Much like Calgary’s Sled Island and Edmonton’s Purple City, Freakout Festival aims to bring a weekend of eclectic music styles and shows to its residents without them having to drive out to the boonies and deal with the expenditures of travelling and lodging. Set across several connected neighbourhoods and blocks, this inner city venture offers music lovers a chance to take in hundreds of live acts all within walking (or stumbling) distance from each other. This year, RANGE was on the ground at the industrious festival, soaking in the thrilling array of bands and artists that Freakout brought together for our collective pleasure!

Lydia Lunch

Photo: Rachel Bennett

The New York luminary of all things chaotic has been at the forefront of experimental music dating as far back as 1979, and her output has ranged wildly, beginning with no wave iconoclasts Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and 8-Eyed Spy, through solo operatic punk jazz variations, frenzied collabs with fire-breathers No Trend and the Birthday Party, and sludge tilts with Kim Gordon in Harry Crews, all the way to making big sexy noise in well, Big Sexy Noise. It’s to Lunch’s tribute then that she found new ways to surprise during her set at the Sunset Tavern, breaking away from these countless molds, and instead fervently reciting a collection of beat-inspired poems over a minimalist drone and guitar backdrop. Her addled, paranoia-sodden delivery was the perfect lynchpin for these world-weary stories of spoiled Americana. This particular underground legend is clearly unhappy simply resting on her indie laurels, and there is no telling where her tireless pursuits will take her next.

Shabazz Palaces

Photo: Rachel Bennett

It’s a well-trod frustration at any festival that two of your favourite acts will often take the stage at the same time, and so it was a panicked hustle between Lydia Lunch’s venue to catch the latter half of Shabazz Palaces’ set at the Nectar Lounge. The rush was well-justified, and the Seattle collective did not disappoint, unravelling a spacey and angular display of Bohemian hip-hop. Their most recent album, Exotic Birds of Prey, was on fine display, but the group also dipped back to their early classics with ease, melding it all into a seamless sequence of abstract beats and sleek bars, putting on a fiery show of throwback rapping that nowadays posits itself more and more as a traditional counterpoint to the sing-heavy proclivities of their contemporary peers. The old school worship serves them well, and Shabazz Palaces were Freakout’s runaway highlight, giving their hometown yet another commanding reminder that hip-hop is alive and well.

Martin Rev

Photo: Rachel Bennett

Much like Lydia Lunch, Martin Rev has lived many lives and worn many masks. Of course, his early experiments with electronic avant-punk with Alan Vega as Suicide will always be his most well-known legacy. But the Brooklyn native has been instrumental in pushing several fringe genres to the surface over the years, and I could not name any band plying a trade in harsh noise, electro-acoustic classical or synth-punk that does not owe an enormous debt to this legend. For his Saturday set, Rev decided to trot out his patented brand of industrial disco, letting the audience in on the sexiest and most grotesque side of the ’80s. The enigmatic Rev looked the part in full, a fading Jheri Curl, sequins, and leather adding garish gusto to his roil of abrasive electronics and blasé sneer.

Ménades

Photo: Eric Tra

Good kitsch is hard to come by, especially when it’s scored by such a raucous rock show. And if there is one thing Parisian punks Ménades were not afraid of, it was leaning into the myth. The group danced, dressed and played like they had just come on to rip an anachronistic after-hours set in Pigalle circa 1919, unleashing a dance party that sat somewhere between a burlesque rave-up of sailors on leave and the roaring punk unrestraint at the Whiskey-a-G0-G0. That frantic passion did wonders. Even the stoics in the crowd had a hard time keeping their feet still and their heads from bobbing. The long trip from Western Europe had clearly bottled something in Ménades, because they came to play.

A Place to Bury Strangers

Photo: Eric Tra

Eager to live up to their longstanding description as “the loudest band in NYC,” noise farmers A Place to Bury Strangers were as volcanic as you’d expect. Their dizzying mix of noise, post-punk and shoegaze did in fact reach dangerous decibels, as if aiming to rip a hole in the audience. The manically sputtering white lights only added to the turmoil, and as the band’s wall of sound reached apoplectic heights, there was little for the crowd to do but strap in and hold on for dear life. As has become standard for the Brooklyn group, the only let-up happened as a song suddenly tapered off, the desperate creaking of overworked guitar pedals in the sudden silence letting you know that another monster was coming.

Mala Suerte

Photo: Bella Petro

In fine style, Mexican garage punkers, Mala Suerte, take the traditional tragic narrative of corrido ballads, and set them to delirious rock and roll. The supergroup, consisting of members of Acid Tongue, Carrion Kids and the Grizzled Mighty (all of whom made appearances at the festival), has been a fixture at Freakout, and yours truly was lucky enough to catch them tear the Tractor Tavern to shreds just a few years ago. Evidently, Mala Suerte have not decided to mellow out as time went on. Their set at the Sunset on Sunday night was explosive, an all-out, unapologetic punk rock show, punctuated with psychedelia and metal touches.

The Jackets

Photo: Eric Tra

In some ways, classic Nuggets-era fuzz-rock revivalists make up the foundation of Freakout Festival, and Swiss band, The Jackets, fulfill that niche with ease, playing a warped version of evil surf and garage distortion, all funneled through the sonorous vocals and stage presence of frontwoman Jackie Brutsche. Their electric show was like being flung back to Detroit in the late ’60s, down to the primordial face make-up and crowd-surfing soloing, a nudge back to an era when guitars first started to turn ugly and undeniably fun. Lenny Kaye would be proud!

Light Asylum

Brooklyn-based darkwave project Light Asylum are an entrancing live act. Lead vocalist Shannon Funchess is a monolithic presence, letting loose their incredible vocals, that levitate all the way up to the rafters, as a curtain of dense clanging electronics envelops them. It was a wholly consuming experience, being in a small room, surrounded by these elements. In both delivery and content, Funchess does not shy away from big emotion, and the end result is often nothing short of earth-shattering.