Words: David Hutcheon and Ian Harrison
Designed to showcase brilliant music that doesn’t get the coverage the organisers believe it merits, Utrecht’s Le Guess Who? lives up to that name throughout its four days. Whether or not you can find your way around the labyrinthine Tivoli Vredenburg complex in which it is predominantly based, you will be rewarded with sonic treasures, either around the next corner or the one after that.
MOJO’s weekend begins on Thursday with south Londoners Wu-Lu, who have the swagger of young Tuaregs raised on The Cure circa Seventeen Seconds. The Amsterdam Andalusian Orchestra follow that with Hadra, an immersive visual feast that involves 12 musicians sitting in a circle around a pool the changes with light and vibration. It’s a moving experience, one that would easily while away several hours, were it not time to catch the Mauritanian blues of Moorish griot Noura Mint Seymali and her ardine (a long harp played only by women). Along the way, up and down the escalators of Tivoli Vredenburg, there is also a steely, wide-open set from Kim Gordon and exquisitely selected dubs old and new from Scientist, the first helping of prime Jamaican audio goodness this year.
Having not overdone it on day one, MOJO is rewarded with a Friday that may, arguably, be the most exciting evening of mind-expanding music ever programmed. It starts with Rebecca Salvadori’s film Messengers, soundtracked by a three-piece jazz ensemble. It meanders along confusingly enough, until Japanese psych veterans Bo Ningen, who also appear on screen, emerge from the shadows on stage. What theyare doing isn’t immediately apparent - soaking up the vibes? Watching their acting? - until 45 minutes in, when they roar into action for a visceral closing segment of transportive sound and strobe. You needed to be there, just like you had to experience the longueurs of the overture to get the totality of the crescendo.
Next stop is the cumbia of Colombian flautists Los Gaiteros De San Jacinto, which puts a little sashay in our hips through a set by Mabe Fratti and Hector Tosta’s post-punk jazzers Titanic, what feels like a marvelous evocation of a life of late-night whisky and reflected streetlights on wet cobblestones. If anything could shake that mood, it’s the Austin-based eight-piece Water Damage, who create a transcendent euphoria by repeating a single riff for 40 minutes, with only minimal (yet frequently devastating) deviation. One minute is curious, five strange, perhaps verging on boring; but everyone in the room eventually flips as that noise becomes as vital as air, as hypnotic as the peerless masters of trance The Master Musicians of Joujouka. An absolute revolution.
MOJO also makes it over to new out-of-town venue Kabul Á GoGo, where the presence of veteran reggae hero King Jammy may be gleaned from the fact that the building’s steel walls are shaking noisily from the sounds within. We’re pleased to report that the giant orange bass bins of the local Krackfree Soundsystem are loud enough to make your teeth vibrate without being painful, and hearing a greatest hits-minded King Jammy revisit his mighty Sleng Teng digital rhythm in numerous forms is, well, a trip. And full marks to previous DJs Errol and Sammseed for playing rocking Smiley Culture b-side Shan A Shan.
Saturday begins with an intense session with Frente Abierto, heavy-metal flamenco pioneers whose guitarist wears a Queensrÿche T-shirt, while singers Israel Fernández and Lela Soto sweat passion by the bucket. All the way from Haiti via Montreal, Jowee Omicil brings the found sound of Port-au-Prince - it sure looks vibrant on the video - and a rumba-like beat. “Freedom is at the door,” he tells us. “Grasp it.”
What we instead grasp, though, is the gospel according to Mississippi’s Annie & The Caldwells, the most exciting, most dynamic family of faith imaginable: their rhythm section (dad and two sons) would give the Family Stone a run for its money; the front line (mum and daughters) have unquenchable sass and spirituality, and the crowd doesn’t need persuading to crash the stage and be saved by songs such as Ain’t Nobody Can Do Me Like Jesus. It feels like 2025 may already be their year. There’s also time for Vancouver’s Military Genius, whose guitar/ bass/ drums/ sax format and noir songs that edge into funk and classic rock evoke desert doom, and a rematch with Water Damage, who this time channel Venus In Furs and Tony Conrad into a forty minute-plus ziggurat of cleansing repetition.
Sunday, perhaps it’s planned this way, is almost a day of rest, but there’s still time to take in Brian Jackson’s deep tribute to his former collaborator, Gil Scott-Heron; and a glorious Arooj Aftab, whose set blends the brilliant, newly Grammy-nominated Night Reign and its “really depressing” predecessor, Vulture Prince. Aftab is anything but downbeat, however, merrily ordering 1,200 whiskies to help her audience along this musical rollercoaster, and handing out beers to the thirsty. Cheers! Completing the trifecta of dub, Arooj is followed by a reggae DJ set by Adrian Sherwood, who then live-dub mixes On-U Sound stalwarts Creation Rebel in mind-and ear-bending fashion. Sunday night, how did we get here so soon?
It is conceivable that you could come to Le Guess Who and leave depressed that music no longer simply comprises verses and choruses, melodies and harmonies. Conversely, you could leave convinced that what we have here is a universe of infinite potential and unlimited possibility, and that throwing yourself in at the deep end is the only rational choice. Guess which side we’re on…
Le Guess Who? next takes place from November 6 – 9, 2025, in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Main picture: Kim Gordon by Jelmer de Haas
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