The No Bounds festival at Sheffield, England has just ended and captured the true beauty of glomming nostalgia that was prominent in the show. The event took place from October 15th to 17th this year across a number of venues at Sheffield. The industrial history of the city is well showcased as the festival took place in a former First World War gun barrel factory on the outskirts of the city called Hope Works nightclub and Kelham Island Museum. The booming techno sound presented by Helena Hauff at 4 am on Sunday makes you feel the concrete flakes coming off the surrounding walls. The intensity of the music penetrates the hearts and minds of the listeners.
The range of the festival was quite broader this year. The shows were held in bus stations, DIY sites, and bars. Experimental electronic musician Mark Fell gave out an extraordinary performance at one of these venues. Maltby Miners Welfare Band gave out a three-hour-long performance throughout the hub featuring booming brass instrumentation that echoed through the ghostly ambiance. The performance was filled with boundless emotional pang making it highly melancholy.
Most of the performance at No Bounds was held in the darkness rather than the bright lights of a bus station. The collaboration of Ross Orton and the frontman of Working Men’s Club, Sydney Minsky-Sargeant Gave out one of their best performance on Friday evening at Hope Works, offering a minimalistic and squelchy resonance. Loraine James, Kode9, and RP Boo were featured by the Hyperdub label offering the audience a unique and unpredictable melody that changed its flow from hip hop to the jungle, dynamic techno, and fractured beats. The festival-goers had a wonderful experience with their performance.
On Saturday, Space Afrika rocked the festival with a mesmerizingly dark ambiance and subtle resonance. Aurora Halal gifts the audience a slow-build-release DJing with a subtle pause to let the audience feel the dexterity of the performance. The hard-hitting techno beats of Batu drive the listeners to lose control and enjoy the true essence of the show.
The venue for the No Bounds festival looks like the Berlin Wall made out of a giant concrete block. The feeling of inside that venue in the industrial Sheffield helps the audience get absorbed by the musical performances. The 12-foot high walls with barbed wire make the audience remember the recently diseased English artist Richard Harold Kirk. He has helped rebuild the dying music industry of the city more than 40 years ago. He transformed an old cutlery works into an amazing music studio that produced one of the greatest music ever. The No Bounds festival is brilliantly carrying out the tradition with so much success.
