It just isn’t summer without a festival. It’s a seasonal leisure anywhere in the world, especially in Denmark. Of course there’s Roskilde, but hang around in Copenhagen during the month of July and you can find some festivals that rival Roskilde in the fun stakes.
Trailerpark Festival is one such festival. A relative newcomer to the local music scene, Trailerpark is a big supporter of Danish music. And the line up is diverse: electronic, rock, pop, dj sets. It’s party time. Organised by Art Rebels, an agency of like-minded people that work together on projects of a creative, commercial and artistic nature, Trailerpark is all about a collective experience. And Canvas were lucky enough to be guest at this year’s festival.
To use one of the Danes’ more favoured expressions, Trailerpark is hyggeligt. If you’ve spent time in Denmark you’ll understand, but the basic translation is “cosy”. Think Laneway Festival done the Danish way. Trailerpark caters to a small, and especially good-looking, crowd of around 2000 people. Held in an indoor skate park over three days, it featured a tropicana-inpsired Barcadi bar (the mojito’s were sweet and delicious, and definitely a contributor to our demise by the end of the weekend), several impressively themed caravans, which had to be seen to be believed, and a series of art installations.
So of course there was a lot to look at and a lot to listen to but these bands were our pick of the festival.
The Danes are particularly proud of pop artist Fallulah. Her debut album, The Black Cat Neighbourhood is rife with songs that blend genres; pop, rock, jazz, folk, blues. Swigging from a bottle of Jack Daniels and strutting fervishly on stage, Fallulah (real name Maria Apetri) put on an energetic performance. You can’t make music like this without some comparisons, but who cares? Fallulah was certainly one of the most interesting and entertaining performances of the weekend.
Copenhagen-based producer Nick Ericksen, aka Eim Ick, creates a sound characterized by a stripped-down aesthetic. Exploiting the use of rhythm and repetition he turned an otherwise empty dancefloor into a growing crowd. His style of electronic is quite hypnotic. Loops and layers, muted drumlines and melodic vocals; it’s just not possible to feel sad listening to his music.
It’s kind of surprising that Sleep Party People is actually a solo project because a band of six arrived on stage in matching Donnie Darko-esque rabbit masks. The musician behind the menagerie of masks is Brian Batz, and with his furry friends created these upbeat, though often haunting, sounds of distortion via a drum machine, guitar and piano. At times you were swayed into melancholy only to be brought back with some booty-shaking beats.
Part of the international contingent at Trailerpark, Toro Y Moi shared billing with Caribou at the top of our “must-see” list. We like to describe his musical style as a kind of delicious low-fi dreamy pop. It’s layered and lush, like a listening to a lullaby. If you pay close attention to his words you can hear some rather personal truths being played, or rather sung, out but it’s better if you ignore the lyrical content and just float away with his melodies.
Taking top billing at Trailerpark, Caribou‘s kaleidoscopic synth sounds drew the biggest crowd of the festival. Clearly all were there to hear a live version of Odessa, the first release from his new dance album Swim. The set was pretty much devoted to his new album, with a couple of songs from albums past, but the best song of the night, in our opionion, was Sun. It completely blew everyone away.
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