In the age of Quarantine virtual events have become the norm, with various live streams for concerts and club events being organized worldwide. Berlin, a city known for its club culture, has become silent on most weekends, with the city’s premier nightclub Berghain being utilized as an art gallery when lockdown restrictions are not completely in full effect.
Originally scheduled for the summer, Krake Festival, a state-funded multi-venue city-wide electronic music event that was set to expand to neighboring Leipzig, had its normal interaction canceled. The event suddenly had to be shifted to December, merging the living and bedroom after-hours club vibe with streaming sets, interviews, and creative cultural vignettes for its 10th-anniversary celebration.
Krake Festival is one of Berlin’s most important cultural events for the underground, and the success of 2020’s World Wide Web edition was a much-needed respite to keep morale going for those working in the German capital’s nightlife industry, and post-punk adjacent dark techno club culture across the globe.
Across three days spanning from December 11th to the 13th, Krake Festival streamed an assorted curation of programming crossing genre boundaries, time zones, and media.
The first day featured four shows, amongst them was an augmented fantasy live performance, a very unusual combination of a cooking show and a back to back to back DJ set.
The crowning achievement of the festival is the quality production of KRAKE TV, an online music television program including artist features (interviews with Arad and Purita D), music videos, comedy, a charity raffle, and a techno workout by Wes Baggaley.
Watch Krake TV Day One below:
Day 2 translates a multi-room festival situation into modern times with almost 10 streams happening at the same time. Showcasing different crews from out of Berlin and the rest of the world, it featured FOLD London, The Crave from The Hague, Mechatronica, Ismus, Universe of Tang, and more. The content was streamed all night long on the Krake website, where visitors could switch between the streams just like a club-goer would check out different floors and musical & audiovisual concepts at Krake’s real-life festival.
Watch Krake TV Day 2 below:
Day 3 was all about decompression, with an ambient sleep concert happening all night long. The focus was on relaxing and spacious music a person could enjoy alone or with friends chilling and dreaming away on their own couch or bed. Possibly the most appropriate format for electronic music in these tempestuous times.
Watch Krake TV Day 3 Below:
Krake TV was just one of many wonderfully curated features of Krake Festival 2020, ultimately the festival’s true stars are the team of international DJ’s that perform their sets every year. Watch DJ Stingray, Helena Hauff, and more below:
Not many festivals and club events have been able to adapt to the constraints of the Corona Virus pandemic, but Krake has indeed cracked the code for online festival events.
Bonus: Listen to two mixes using only tracks of from Krake’s 10th-anniversary compilation.
Krake 10 Years Anniversary Compilation Mix – by Alienata
Krake 10 Years Anniversary Compilation Mix II by Max Durante
Cold winter’s journey Oh your soul keeps bleeding on Through the storm and the war…
Untie The few and far behind Interest informant redefined Form a feed within and without…
Lost in a dream again Tell me that you want me, no need to pretend…
You can’t believe what they say, they’ll treat you like a fool It hurts me…
Did you feel afraid to whisper? It’s such cold comfort but it’s real The weight…
When light has gone Snow angels will turn to grey Dark veil of our embrace…