seem like the whole festival went to see Job Jobse. The Lotus stage is packed. Jobse delivers banging house with euphoric, soaring melodies. A group of girlfriends attempt to scale one of the scaffold platforms — honey, you’re in ballet flats balancing a vodka tonic in one hand. Musically, it’s strong. But the crowd is a bit much, so we head over to the Aster stage, which has been programmed in collab with Bijlmer-based community hub Kazerne Reigersbos. Fendi has the crowd swaying cheerfully to a mix of hip-hop, R&B, Jersey club and bubbling, plenty of bangers the techno taste-police would disapprove of, which is precisely why it’s so good.
Back at the main stage, Miss Honey Dijon has taken over from Job Jobse. There’s room to dance now, which is good because she is serving sexy, irresistible house. What else would you expect? The bass is vibrating. The vocals are breathy. There are plenty of four-on-the-floor rhythms. Everybody is moving. Our night closes at the Poppy with Sedef Adasï, who can shape-shift from indoor, intimate sets at her own queer night to closing Lentekabinet — all at the push of the cue button on her CDJ. Her approach is intuitive; she reads the room rather than imposing on it.
When I ask Adasï about a rumour she once served Turkish breakfast at Berghain, she laughs: “People got it wrong — when I have an early set, I say I’m serving breakfast. But the breakfast is the music.” If we stay in that analogy, this set is like a late-night shared dining situation at a small-plates restaurant where you and your lover(s) order one of everything: caviar, smoked eggplant, sourdough flatbread and Basque cheesecake for dessert. The music is sultry and indulgent, with an abundance of acid, techno and high synths layered atop low, growling vocals — the kind you take your time for. And then, it’s time to go home, suddenly realising you’re a bit hungry now.
