- There's an inspiring story behind Nachtdigital. You can hear the whole thing in the festival's documentary, Escape To Olganitz, but here's the short version: in the early '90s, a group of parents in a small German village gave their teenagers a storage unit to use as a kind of club house. The kids set up turntables and started putting on little parties for their friends. Word got around, and soon kids from other villages were coming to check out their events. When the original crew were 18 or so, they threw a one-night open-air at Bungalowdorf Olganitz, a tiny lakeside resort from the GDR era, and called it Nachtdigital. It became an annual thing, and within a few years had swelled into a two-day festival with 3,000 attendees and guest artists like Dixon and James Holden. All that with just a tiny budget, a lot of love from the guest DJs (many of whom play for a fraction of their usual fees) and lots of hard work from the 200 or so friends that make the festival happen each year.
Nachtdigital's DIY ethic is still unmistakable today. All of the décor is clearly homemade, from the Hollywood-style letters spelling out Nachtdigital to the impressive light installations in the tent stage (or FATZKENSTADT). As I queued to get in this year (my first), fancy-dressed DJs broke the ice with a medley of guilty pleasures ("Don't Stop Believing," "Call Me Maybe") while a makeshift bar gave out free lemonades with Jägermeister. Most prices around the festival were impressively low—a food hut near the campsite had one of the vibier menus I've ever seen, with beers for €1 and condoms for free.
The festival's lineup was clued-in but unfussy, offsetting party DJs with more exploratory acts and showcasing a number of impressive lesser-knowns. The weekend kicked off with two excellent DJs I'd never heard of: Elisabeth, a resident at ://about blank in Berlin, who played leftfield house and techno in the FATZKENSTADT (Juju & Jordash's "Waldorf Salad" stood out) and DJ Olivia, who belted out dirty techno like Gesloten Cirkel's "Submit X" and Sneaker's "You Think You Think." This was on the SPLATATAZONGG, an outdoor stage whose sandy dance floor goes right into the lake.
Miles Whittaker had a long set in the tent later that night, mixing dusky house and techno with lurching UK bass, eventually finishing with The Other People Place's classic "Let Me Be Me" (though it must be said, this one would have been a lot better without Heatsick's premature Casio noodling). Across the lake, Samuel Kerridge was rolling out exquisite waves of rumbling low-end, occasionally punctuated by sluggish kicks—a bold look for what was essentially a Friday night beach party, but the crowd was with him all the way (the people in front were rocking out at least as much as he was).
Sometime past dawn, my plans to turn in for the night were derailed when I stumbled upon a breezy, cushion-strewn gazebo where the Golden Pudel crew were DJing. Ralf Köster, the Hamburg club's eccentric ringleader, was interspersing delicate ambient records with bumping hip-hop and dub instrumentals, and looking even more than usual like Santa Claus on acid (I think he was wearing a curtain as a skirt).
Across the grassy pitch in front of me, the the scene was quite a bit livelier. DÜÜDOOM, Nachtdigital's shady afterhour dance floor, was popping off to the sounds of Doumen Records, a small label with roots in Leipzig and Amsterdam who held a showcase all afternoon on Saturday. By then the dance floor was already full of swim trunks and beach towels. Being the pasty and timid man that I am, I wouldn't make the plunge until nearly the end of the festival, which is a shame—both outdoor stages are so close to the lake that you actually feel like part of the party while you bob around out there (this video from 2013 should give you an idea).
Saturday had almost too many highlights to name. Den Haag hero I-F mixed disco with demented cuts like his own "I Do Because I Couldn't Care Less." TR-101 (that is, DJ Pete and Sleeparchive) unleashed barrages of ultra-crisp kicks and snares at dawn (they were an impressively on-point replacement for Karenn, whose gear was still on its way to Dekmantel). Donato Dozzy soundtracked the sunrise with wispy strands of techno. I think I heard every version of AtomTM's "Ich Bein Eine Maschine" over the weekend, but his rinse of Function's remix was by far my favorite. And though it was a bit sad to have to scurry back to our tents at the peak of the night, the cracks of lightning during James Holden's surprise live set were wonderfully dramatic. For me, the night's only low point was Dixon, whose opening set suffered from one too many tech house ballads (Âme's remix of Dan Croll's "From Nowhere," Frank Wiedemann's remix of Alex Banks' "A Matter Of Time," Moderat's "Bad Kingdom").
Nachtdigital really shone in its final push (the festival ends at about 3 PM on the Sunday). Roman Flügel and Robag Wruhme (possibly the festival's closest friend of the family) went back-to-back on the SPLATATAZONGG, weaving between trippy synth workouts (Flügel's) and more straightforward tech house bombs (Wruhme's). When they were done, the party moved over to DÜÜDOOM, where Trouw resident Job Jobse closed the festival with a truly inspired, '80s pop-flavored set. The crowd was loose, sunburned and incredibly upbeat. The dance floor, which by now stretched over the beach and into the lake, climaxed repeatedly to old favorites like Depeche Mode's "Enjoy The Silence" and Pet Shop Boys' "You Are Always On My Mind." Some selections, like The Beloved's "Sweet Harmony" or Gui Boratto's "Beautiful Life," might sound a bit much on paper. But in that moment—a glorious day in the German countryside, with a few hundred people having possibly their best dance floor moment of the year—they were pretty hard to argue with.
Photo credits: Anke Guderie (lake), Martin Lovekosi (DÜÜDOOM, SPLATATAZONGG), Robert Richter (light installation, I-F)