Whether it be Detroit, Frankfurt or Sheffield, cities that base much of their enterprise on industrial endeavours seem to have a natural affinity with electronic music. While some may draw parallels between the man-machine synergy of these places, others are just as happy to point out that synthetic music can often act as a mechanism for escape from the bleak surroundings. The same can't really be said for Torino, Italy's self-deigned "motor city," however. It's a spacious and beautiful metropolis in the northwest of the country with a view of the Alps on the horizon and the ornate architecture of the Palazzo Madama reminding tourists of just how long this city has been around.

Perhaps one of the reasons that Torino is unlike its industrial counterparts is that as the Fiat empire spread over the rest of the country, authorities became keen to find another way of injecting money into the local economy and, in the process, transformed the city into a hub of cultural festivals and activity. We arrived in the middle of the city's Artissima festival, which was showcasing modern art from all around the world. Each year Club to Club coincides with this visual feast and, if you can manage to drag yourself out of bed after a hard night's partying, there are even more things to see and do during the day—most notably the contemporary art exhibition held at Lingotto Fiere Padiglione 1, a massive structure that also houses the festival's final blowout.

With the city's breathtaking architecture, cultural events and friendly people, it seems like a city that has everything going for it—except nightlife. The organisers of Club to Club (which is now in its eighth year) are slowly changing that, though, bringing in extraordinary line-ups for the three-day festival that spans venues across the city.

Thursday - 6 November 2008

The first night of Club to Club was held at Mirafiori Motor Village, a suitable choice of venue for Italy's own "motor city," as it is currently an active showroom for Fiat. Upon arrival we headed straight to the main room—a large darkened space for about 1500 people—which was illuminated by only a couple of spotlights and sporadic flashes of lightning on the four projection screens. One of the co-founders of the Berlin-based Yellow Lounge parties, David Canisius, was warming things up in an idiosyncratic style, dropping dramatic classical records to a mostly empty room.

From here he played one of the tracks from the recent Carl Craig & Moritz von Oswald collaboration, and carried on with a few more beatless techno records. Dark, fizzling synths built up the intensity, before the first kick drum of the night was finally dropped. Once the beats were rolling, more and more people steadily entered the room, but even with a few dancers at the front, I couldn't help but detect a vaguely sterile atmosphere as if people were still waiting for something to happen. Finishing up with a section of housier records, complete with jazzy keys and smooth vocals, the stage was adequately set for Sasu Ripatti to take to the stage under his Luomo guise.

This wasn't the way that things were supposed to happen, of course. Due to Moritz von Oswald's recent stroke on his way to Dublin's DEAF festival, the trio composed of himself, Ripatti and Max Loderbauer had to cancel this show, leaving Ripatti to play solo as a last minute replacement. Having only seen him play a set of his Vladislav Delay material before, I was intrigued as to how the quiet, restrained man of that show would transform when playing his more dance floor oriented material.

One thing that struck me right away is how much tougher his sound was compared to his studio recordings. It may have been the heavy soundsystem doing its work, but the beats seemed to have much more impact, commanding your body to start moving to the music. The first big cheers for the night came for a version of "Robert's Reason," a track from 2008's Convivial that features house legend Robert Owens on vocal duties. Comparing the live version to the record seems almost silly: Ripatti tore the track apart, remixing a totally new record on the fly.

Ripatti has been quoted in previous interviews as saying that his Luomo sets can often suffer if he's not really feeling the mood, but this obviously wasn't the case as he shook his head and mouthed along the words throughout. This, in turn, was reciprocated by the crowd as they smilingly bobbed along to his skittering percussion and bouncing basslines. After delivering a well-received set that mixed material from across his back catalogue, he finished things off with an extended version of the club mix of the majestic "Really Don't Mind" from Paper Tigers. Teasing out the thick low-end and surging melodious stabs, it was the perfect end to a fantastic performance.

By this time we could see Benga take his position at the decks, cracking his usual cheeky wide-boy smile as he swaggered to the front to greet his already cheering fans. There was an obvious separation between the people dancing at the front and Benga's baying fans to their right, who were more than ready for Luomo to finish so they could start getting down to some serious sub-low frequencies. It didn't take long for him to get the crowd to erupt, dropping Skream's "I" early to rapturous effect. I'm not sure how much exposure dubstep has had in Italy, but there seemed to be a mix of expectation and elation in the air as Benga tore through his set, and slowly but surely more of the crowd moved from dancing on the half-beat to full on 140 BPM bouncing.

Whilst Benga sometimes got his head down and concentrated on his lengthier mixes, he still found time to unleash all sorts of crowd pleasing behaviour, at one point frisbeeing a record into the crowd as he beamed wide-eyed at the dance floor damage that he was causing. The biggest reaction of the night, of course, went to the bleeps and blips of "Night," but Benga kept the energy levels at the breaking point with his follow-up—Distance's buzzsaw banger "Victim Support"—before teasing the crowd with a couple of bars of the "Midnight Request Line" riff. It's the most energetic dubstep set I've seen in quite a while, and the Torino masses lapped up every whip-cracking snare and chest-rattling bassline.

His relentless set got a bit much for me after a while, so I retreated back to the bar area where I was treated to a smooth selection of deep and dubby house and techno from Miss Lara, a local DJ who'd been tasked with soundtracking the bar for the entire evening. I spent most of the night in the main room, but whenever I popped back to grab a drink I was always pleasantly surprised by the quality of her selections. But back in the main room, Benga was (surprise, surprise) still smashing it out with The Bug's "Skeng." The crowd had thinned slightly, but the people who were still there were obviously in it for the long haul, and weren't leaving until Benga dropped the last record of the night. I'm not quite sure he wanted to finish, but finish he did, and we traipsed off into the cold night with smiles on our faces and our ears still buzzing with the glow of aural satisfaction.

Friday - 7 November 2008

Friday's events took place over three different clubs, but as they were spread right over the city, it made it difficult to hop between clubs as easily as I'd have liked. After close examination of the set times, we decided to head to Hiroshima Mon Amour to check out Warp's latest live signing, Pivot. They had just begun their set as we entered the club, so we grabbed some drinks and headed over to grab a space in the main room. For a three-piece they had a very full sound, aided heavily by Dave Miller's laptop trickery. People always claim that they sound a bit like label mates Battles, and while this is true to an extent, it doesn't really do the band justice. Yes, they might play an angular and futurist take on post-punk and math rock, but their sound has many more facets than that suggests. Going from soaring Blade Runner chords and free jazz drumming, through to a heavier stop/start section with Miller's arpeggios continuously running underneath, it was a set that captivated throughout. For all the time signature changes and fiddly sections, the band was incredibly tight, losing things only slightly when the live drums and Miller's drum machine started to go out of time.

It didn't matter, however, but it must have been difficult for Junior Boy Matt Didemus to follow, especially as half of the crowd seemed to exodus as he was starting his set. Things weren't helped by the fact that as he spun his first records, the crew decided that it would be a good idea to drag the DJing table from the corner of the stage to the front. Cue lots of needle skipping—not the greatest start, then. Didemus' mix of stripped back house and techno seemed much more suited to an after party than 1 AM, and I get the feeling that people were after something a bit more pumping, us included.

On that note, we headed downstairs to the darkened basement just as Skream was starting to play. It's been a while since I've had the chance to catch him play, and it's quite obvious that his DJ skills have much improved since then. As with Benga, he was out to get the party rocking from the word go, pulling out Jakes and Joker's "3KLane" whilst exercising a blatant disregard for the country's smoking ban. It was a much smaller, intimate vibe than last night, but the crowd were receptive to each bassline drop and rhythmic change. When Rusko's catchphrase sampling "Mr Chips" quickly shifted from half speed to double time, you could feel the energy levels in the room rocket as the crowd got their heads down and started bouncing along at the faster tempo. At both of the dubstep sets I saw at the festival, what was quite apparent to me was the lack of moody atmosphere that often prevails at English dubstep parties. The Italians may not have invented the genre, but they sure know how to party to it.

2000 & One

Upon revisiting the main room, both the music and atmosphere had dramatically improved. Didemus had shifted up quite a few gears in my absence, now peddling a chunkier tech-house sound with plenty of arpeggios thrown in. As we left to see what was going on with the shuttle buses (which ferried between the three venues all night), we could just about make out the booming bassline of Moodymann's "Dem Young Sconies" fighting its way through the dark, driving techno groove.

After a long wait for the bus to set off, we finally arrived at the city's riverside venue, Pier. After witnessing a scuffle break out only a minute into our arrival, we shimmied our way to the front to catch the last couple of tracks of The Mole's live set. He seemed to have the crowd in the palm of his hand as he teased in "Baby, You're The One," the modulated elastic bassline causing relative hysteria compared to what I'd seen earlier in the evening. It was down to 2000 & One to finish up the evening's music, and though he played an impressive selection of bumpin' tech-house, it was slightly marred by the venue's high male/female ratio, and the aggressive atmosphere that lingered in the air. After speaking to a few locals, I was informed that this particular venue was known for attracting this sort of clientele, and I have to say that the vibe here was much different to anywhere else that I'd visit during my stay.

Saturday - 8 November 2008

Theo Parrish rocking the Sound Signature

There were a couple of things going on at Club to Club's final day, the first being the Raster Noton showcase at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo. It was an audio-visual sit-down affair for just a couple of hundred people, featuring performances from Kangding Ray and Byetone. Kangding Ray was up first, beginning his set by manipulating radio static, looping and delaying it live as the vector-based visuals went on above his head. Just as it was getting a bit noodly, he dropped a heavy broken beat that sounded incredibly crisp on the auditorium's system. The performance seemed to sway from darkness to light and then back again, with the growling bass and moody orchestral samples finally giving way to swelling ambience.

When the beats finally returned, the shock was enough to make a few people in front of me actually jump out of their seats! After a few more transitions of mood, including a wistfully melodic vocal piece and an M83-style barrage of synthesizers, it was all over. I enjoyed most of his performance, but felt that maybe the whole Raster Noton showcase would've been better suited to a grotty industrial venue rather than the pristine auditorium. The set-up forced the audience to focus visually on the performer and his work, but with music that's so immersive, it seemed to cause people to be constantly waiting for something to happen rather than just enjoying the music.

After grabbing some food, we made our way over to Lingotto Fiere Padiglione 1 to catch the last hour of Theo Parrish's set. This was far the biggest party of the festival, taking place in a massive 7000 capacity room, and was far from full as we entered. At the back of the room, it was difficult to make out what was actually being played, as the reverberations of bass made it difficult to hear anything. Once we'd got to the front, these sound problems weren't apparent at all though, and I found myself swaying along to Parrish's jazzy and musical selection.

Parrish was mixing back and forth between funky disco jams and soulful house, throwing a few jazz-funk curveballs along the way. His EQing wasn't as wild as I've heard on some of his previous mixes, but what he did was simple and effective, at one point taking everything out apart from the bass before teasing the high end back in. Suddenly there was an abrupt move into techier house territory, but that was short lived as the organs and jazzy instrumentation returned to dominate. By this time, Theo seemed to really be losing himself in the music, trancing himself out with his selections. I think it's safe to say that Skream wasn't the only person ignoring the smoking ban over the weekend. After some cheery jazz-funk and funky house numbers, Theo closed on a heavy hitting disco jam that intoned "she's a disco diva"—a somewhat cheeky track to end on as Magda took to her laptop at the other side of the stage.

She was given a rock star's reception by the Torino crowd, with deafening shouts bouncing round the cavernous space as literally 300 people went to the front to shoot video on their phones. In my eyes, this accentuated the inevitably awkward transition between their sets, and I get the feeling that Ellen Allien (who was due on later) would've been more sympathetic to Theo's sound and bridge the gap between them nicely. Magda brought out the techno rollers pretty much immediately, working the receptive crowd into a lather with her stripped back locomotive style.

I found myself less than won over with her performance, as it seemed like whenever I found a groove that would held my attention and got me dancing, she would just strip things back to a bleep and a hi-hat before whacking in a huge kick drum. It may have been the case that Magda felt it necessary to play this way due to the big crowd, as I can only describe her set as "stadium minimal." It was a much younger audience here than at any other event over the festival, and they were lapping up each and every whoosh and drop, but both the sound palette and reduction/kick drum pattern seemed both predictable and uninspiring. You could say that the set was right for this type of event (and I'm sure the crowd would've agreed), but it left me a bit cold.

It was down to BPitch Control boss Ellen Allien to close the festival, and she started off quite minimally, in keeping with Magda's set. This only furthered the argument in my mind that she would've been better placed after Theo Parrish, but she did a good job of keeping the crowd on her side given the circumstances. After playing a couple of dubstep records, Allien moved onto the rolling warehouse techno, beginning with Marcel Dettmann's recent remix of Modeselektor.

While being expertly mixed, her set chugged along relentlessly, showing tiny flashes of tranciness before launching back into the dark and druggy groove. Under different circumstances I could've seen myself enjoying it a lot more, but given the fact that the bars had stopped dispensing alcohol an hour before she even played her first record, we decided to call it a night halfway through her three-hour set.

The ill-judged sequencing of the final night was disappointing, but was a mere blip on what was a well executed city-based festival. One thing that really does strike me about Club to Club is their programming and attention to detail. While they may not have dozens of parties each night, the quality of the events being held are some of the best that I've ever been to. Coupled with the enthusiastic crowds, all of the elements are in place to give you a different type of festival experience.

With a different location each night, Club to Club allowed revelers to see a lot of the sights that the city has to offer. If the organisers can stick to their refined booking policy and carry on running the festival as smoothly as this time around, you can only see it getting bigger and bigger as the years go by. As festivals like Sonar expand and become increasingly popular with the casual crowd, clubbers are looking elsewhere to get their foreign festival kicks. It seems like with Torino's Club to Club, we've got a real contender on our hands.

Photo credit: Nick Ensing