Alarm '04

As far as I know Halmstad haven't had any synth festivals inside its city borders within living memory. But the 27th of March 2004 the first one began in this city on the Swedish west coast and was arranged by Halmstad Synth Association who opened the doors to ALARM.

Unfortunately the festival didn't become crowded this evening. Personally I think it was because the lack of advertisement. They should have dropped ads on popular places and digital portals to increase the interest of the festival. With about 80 guests within the premises which could be compared with Kolingsborg (Tech Noir) or Trädgår'n (Romo Night) it almost felt like having a cosy night in a storage room. Too much space for a very few people and that combination felt like there almost were no visitors at all.

Within the smoking free premises (No smoking at a festival? What the heck?) you were able to find a large bar with lots of places to sit and a small dance floor next to it were you where able to dance between the gigs. But the volume were so low you could speak with a normal voice and when you have played louder in your own apartment earlier the same day it felt useless and awkward.

All of the presented artists were from our Swedish grounds and first on stage in this early hour were Necro Facility which soon will release their debut album with PAF Records. It smelled Canadian EBM from the 80's a long way and I first of all think of Skinny Puppy before any other band. Filthy, blood spitting and with a doll raped in all sorts of emergency material they tried to set the 20 people in front of the stage in the right mood. An acquaintance of mine described them as an "unpolished diamond" and I think that is kind of true. It really felt that the bands lack of experience and some form of modification were needed on the voice to get the right feeling.

The second artist this evening were 8kHz Mono and was truly this festivals biggest surprise for me despite that the guys that were responsible of the sound had adjusted the voice to low. Danceable EBM comparable to early Evils Toy and with a wide sound that made your legs shake of excitement. This band have earlier released an E.P with the title 'Monolog E.P.' and will be releasing their first full album soon. I'm totally convinced that 8kHz Mono will be a gig name in the future and will easily break through to the German market.

Hype was probably the band which put together most people in front of the stage with their danceable electro pop. Hypes members have played in different sets before but the most famous is probably the singer Robert Enforsen for his years in Elegant Machinery. Easy pop that were appreciated among the visitors.

The festivals two last acts, Project-X and Spetsnaz changed places and this meant that Project-X became this night's second last act. Hard, brutal and together with the atmospherically videos projected behind the band made a good gig as usual despite technical mistakes from the arrangers. Even a spontaneous guest apperence from your undersigned developed when Torny Gottberg throws up your poor writer on stage during the song "Lies 2K2" which is everlasting tribute to Neurozine and hereby killed all form of musical carrier in 20 seconds.

Strangely a number of people have already left when the last act Spetsnaz went on stage. This did not kill the spirit of these two guys who still gave one hell of a concert as in ordinary occurrence. The last proud standing danced them sweaty and breathless and this was the closure of this festival.

A good try even though there were allot of mistakes. Local, advertisement and lack of interest made this a quite boring experience but hopefully they will learn from their mistakes to the next year and I think the association are able to give one hell of a festival.

This article was written 2004 and initially published on Neurozine.com