- Helsinki's Flow Festival is a slick operation. It takes place next to the Suvilahti power plant, with several tall, narrow towers and a disused gas cylinder looming over the site. It's impressive during the day, but really comes into its own at night, as a small army of fairy lights bathe the venue in a warm, understated glow. The festival is thoughtfully laid-out and eco-friendly (attendees get €1 for every can they hand in for recycling). As you'd expect from a country as design-conscious as Finland, everything is in its right place, every detail pored over.
Flow Festival attracts 20,000 visitors a day, but you can do a full lap of the site in just a few minutes—a key benefit for anyone tired of trudging through endless fields in search of festival thrills. Balance this with a lineup that offers international headliners (My Bloody Valentine, Kendrick Lamar, Moderat and Nick Cave) alongside a feast of local talent, and you can understand why Flow has emerged as one of Finland's foremost musical events.
The festival's tenth edition kicked off with Atom TM, who played the Other Sound stage, a small indoor arena that was impressively curated across the whole weekend (though ventilation was non-existent, giving the room a permanently stuffy feel). The German's political avant-pop conveyed its message while remaining fun, with renditions of "Imperialist Pop" and "Empty" from this year's HD standing out. Tucked away on the corner of the site, the RBMA stage was surrounded by grass and trees, which gave it a pleasant, relaxed atmosphere. The bill here was heavy on electronic music: early on day one, Jackmaster weaved his way through a blend of Detroit records—including Rick Wilhite's "What Do You See" and Theo Parrish's dub of Wilhite's "Get On Up.
Later that night, Kendrick Lamar took to the Main Stage to play beneath a grey sky, working his way through the hits from his debut album good kid, m.A.A.d city. His performance was tight, though his constant attempts at crowd interaction ("put your left hand up, put your right hand up, put both hands up") became tiresome. In the Black Tent, Finnish band K-X-P rattled through a selection of shouty electronica aided by two drummers. That they were able to pack out their tent despite playing at the same time as Lamar is a testament to their local popularity. Later, Karenn worked their way through an hour's worth of brutal hardware techno, before the night wrapped up with a live performance from Moderat. Though some of the German trio's new material worked well—especially "Bad Kingdom," which played out with Pfadfinderei's video playing behind them—it was first album highlights like "New Error" and "Rusty Nails" that drew the biggest response.
Finnish husband-wife project Cola & Jimmu (AKA Jimi Tenor and Nicole Willis) drew a big crowd to the RBMA stage on Saturday afternoon as they wove through a selection of off-kilter house. Every time I looked up at the stage Tenor was brandishing a different instrument—first a sax, then a flute, then shakers—while Willis manipulated the beats and sang. Next, Tim Sweeney worked his way through a deft selection of Arabic disco, Afro polyrhythms and house B-sides, while back at the Other Sound stage, Lau Nau's homespun (and endearingly macabre) folk created a strange, woozy atmosphere. A couple of hours later, Love Cult played the same spot: facing each other on stage, the Russian duo explored elegant drones and pared-back loops, their swampy electronics perfectly suited to the room's hot, stifled air.
There was a four-hour block on Saturday night—My Bloody Valentine, Factory Floor, Nick Cave and Ebo Taylor—that was as good as you'll find at any festival, anywhere. My Bloody Valentine were at their imperious best, the band's amps seemingly plugged directly up the crowd's backside. Factory Floor played to a small but enthusiastic crowd, opening with "Two Different Ways," which they worked from a throbbing arpeggio into a convulsive froth of primal funk. Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds' prowling rendition of "Stagger Lee" was arguably the festival's defining moment, with Cave seducing the crowd in a manner every bit as thrilling as his performance at Glastonbury back in June. The evening was capped with a performance from sprightly 77-year-old highlife legend Ebo Taylor and his band, whose joyous closing set had the previously reserved Finns dancing around the circular Balloon 360 stage. (Here I was thinking Cave was the coolest person at Flow—Taylor's spotted suit and cream hat-guitar combo put him to shame.)
Sunday was, perhaps understandably, a more sedate affair, though a headline slot from Kraftwerk ensured attendance remained high. Early performances from Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Julia Holter paved the way for the pioneering four-piece, who opened their set with "We Are The Robots." The power station towers behind the stage formed a far more appealing backdrop than their 3D visuals. The night ended in a shamanistic frenzy of Swedish prog from Goat, who rocked the Black Tent with their strange costumes, raw energy and psychedelic sorcery. By this point it was clear Flow's curators had managed to craft a lineup in which no two acts were even remotely alike: this focus on singular talent, combined with a cosy atmosphere, surely makes it one of Europe's best mid-size festivals.