Schwarts festival : Selofan,Paradox Obscur,Kriistal Ann,Melatonini / Kassel 05-06 May 2017

"Schwarts" is a newly founded cultural club from Kassel in Germany,which has set itself the target to promote art, culture and music of underground scene. For this purpose Schwarts team organize a series of festival with the idea to present a different country as a partner each year and to mainly take artists of this nationality into the program. This year Schwarts chose Greece as their partner which is also the second exhibition venue of Documenta this year.

The first Schwarts festival took place in Panoptikum club from 5 to 6 May. The venue inside was decorated with dolls and gothic aesthetic and the Schwarts team welcomed people with black costumes. On Friday ,the program was dedicated to dj sets and art exchibitions…In various rooms the visitors could explore photography exchibitions by Marilia Fotopoulou and other artistic projects and in the main stage the 5 djs offered a dancing program. DieSeele (Rise&Fall-transmission) joined the party with his own set.

Saturday 6 May was dedicated to the live performances by 4 Greek projects. First on stage the the Brussels-based personal project of the Greek musician and vocalist Eleni Nasiou MELATONINI accompanied by the bass player Eliza Lozovska and the intermedia artist Emmanouela Charatsi a/k/a Man.Ou.Elle. Weird rhythms and noises really produced a dramatic effect with dark soundscapes and the mystical visual appearance onstage producing an impressive artistic result .The songs : ‘poser’ and ‘separation’ delivered the band’s strongest moments. They left me an excellent impression and I think in the future they can give us quality music.

After a short intermission, on stage KRIISTAL ANN-Anna’s Michailidou personal project - which also offered us about 45 min. of ethereal synth melodies .The warm and emotional voice of Ann accompanied with beautiful visuals created a poetic and sometimes dramatic atmosphere. We enjoyed favourite songs like: ‘fading lights’ , ‘she walks in beauty’ , ‘remembrance’ , ‘Antigone’.

Kriistal Ann continued with the PARADOX OBSCUR – the minimal synth project from Rhodes island which she has with Toxic Razor . About 1 hour with dancy ebm and minimal synth tunes accompanied by Anna’s passionate voice and sometimes Toxic’s deep vocals.The high tempo danceable rythms and the powerful visual design raised us to dance. The best moments were : ‘flesh’ , ‘dirty parades’ and a beautiful remix of ‘dark fortress’but the big surprise for all was when the Mexican guy Rogelio Serrano(Equinoxious) went on stage and performed the song ‘cosmodromo’ with Kriistal Ann.

Finaly the live gig closed with another great performance by the Athenian dark cold wave duet SELOFAN. We enjoyed some songs from the new album ‘Cine Romance’ but especially from the previous ones ,visualizing the songs on stage adding up an artistic output to the concert. Joanna and Dimitris gave their best and captivated the audience for about 1 hour.

The gig closed with another dj set by Rise&Fall( transmission/ DieSeele).

It was an unforgettable experience and I would like to thank the organizers ,the groups and anyone else involved ,for the two beautiful days we spent in Kassel ,two days with Greek colour..

Enjoy the following videos:

Selofan - PosoLupamai__Gummiwaende