Live Report: Lente Kabinet, Amsterdam, 2016

An intriguing Dutch one-day festival...

Amsterdam’s appetite for the outdoor music festival seems to be insatiable at the moment. Between the months of April and August there’s a steady run of at least one per weekend with new contenders cropping up all across the city. Ahead of their main three-day event in August the Dekmantel crew warmed up their posse with Lente Kabinet, a one-dayer in the Dutch countryside just north of the capital. This year the festival’s line up was the most impressive and international to date, featuring Daniel Avery, Fatima Yamaha, Funkineven and John Talabot.

Compared to Dekmantel’s main event, Lente is decidedly more intimate and caters to a local crowd, however this year a slightly more diverse bunch with noticeably more stripey T-shirt wearers made for a much more laid-back vibe. The threat of a thunderstorm which failed to materialise also helped. Huerco S’s set early on at the Red Light Radio stage was tailored to the unexpected sunshine with an unusually bright and jazzy selection, still with a good dose of trademark waviness.

Leon Vynehall’s approach was somewhat similar following on from Tom Trago over on the main stage; high energy rhythms interspersed with floating jazz and soul samples. The UK producer’s signature sound translated beautifully into a DJ set that progressively built momentum as the sunshine beat down on unprepared pink shoulders and shiny bald heads alike. Suzanne Kraft back at the RLR stage made things slightly more introspective and moody as the afternoon gave way to evening, while Jeremy Underground on the second stage delivered a pounding selection of rare vintage house records.

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Last year’s lineup hinged a little heavily on headliners Moodymann and Nicolas Jaar — both of whom were unfortunately a bit of a disappointment. This year the Dekmantel crew hedged their bets, even going as far as closing the main stage themselves as Dekmantel Soundsystem. The Red Light Radio stage finished up with a solid set from I-F and a blistering closer from ghetto house legend DJ Deeon which even elicited some twerking up at the front amongst other mayhem.

Over on the second stage local hero Hunee was a clear standout. Building on Jeremy Underground’s energy, Hunee’s selection touched on music from all corners of the globe but maintained a driving 4/4 groove at its core, often laced with clattering bongos and other organic sounding percussion. Ben UFO took over to close the second stage with an altogether more dynamic set of slow builds and powerful crescendos. As usual the sound was incredibly high standard, particularly on this stage.

This year Lente Kabinet made a big leap forward, stepping out of the shadows of its bigger brother. While it still can’t compete on scale with Dekmantel proper, the standard of DJ relative to its overall size and crucially, its ticket price, might actually offer more bang for your buck than the main event. Hopefully the outfit can continue to offer the supremely high standard next year without losing the intimate vibe that sets Lente Kabinet aside from the bigger festivals in the season. We’ll certainly be going back to find out.

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Words: Jack Dolan

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