Source: The Quietus.
Intonal is a festival that celebrates music of this kind, music that demands deep listening and rewards with moments of real transcendence. The next day, for instance, Zoviet France perform in the ‘Big Room’ at Inkonst, the festival’s central venue and chief organising force. The screen behind Ben Ponton and Mark Warren depicts a forest which it takes a few moments to realise is in fact a video, rather than a still image – the leaves gently waving in the wind. They, too, take time to build momentum, deploying organ-rattling bass sparingly at first, but crescendoing glacially until it’s coming in great waves, as if the universe itself is taking great, heaving breaths. Ater half an hour they incorporate birdsong, and eventually a dynamic, rolling beat. Downstairs in the Black Box, Maya Shenfield unspools grandiose soundscapes of her own, capable of both intense prettiness and overwhelming power, while behind her Pedro Maia’s visuals – projected to stunning effect on a screen that spans the entire wall – subtly manipulate analogue film footage so that it takes on a strange and uncanny effect.
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