DEAF 2008

It’s October and for Irish electronic music fans that means that DEAF is coming. DEAF (the Dublin Electronic Arts Festival) has been going since 2002 and takes place every year during the Irish October bank holiday weekend, this year it runs from Thursday 23rd until Sunday 26th. It’s independently run by D1 Recordings.

Over the years it has gone through many different changes. In the first few years, it revolved around a large party in the Guinness Storehouse at the famous St James’ Gate site in Dublin city. While I still remember those parties fondly, the venue just wasn’t practical for a large party, so they gave up on that. Since then the festival has been spread out over various different venues around the city, from clubs and pubs to old churches. They’ve also had a few different themes in recent years, all Irish acts in 06 and last year it was an Asian theme. Over the years DEAF has featured performances from Coil, Aux Men, Plaid, Scion, Roger Doyle, Ulrich Schnauss, The Bug, Galaxy2Galaxy & Los Hermanos, Robert Hood, Akufen, Mark Broom, Interstellar Fugitives, Lee Douglas, 4 Hero, Photek and many Irish artists. I think my best DEAF experience was at the Galaxy 2 Galaxy/Los Hermanos live gig in 05 which is still available as a free download (video and audio) on the DEAF archive. Read here what the organisers have to say about how the festival has progressed from 2002 to the present.

While I fully understood the practical reasons for giving up on the Storehouse parties, they never really replaced it, and despite having many great moments since I thought that the Festival lost a focal point because of that. So, I’m quite excited that this year they’re putting on a big closing party again on Sunday night, and it looks like it could be a bit special. The line up features Model 500 live, Moritz Von Oswald Trio, Laurent Garnier, D1 artists such as Americhord and Annie Hall and loads more. And the rest of the festival looks great too with 52 different events on around Dublin city.

The opening night, Thursday 23rd, you can choose from Nurse with Wound with support from Stephen O’Malley SUNN O))) , electro and techno with Ultradyne and DJ S2 in Twisted Pepper, or for disco and house check out Steve Kotey of Bear Entertainment with support from ISM friends TR-One/Broken Audio Movement in Bia Bar.

On Friday, 2 Irish artists that have featured on this blog will be performing as Chymera (live) and John Daly (DJ) play Nightflight at the Button Factory. If you’re looking for something tougher then Regis is spinning for Test in The Underground.

On Saturday DJ Skurge (UR), Rob Hall, Shawn Rudiman, Annie Hall and more! And on the same night Luke Vibert plays the Underground.

There’ll also be DEAF DJs playing in various bars around the city throughout the festival.

But there’s a lot more to the festival than electronic music, it is, after all, an electronic arts festival not just a music festival. This is one area of the festival that has expanded considerably in recent years. Expect workshops, lectures, art installations, films and so on. One of the highlights is a free day and night of films, talks, workshops and music on the Saturday which will feature a talk by Dave Vorhaus and Mark Jenkins of White Noise and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Hip-hop cut ‘n’ paste pioneer Steinski will be giving one of his sweet talks on Thursday. There’ll also be a number of film screenings, including the new Arthur Russel documentary, “Wild Combination – A Portrait of Arthur Russell”, and the Sun Ra doc, “A Joyful Noise”. And DEAF galleries will be open throughout the festival.

So here’s to a great festival and massive respect and thanks to festival directors Eamonn Doyle and Karen Walshe and everyone else involved whose hard work makes this possible.

Go to the DEAF website for full schedule, artist info and archive material http://deafireland.com/blog/

PS, Tom/pipecock did an interview with the Model 500 band for RA a few months back which you can read here.