GET LOW

Bugged Out Weekender is great.

I went last year with a bunch of people. Because you stay in a plush chalet rather than a tent you dont glide close to the sun like Icarus - you rocket straight into it and come out the other side with a bunch of new friends, new favourite artists, and legendary tales to win any pub one-upmanship contest. Flat parties were as good as the official entertainment, and having that bed to come back to (especially if you shotgunned the double) means you could start each night afresh for more.

The word of mouth from last year has helped make this coming one almost a total sell-out. That and a line-up curated by people who evidently know their shit:

ANDREW WEATHERALL & IVAN SMAGGHE

FRANKIE KNUCKLES
GESAFFELSTEIN

HEIDI PRESENTS THE JACKATHON

JACKMASTER

JACK SAVIDGE

JAMES HOLROYD

JOY ORBISON JULIO BASHMORE

JUMA MC

JUSTIN ROBERTSON
LOEFAH & MC CHUNKY

THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS - DJ SET

THE TODDLA T SOUND

UNION

DO IT!

Let me spoil the ending for you.

Festival rating: 9/10

I could go over how amazing the site is and how incredible the soundsystems are but I've kind of gone over that before in the Outlook Festival review of 2010. There are a hundred reviews out there far more eloquent than I, but few actually experienced the festivals properly. I camped for two weeks, slummed it with the peons and pretty much hit it hard till 10am every night.

Photographs taken by Marc Sethi, Dan Medhurst, Emil Kazakov, Graham Turner, Scott Salt and from the Outlook & Dimensions fan pages.

The biggest thing that really makes Outlook and Dimensions special is the location. That location of Fort Punta Christo automatically separates it from every festival set in a field with acts in big top tents. A field festival has it's own charm, for sure. But Fort Punta Christo will beat it every time.

When people think back to Outlook 2010 they get a warm fuzzy glow. Outlook 2011 jumped the capacity by 10,000 people and got bigger acts, bigger stages and showed the world that it too can play with the big boys. However, as with all increases in capacity for ANY festival, a little of the magic was lost. Dimensions was the festival team's attempt at bringing it back.

The fact that the acts at Outlook 2012 I most enjoyed were Scuba and George Fitzgerald bode extremely well for Dimensions.

A highlight of George Fitzgerald's set was his deceptively simple technique of getting the whole crowd to crouch down whilst the tune was building. Once everyone jumped up at the drop the result was something resembling the opening scene of Blade when the blood sprinklers got turned on in the club. This guy knows how to smash an arena. Amazing.

Hearing Scuba's set on the ridiculous Martin Audio soundsystem in Fort Arena 1 was a truly overwhelming experience. That system vibrates the air you breathe, changes the tonality of your voice, it even vibrates your vision. It's a soundsystem that can make you re-evaluate the genres of music you base your tastes on. For soundsystems, Outlook comes correct.

Nevertheless, this year's Outlook will be remembered as the "year that rained". Pula hadn't experienced rainfall for 8 months previous, and as soon as the festival started the clouds came. A damn shame, as as soon as Outlook finished the Sun was fairly relentless for the entirety of Dimensions! The festival weather gods can be so cruel.

Get Low Cartel DJ'd in the Dungeon on Friday night and our one hour set turned into a two and a half hour set when the DJs following us didn't turn up. Win! However, the speakers were too quiet (one side was barely putting out any sound, a technicality that couldn't be fixed that day) and we were lumbered with MCs we didn't request to perform with. No matter though, we rocked it like always.

The next day we also DJ'd in the Clearing and this was much better. This had a FULL Funktion One rig and sounded beautiful. The heavens did decide to open during our set, but that just made the vibe better as people let go in the warm rain. More than one was begging to know what our final track was. It was this, although I played the 'Ghetto version' which is the VIP edit.

The Heatwave also BOSSED it on the Clearing stage, and they work incredibly well as a stage act. They smashed it playing Bashment and pop bangers, with hilarious crowd participation.

They've got a huge female following, and if you're a middle-class white girl looking to get daggered, The Heatwave is for you.

I saw others, Sub Motion Orchestra, Bonobo, The Four Owls, Klose One SMASHING it in the Moat - but I treated Outlook more like a warm-up, happy to wander and following my ears. Dimensions was my main event.

Dimensions had a far more international crowd than Outlook with more Germans, French and Italians reaching. We met a great booking agent from Berlin called Eliza who jammed with us the whole week and regaled us with tales of Berghain and made us vow to crash at her Berlin place for a weekend out. It's those sort of international connection making that makes an international festival really worthwhile.

I made a pact with myself to only watch acts that I haven't seen before, acts that I wouldn't usually see and acts that I possibly might never see in the future. To be truly honest with you, there really was only a handful of names on the Dimensions line-up that I was intimately familiar with - the rest I had only a passing knowledge of or were completely unknown. Unlike Outlook, this time I had looked at the program and written down a set-time plan for each day of acts I wanted to see.

Funkineven was the first person I stumbled upon in the Outside The Fort arena. He really impressed with a great vinyl set with smatterings of classic tracks like LFO - LFO alongside his own 303 productions.

I couldn't stick around for too long as I wanted to catch Little Dragon in Fort Arena 1, and the artist/VIP wristbands no longer garnered queue jumps (the indignity!). It was cool seeing a live act at an electronic music venue and they whipped through their songs at a fierce pace, not stopping too long between songs. I generally prefer DJ sets to live acts and I'm not really deep into Little Dragon or anything, but it was cool.

The hype for Nicholas Jaar's live performance on the same stage was palpable, with a queue that snaked a long way back. A big cheer rose when the first ethereal notes of the performance washed over the crowd as we waited for something spectacular....

... It never came. I understand the Jaar's music is ambient, but in that setting it just came across as dull. It would have been better if the whole crowd had sat down, like a concert performance. The ambience simply made the crowd restless, with lots of people pushing past forward or behind. I spent most of the show moving out of the way for people who needed to slide past. I was pretty disappointed.

As passed through Mungo's Arena to get a drink from the balcony area, I stumbled upon Mala playing some massive sounding future tribal bass music. Mungo's Arena probably had the best soundsystem of Dimensions, as the Fort Arena 1 system got a reduction from Outlook. Night Owl said to me "I don't like Dubstep, but I like whatever THAT was".

Finishing his set (of course) with Anti War Dub to an enraptured audience showed that this was definitely one of the special moments of Dimensions. And I only caught the last 10 minutes. Damn!

I then floated over to the Outside the Fort stage where Floating Points was finishing up the last part of his set too. I was later told that he did one of the most incredible sets ever. Dammit! I had headed to the Outside the Fort stage to catch Kyle Hall, a name I've heard dropped about from cool kids who say "I'm into like, Kyle Hall". Guess what? Kyle Hall was rubbish. The tracks he played sounded like they were produced in 5 minutes, with the same monotonous 8-bar loop for 7 minutes. When he did finally mix the next track in it was clang central. I got the overwhelming sense of the Emperor's new clothes. Don't believe the hype.

Stifling a yawn, I then wandered over to the Courtyard area where I chanced upon Dark Sky starting their set. I'd never seen them before so I wasn't sure what to expect. My last touch point was the well produced Dubstep like Neon they were making a year ago. Turns out that DARK SKY HAVE SERIOUS GAME.

They really blew me away. They are phenomenal DJs. You can really tell they've put in the hours behind the decks. Expertly mixing underground hits and rocking the crowd like bosses. If you're a producer getting bookings you should step your DJing game up or step away from the decks all together. It was great to see Dark Sky fighting the good fight. (Take note Kyle Hall)

I wandered back to Mungo's Arena and found Kode 9 killing it. He can be very hit or miss, but from what I saw he was firing on all cylinders (and even playing Trap!). I only caught the last bit of his set though. This was turning into a pattern.

For the last hour, I chose to see my old SF buddy Kozee. To differentiate from everyone else playing house and techno, she chose to flit between Footwork and Jungle. Kozee's great to watch as she gets really into it behind the decks too. I alternated between her and the Ballroom where the Church resident was playing.

The guy was playing good tunes, but was fucking up a lot of the mixes or pressing the wrong cue point on his laptop messing the flow of the whole set up. If I was Church, I would get different resident.

Essentially the first night I chose to gamble and see new people, a strategy that mostly backfired on this occasion as the people I usually would have reached all seemed to be doing legendary sets. That's the way it goes sometimes, but that's all part of the fun, eh?

FRIDAY

I was shaken awake by my pals telling me to join them on the Aka Aka Roar vs Trix boat party that was starting in 20 minutes. Still blurry, we raced down. We strolled on and the easy house and techno of Midland et al proved to be the perfect wake-up call. The blazing sunshine shook off the cobwebs as we vibed to South London Ordnance, Lorca, Schumen and Temple. Didn't think much of Space Dimension Controller to be honest.

Night came along, and we headed up to Fort Arena 1 to get a taste of Huxley. He'd been given the honour of the main stage and warming up for Carl Craig. Huxley absolutely crushed it. His set was incredible, getting everyone in a feel-good mood and creating a vibe like a pro. Highlight for me was when he played this, alongside two silver clothed dancers on the stage:

It was probably the set of his life. The vibes were through the roof and he delivered like a champ. Huxley's a boss!

Up next was Carl Craig doing a live show with a laptop, keyboard and synthesiser. He wore a Doom-esque masquerade mask during his show, and then switched to a Mexican wrestling mask halfway through (as you do). It was pretty cool with Craig zurrrping his synth after building up a beat. Neverthless, it was one of those sets where drugs helped or being REALLY into live techno. It was alright.

We heading to watch Pearson Sound in Mungo's when we were drawn to whoever was playing Trap at the Outside the Fort stage. Machinedrum was killing it with big bassy future Trap and the crowd were going crazy. It truly felt like a defining moment for the genre. His set blew my mind. He played only Trap, with a sprinkling of Footwork, finishing with a mesh of Footwork Jungle.

DOWNLOAD - PHILIP D KICK - FOOTWORK JUNGLE VOL 1

I pray that his set was recorded, as it really was inspiring watching a masterful introduction of a whole new genre to a bunch of techno heads. And them loving it.

Objekt was straight after and he laid it down straight with some brutally thumping techno. I wussed out after 30 minutes as it was giving me a panic attack and headed to Fort Arena 1 to catch Cassy.

I'd heard from the Seedy Sonics boys that she was worth a look as she did the best set in Ibiza when they were out there. She did an all vinyl set with some of the smoothest mixing I've ever seen. It was smoother than any auto-sync Traktor set and was pretty inspiring to watch. After an hour and a half, I found that a lot of the tracks had more or less the same beat so I got a little bored and managed to swag some free 6am food from a stall. Win!

SATURDAY

I'm a huge fan of Trevino (aka Marcus Intalex) and Backtracking is for me an instant classic. He was on at 10.30pm at the Mungo's Arena doing an hour and half set. It was beautiful. Magical, even. When you've produced for over 20 years like Trevino you pick up a few things. His Tech House sounded gorgeous on the Mungo's Arena system and his set was one of the best of the festival. Don't sleep on Trevino. He's going to be huge.

Todd Terje in the Moat was a great experience. I'd never listened to Terje before, but I knew I was in for a good ride as he started out with what sounded like Vice City house. To be honest I was pretty fucked at this point writing my mate a 500 character text message, but his set built up beautifully with what I'm told were a lot of his own productions. Indeed, a lot of the tracks felt strangely familiar. I'm certainly going to have a serious dig of his stuff.

The queue for Theo Parrish's 3 hour set was prohibitively long, and I yearned from afar as my friends slowly persuaded me to head off and watch D Bridge instead. However I seemed to have lucked out as my mate Eliza was in there and said Parrish basically only played Disco. She likes Disco as much as the next girl, but she couldn't hack so much of it and joined us in Mungo's.

D-Bridge's set sounded beautiful on Mungo's soundsystem. Indeed, D Bridge's set was truly one of the acts where it really felt like he was taking you on a journey, having the crowd totally under his control - like a science fiction film soundtrack or the final boss of a computer game. And he played what sounded like his own productions of Trap (everybody's bloody playing it!).

We headed back to Outside the Fort to catch Moodymann doing 4am to 6am, the closing / sunrise set of the last full day of music at Dimensions. Again, the queue was prohibitively long, not helped by the lack of barriers and oversight to stop queuejumping, thus bringing queue progression to a standstill, and the stewards stopping people from watching outside the fencing on a raised bank due to dull safety concerns. Those ingredients created a strong recipe for discontent which, once some people in the queue discovered that the fence could be seperated fairly easily, led to a mass fence hop. The stage manager eventually closed any more people entering leading to a lot of people (who had queued and waiting patiently) feeling pretty cheesed off. We headed to Fort Arena 1 to catch some Marcell Dettman & Ben Klock to get a feel for Berghain.

I was vibing, but after an hour my buddy wasn't hacking it so we headed back to Moodymann to see if we could just enjoy listening to the music from afar.

By the time we got back to Moodymann, the stage manager had seen it in his heart to re-allow people entering the arena as the queue had pretty much dispersed and people were just dancing to the music along the path outside the fencing like a street party. Finishing with smooth jams and Moodymann's charismatic microphone chat as the sky lightened for the morning provided the perfect finisher for a near perfect festival.

-------------------------

The last night of the holiday GET LOW took over the beach bar from 7pm for a final one hour set. As we gradually accumulated a crowd with our music the bar manager came over and told us to carry on playing, and that they'd close it once the crowd died down or people stopped buying drinks....

We finished at 2.30am. GET LOW COMES CORRECT!

That final beach party was an incredible highlight, and it was that Dimensions crowd that really made it a party to remember. You were awesome.

For the last part we ended up going back-to-back with some Trix and Be Ready residents too. Watch out for Schumen's new productions - he's going to be hot property very soon.

-----------

Going to both (and camping) really is the only way to truly experience the festivals. It takes two weeks to really unplug from modern life and reach the perfectly balanced lifestyle bubble where the only things that you need to feed your soul are your friends, the sun, the beach, and the music. I came back from Dimensions incredibly aware of the information overload and new music rat race I've been tied to. And if you were one of the lucky few who found the secret lighthouse hippy commune through the woods, you'd reflect even deeper on the art of life.

A marker of this years Outlook & Dimensions was the omnipresence of Trap music. From the beach bar parties, to the closing set on the main Harbour stage it seemed Trap music was everywhere.

When any micro-genre explosively expands, many an old ear will predict that it'll go the way of a million other micro-genres that blew up too big, too fast and died too soon. What seems to separate Trap from the rest is it's acceptance by "real music" figureheads, from D-Bridge, Machinedrum, Icicle, even Kode 9. Even more interestingly was the fact that those tracks seemed to get the biggest reactions from the crowd too. That's certainly worth chewing on.

Dimensions could have done with another stage to take the strain as for some acts the queue was way too long, and putting acts like Moodymann and Theo Parrish at the relatively small area of Outside the fort was asking for trouble. If you were smart you could comfortably see everyone you wanted to, so this was a minor niggle rather than a major complaint.

Many of the best moments of Dimensions were those in fact unrelated to the music and stages. The new friends and contacts made, the secret area cliff jumping, the beach side warm downs and the after-after-after-parties all helped make Dimensions exceed all expectations. I pray to the gods they choose to keep the capacity at a similar level, as the Dimensions magic is well and truly alive.

-------------------

Pros

- World class location.

- Amazing soundsystems.

- British security were brilliant. Sensible, charismatic, and fair. Also helped stop the Croatian security from "taking things too far".

- Helpful, polite and informed staff

- PERFECT capacity

- Amazing people

- Criminally cheap cigarettes

Cons

- Could have done with a bigger stage for the main acts to alleviate queues. The Clearing stage would have been perfect.

- Forcing people to get tokens, despite a lot of stands choosing to not accept them - like the cigarette outlets. Pah!

- Beach not open in the morning till 10am, meaning we simply had to chill on the beach... just a bit outside the fence. Get the lifeguards there earlier then!

- Why u no keep Outlook Fort Arena 1 speakers for Dimensions?

A big congratulations to Joe, Jack, Noah and the rest of the team who made this launch year a resounding success.

Expect next year to sell out well in advance.