Three Cold Nights Raving at Movement Turin Proved Summer Is Definitely Overrated

Speaking as the sort of pale, ginger, misanthrope who finds sunshine over-rated and at times borderline unpleasant, the idea of a festival abroad is actually pretty off putting to me. In my head I always picture dragging a thin, crinkly bottle of water across my dry, chapped lips, while the sizeable group I'm with argue over whether or not it is worth trying to go to the beach before we head back into a dusty festival site to see The Horrors—or something terrible like that.

Which is why, sitting in a piazza, shoveling gnocchi coated in about eight different types of cheese into my mouth between leisurely gulps of Birra Moretti, I found myself pleasantly surprised. Far from dragging a tent across some dunes after an 18 hour coach journey, I was sitting having an early dinner before heading to Movement Torino, the Italian arm of the Detroit house and techno festival, which was celebrating its tenth year in the city. Once you're past a certain age, any festival that doesn't involve camping is a plus. If this experience instead involves a hotel, walks around an old Italian town surrounded by mountains, and the excuse of a holiday justifying copious purchases of twenty decks of Camel blue, it becomes a joy.

Movement kicked off the night before the festival began, with an opening party headlined by the one and only Kerri Chandler. This was also my first night ever in an Italian night club, and so an interesting insight as to what, if any, differences there were in how we party. In short, there isn't much in it—bar the fact that there were lots of backpacks, lemon soda seemed pretty popular, and everyone was better dressed than me. All told, it was just a really well thrown party. The club, Audiodrome, was the sort of place you could imagine on another night would be all heels and club photographers, but instead, with Chandler dropping the sort of huge (and I mean huge in that predictable "yes lads" sense of the word) house tracks, it was a heads down whirlwind of high spirits and questionable dancing.

It was then, spilling out of the club at the end of my first evening into the back of a cab, that I started to get a feel for what Movement Torino might be all about. A festival prepared to take the music very seriously, but doesn't expect the same of everything else.

This gut feeling was proved right time and time again as the weekend progressed. The festival's main event, hosted in the cavernous Lingotte Fiere—a sort of aircraft hangar sized conference centre—was split into a multitude of rooms, largely centered on techno but with an aptly named "House Stage" tucked off in the far corner. Then there was the lineup, and what a lineup. Within the same, albeit massive, complex we were able to wander from Nina Kraviz to Dixon, from Alan Fitzpatrick to Derrick May, David August to DJ Sneak.

Yet this never came with the slightly severe sobriety you might expect of a massive techno festival. You'd see that lineup and perhaps expect nothing but black t-shirts and beards, but no! This crowd were young! And they were dancing! And they were—in the best way possible—fucked! With that in mind, there was very little to do, but join in.

From a lineup that big, there's very little room for picking out highlights. I can honestly say there wasn't a single artist across the bill that disappointed. Arriving with Nina Kraviz rolling caustic, winding cuts out over her crowd and moving to the suitably yellow Yellow Room for the ever on point Dixon, we were set up for what probably stakes a solid claim as the set of the night from Henrik Schwarz. Whether he was playing melodic micro-house, or floor shuddering instrumentals he raised the roof, in honestly the most delicate way imaginable. It really was a masterclass in how intricate a mayhem inducing set can be.

From here I dragged my assembled group to see firm THUMP hero Robert Hood who was in full Floorplan mode. From "Never Grow Old" to "Get Over U" the red hot room became a sauna for the final slog of the night. I could tell you what the high point was, but you can see for yourself below.

Our third and final night with the festival was an evening with Chicago house icons Virgo Four. From "Sex" to "It's a Crime", their laid back, yet irrepressible grooves took a room that was decked out for a seated audience, but soon played host to a full standing reception, swaying the weekend out. This again returned me to the same dynamic that characterised the entire festival. Seeing Virgo Four playing live, actually playing live, performing seminal house cuts that have to come to shape a genre, is the sort of experience that with the weight of nostalgia could have become a pious, chin stroking exercise. Yet it wasn't. The appreciation and respect was there, of course, but this didn't translate into introspection. Instead it was celebration.

Crammed onto a Ryanair flight home, perhaps the only part of the weekend that can be described as joyless—seriously, is there any room in 2015 for a machine that allows you to fly but not bend your knees?—it was clear that I was wrong about partying in far flung destinations. As far as I'm concerned, you can keep your beaches and boat parties. The glory is to be found in the winter. Street-side pizzas by day, punishing techno by night, and a festival that understands well enough that great music is only as great as atmosphere it's played in.

*Also, sorry about my photos. I should have learnt my lesson about disposable cameras by now.

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