- Andrew Ryce enjoys the best in noise, techno, thrash metal and more at the experimental festival with a sense of humour.
- "So... the ice sculpture isn't here yet." That was among the first things Dominick Fernow, AKA Prurient, told me when I arrived at Hospital Fest in New York, the annual extravaganza for all things noise, metal and techno. Fernow had actually ordered two ice sculptures—one bearing the Hospital Productions logo, the other proclaiming "Support The Underground!!!!!!!!!!!!!"—to ensure they lasted the duration of the 17-hour festival. This kind of meticulous attention to detail was typical of the event, which took traditionally DIY music and gave it a grand platform.
As the name implies, Hospital Fest celebrates Hospital Productions, a noise label started by Fernow more than 20 years ago. In that time, it's become an outpost for all kinds of dark and angry music. The lineup reflected this, with a daytime program that leaned more towards noise, ambient and metal—culminating in a thunderous performance from Merzbow—before pivoting to techno from producers who lurk in that genre's more shadowy realms. There was also a second room, called The Metal Bar, where DJs—including Igor Cavalera from Sepultura and Fred Estby from legendary Swedish death metal band Dismember—played metal for people who wanted a break from noise and techno. It was an odd spin on the chill-out room.
The festival took place in the huge Knockdown Centre, a sprawling arts complex with a main room that feels like a cross between a warehouse and a barn. The daytime unfolded with a series of noise and ambient acts, and it was remarkable to hear this kind of music—usually performed in an intimate space like a gallery or a house party—on a real system. Autoerotichrist, the mid-'90s noise band that partly inspired Fernow's Prurient project, played their first-ever live set, an intense 15 minutes in which band member R. Mason cut his head open and proceeded, for the remainder of the performance, to smash his face into various bits of gear. Ron Morelli pummelled out noise-flavoured techno—hard kick drums and screeching vocals—while Japanese artist Linekraft writhed and flailed through one of the most powerful and dynamic noise sets I've ever seen, bashing trash cans and other detritus while screaming as if his life depended on it.
Justin Broadrick, who techno fans will know best as JK Flesh, was maybe the best example of how Hospital Fest connects worlds. First there was a live set from his shoegaze metal project Jesu, where he was joined by Alberich (on noise) and the Warp artist Kelly Moran (on piano), who beefed up Broadrick's ultra-emo sound. The show climaxed with falls of fake snow. Later, Broadrick took the stage as Final, one of his earliest projects and his outlet for ambient music. In between, Broadrick's partner in the band Godflesh, G. C. Green, performed the first live set from his project Vitriol, which hasn't released a record in almost two decades. I was told that Fernow was pulling the strings on almost all of this, pushing his artists to step out of their comfort zone.
These unusual sets lent the festival a momentous feeling, which was best captured in the collaboration between Prurient, Igor Cavalera and the Texas thrash metal band Power Trip. The set began with a spine-tingling guitar rendition of Prurient's "Christ Among The Broken Glass," before Power Trip followed with their own politically-charged songs. Fernow crouched behind them, adding screams and other noisy interludes between songs. It wasn't a fully thought-out collaboration—more of a DIY improvisation—but the energy onstage hit the crowd like a tidal wave, even forming a small mosh pit on the dance floor.
And then there was Merzbow, one of the most intense, hair-raising noise artists around. (One of my friends left the performance because he couldn't stand it.) It's the kind of experience that feels transformative, providing you with the same endorphin rush you might get from exercise or pain. Surprisingly, much of the crowd left straight after, suggesting that plenty of people at Hospital Fest were there just for the noise. But by the time the Hospital Productions label manager Becka Diamond took over to take the festival into its techno portion, there was a sizeable audience once again.
The techno lineup was rock-solid, a cathartic release after a day of noise. Silent Servant made the most of his 30 minutes with an especially acerbic live set, while Ancient Methods banged out his trademark EBM-inspired techno, full of broken beats and wildly swung rhythms. Shifted and Oscar Mulero ended the night with more strait-laced techno, though you could even sense a common thread between their styles—unwieldy, hypnotic, bludgeoning—and what came before.
The most impressive thing about Hospital Fest was its diversity, both in terms of the crowd and the music. It was an exercise in heterodoxy that dissolved barriers between scenes, where metal heads rubbed elbows with techno fans. Fernow told me that he programmed the festival so that if you liked one act, you'd probably hate the next. Though it was carefully planned out, he refused to participate in what he saw as the academic stuffiness of other experimental music festivals. Hospital Fest had a sense of humour as well as a sense of danger, exemplified by R. Mason's smiling, blood-drenched face. It's the idea that you can be performative, silly and deadly serious all at the same time. "It's about taking the joke seriously," said Fernow, with a devilish smile.
Photo credit /
Sean McGonagle - Lead
Nikki Sneakers - All others
Justin Broadrick, who techno fans will know best as JK Flesh, was maybe the best example of how Hospital Fest connects worlds. First there was a live set from his shoegaze metal project Jesu, where he was joined by Alberich (on noise) and the Warp artist Kelly Moran (on piano), who beefed up Broadrick's ultra-emo sound. The show climaxed with falls of fake snow. Later, Broadrick took the stage as Final, one of his earliest projects and his outlet for ambient music. In between, Broadrick's partner in the band Godflesh, G. C. Green, performed the first live set from his project Vitriol, which hasn't released a record in almost two decades. I was told that Fernow was pulling the strings on almost all of this, pushing his artists to step out of their comfort zone. These unusual sets lent the festival a momentous feeling, which was best captured in the collaboration between Prurient, Igor Cavalera and the Texas thrash metal band Power Trip. The set began with a spine-tingling guitar rendition of Prurient's "Christ Among The Broken Glass," before Power Trip followed with their own politically-charged songs. Fernow crouched behind them, adding screams and other noisy interludes between songs. It wasn't a fully thought-out collaboration—more of a DIY improvisation—but the energy onstage hit the crowd like a tidal wave, even forming a small mosh pit on the dance floor.
And then there was Merzbow, one of the most intense, hair-raising noise artists around. (One of my friends left the performance because he couldn't stand it.) It's the kind of experience that feels transformative, providing you with the same endorphin rush you might get from exercise or pain. Surprisingly, much of the crowd left straight after, suggesting that plenty of people at Hospital Fest were there just for the noise. But by the time the Hospital Productions label manager Becka Diamond took over to take the festival into its techno portion, there was a sizeable audience once again. The techno lineup was rock-solid, a cathartic release after a day of noise. Silent Servant made the most of his 30 minutes with an especially acerbic live set, while Ancient Methods banged out his trademark EBM-inspired techno, full of broken beats and wildly swung rhythms. Shifted and Oscar Mulero ended the night with more strait-laced techno, though you could even sense a common thread between their styles—unwieldy, hypnotic, bludgeoning—and what came before.
The most impressive thing about Hospital Fest was its diversity, both in terms of the crowd and the music. It was an exercise in heterodoxy that dissolved barriers between scenes, where metal heads rubbed elbows with techno fans. Fernow told me that he programmed the festival so that if you liked one act, you'd probably hate the next. Though it was carefully planned out, he refused to participate in what he saw as the academic stuffiness of other experimental music festivals. Hospital Fest had a sense of humour as well as a sense of danger, exemplified by R. Mason's smiling, blood-drenched face. It's the idea that you can be performative, silly and deadly serious all at the same time. "It's about taking the joke seriously," said Fernow, with a devilish smile. Photo credit / Sean McGonagle - Lead Nikki Sneakers - All others