Punkt Festival 2012, Curated by Brian Eno

[jkelman]

My review of Punkt Festival 2012, curated by Brian Eno, today at AllAboutJazz.

It was a year of transition, as the Kristiansand, Norway Live Remix festival moved from its older, smaller digs at the 550-seat Agder Theatre to the remarkable new and state-of-the-art Kilden Performing Arts Centre. It was also a very different year, with festival Artistic Directors Jan Bang and Erik Honoré turning the task of programming over to well-known producer, musician and ambient music progenitor Brian Eno. The result? A year unlike any other, with some significant changes that the festival will, no doubt, carry forward into future years. But there were some misses as well, most noticeable being Eno's placing Live Remix - Punkt's founding premise and most important differentiator - in the back seat to the main stage shows.

Still, as ever, an overall success with particularly fine performances by Britain's Three Trapped Tigers, sound sculptor Ben Frost, Canada's Owen Pallett and American comedian/musician Reggie Watts, and especially outstanding remixes by the Norwegian team of Bang/Honoré/Arve Henriksen/Eivind Aarset, J.Peter Schwalm, Vladislav Delay...and Eno himself, who made an extremely rare appearance as a performing musician, in his live remix of Reggie Watts, in collaboration with Schwalm.

Review here.