London's Newest One Day Festival Brought Moodymann and Omar-S to a Park in Brixton

More and more pop up every year, yet despite their constant increasing popularity they almost always disappoint. The typical day festival experience normally consists of necking over-priced pints, losing, finding and re-losing mates, only to spend a grand total of about 40 minutes watching one DJ who you can't hear because the sound is barely audible so as to not disturb the very residential neighbours a stone's throw from the festival site.

Sunfall set out to be different, and succeeded.

Taking place in Brixton's Brockwell park, the site was actually refreshingly small, splitting the action across four stages with extra pop-up tents housing the likes of Rye Wax and Peckham radio station Balamii around the edges. Not only that, but the sound actually wasn't total garbage. Imagine that? You could hear what the DJs were playing, like, actually hear it. Not just vaguely make it out. You could hear the music! This is no mistake; the festival's organisers made a clear pact to offer better sound than their competitors and the impact it had was immeasurable. Put simply, instead of hearing two pissed-up Goldsmiths students asking each other when Jamie xx is on, or your best mate's new boyfriend complaining about drinks prices, you could hear actual, proper, good music.

And the music wasn't just audible: it was great! Given that Sunfall is a festival thrown by the heads behind XOYO, it's not unreasonable to expect they have a pretty good phonebook to call from, as was more than evidenced by the bill. Our day started with Fatima Yamaha turning in wistful synthetic treats from his latest record, who led us nicely into an ebullient performance from Kamasi Washington and his God-level band (featuring his dad on flute). Other standouts came in the form of the "best voice in dance music" Kenny Dixon Jr himself, Moodymann, followed by a roof-raising b2b from Joy Orbison and Job Jobse. Following that, we were a little surprised to look at our watches and discover that the day was basically done. For the final hour we gladly let Omar S 4/4 us into oblivion, as the sun—in keeping with the trade descriptions act of 1968—fell.

It's here that Sunfall gets a little bit more complicated. The central idea at the core of the festival is a by day festival site, which then splits off into several clubs across south London by night. It's a neat idea, if not a little limiting for festival goers who have to decide long in advance which particular party they want to go to. That said, it was comforting to know that even if they weren't doing it together, a festival's worth of parties were popping off across South London.

To be totally honest, London doesn't need more festivals. Or, more specifically, the world doesn't need more festivals. We are more than oversubscribed with boutique electro-swing in a teepee bullshit to last us seven lifetimes. For a new festival to survive it needs to be essential. It needs a reason to exist. Thankfully, by taking things back to square one, Sunfall have found exactly that. Stripping away the trappings and providing a small but stellar lineup supported by a sound-system worthy of their stature, Sunfall has justified its existence. If they can hold on to those central tenets we look forward to them rising again next year.

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