Two consecutive evenings earlier this week marked the premiere of El-Sawy Culture Wheel's first Electronic Music Festival. As the independent music scene attempts to reinvent itself and seek diversity, such an initiative should've been a laudable step to create a different music platform. Alas, what was designed to be a music mini-fair to introduce new talent turned out to be a meek show of already established musicians who played solo or with a band along with popular disc jockeys. The first day of the festival included performances by Wael Alaa with vocalist Aya Mustafa and DJ Haze accompanied with bands BIKYA and Digital Counter. Fathy Salama, Mahmoud Refaat, Hassan Khan, Machine Eat Man and DJ Feedo took center stage on day two. The lack of proper promotion for the event (no flyers, posters or any prior announcement) resulted in an unexpectedly low turnout for an event headlined by the biggest names in the genre in Egypt. Mahmoud Refaat's performance was one of the highlights. Influenced by rock music, Refaat presented a combination of acoustic and electronically synthesized sounds, creating a new form of beat-based assortment rolled up vividly in one great cocktail. With a few grouchy statements, Mohamed Ragab kicked off his multimedia live performance. His set, bluntly titled "Machine Eat Man, attempted to bring analog synthesizers back into the scene. Like its title, Ragab's music was rowdy and highly pulsating. Loaded with images of political figures, natural catastrophes, violent demonstrations and cliché video recordings of various forms of brutality stuffing popular media, the projected footage was a major turn-off. Though well synchronized with the music, the juxtaposition of both elements was loutish and hectic. On the other hand, M.E.M's performance was a demonstration of fine craftsmanship ruined by the burden of banal, naive political statements and a plea for a chaotic squeal. Despite how odd it may have initially seemed, it was no surprise that Grammy and BBC awards winner, Fathy Salma, managed to playfully use his signature keyboard along with live percussions for an electronic concoction this time. The live performance of the two percussionists accompanying Salama functioned as acoustics to level his electronic presentation as well as being part of the loops. Hip-hop, jazz, mid-tempo backgrounds, rhythms from Upper Egypt and folkloric tunes were inventively fused together, producing an eclectic musical piece. Seamlessly moving between musical genres, Salama has a particular passion for electronic music, a genre he has been toying with since the early 90s. "Electronic music is a highly imperative genre that is still unjustly treated or discarded. Besides, it's a key outcome of this age, Salama told Daily News Egypt. Whether in studio sessions or within informal settings, the experimental music scene has been well nurtured with Hassan Khan's daring novelty and unconventional performances. Artist, musician and writer, Khan, presented his new creation "Mesmeric, a pre-composed musical structure improvised live. According to Khan, the objective behind "Mesmeric is exploring repetitions, harmonic breakdowns and movements, while shifting between tracks built around a central pattern that is explored in different ways and then allowed to introduce another series of patterns. "It is not about spectacle, commented Khan on his minimalist piece. "I wanted to test the possibility of playing a type of music that is usually performed in an intimate and more focused setting and find ways to communicate it in a festival setting, he explained. The most erratic aspect of the festival though was the DJs whose works fit better in glitzy venues or commercial outlets. Whether the DJs were added to fill up unoccupied slots or employed as a selling point, the likes of DJ Feedo and Haze didn't contribute much to the festival and were, actually a major drawback; especially by mixing different genres such as house, trance, fusion, sound art and experimental music, all trivially cluttered as "electronic music. No wonder then that most artists who participated in the festival were disappointed. "This experience with the Sakia has been a total failure and actually counter-productive to developing an engaged and active scene, commented Khan. "Things should be approached more seriously, with some sense as to what line-up would work towards the total experience; the seemingly random nature of the programming reflected a general lack of interest in the actual music. It seemed to me that things were done just to be mentioned in an end of year report. Disorientation and blunders were the main characteristics of the fest. Not only in the mixing up of genres, but even in Mohamed El-Sawy's written statement describing a century-old art form as a "growing wave among youth. El-Sawy Culture Wheel's first Electronic Music Festival is a palpable illustration of its current position in Egypt. Truth be told though, unlike any independent or state venue, Sakia has proven to be the most hospitable platform for all types of art without any favoritism or generic preference. However, this liberal approach has been in many cases quite noxious, responsible for odd acts or inaccurately using terms that lead to flat generalizations.
