Live Report: Caprices Festival 2023
Dude, we were waaaaay up a mountain. Which is rather refreshing, for a music festival. Indeed, as our car zig-zagged up the vertiginous slopes into the Swiss ski resort of Crans Montana, I couldn’t resist pressing my nose to the glass like a child, watching fat snowflakes drift lazily by outside. Not seen that in awhile. Not in April, certainly. Not with all the climate change.
But then I’m not a skier. The resort – a rather lovely one, as it happens – glistened like a fancy Christmas card in the afternoon sunshine. Who actually comes here to party, I felt justified in wondering – to Caprices festival, an electronic shindig now in its 20th year? Can’t be cheap. Surely they must be doing something right.
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The lineup was pretty much all DJs. Jamie xx, Fatboy Slim, Blond:Ish. Black Coffee. Brizman. And boy was I was here for it. I love an early festival-season boogie, me, and the scintillating snowy mise en scène looked properly gorgeous on my Insta, no two ways about it.
The stage you see in most pictures is named MDRNTY, a chi-chi marquee and what a stellar setting for a party – 2,200 metres above sea level, an actual mile-high club! Technically 1.36 miles! Anyway!
You ride a ski lift up, of course, which is cool because there’s loads of fun tipsy chatter in the gondola. It’s deep, crisp snow when you pop out, and only one muppet fell properly arse-over-tit on the way in (it was me, reader, that person was me). Tottering in, grabbing a bevvie, a South-African double header – Themba and Black Coffee – were smashing out some righteous bang-bang tuneage as the sun dipped prettily behind the Matterhorn. Lovely.
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Very interesting blend of punters, for the record. It’s in the centre of Europe, right? So they’re all here. Long-boned Milanese dandies. Luxury ski mademoiselles. Brawny Teutonic snowboarders. Audi dads. A glorious mixture of ages and vibes. Not so much a melting pot, as a rich human fondue. Just a really, really cool party.
Anyway, the rest of Caprices was a hoot too. European crowds are a ton of fun. Everybody smokes, pretty much, which feels super nostalgic. One lovely bloke I chatted to told me his favourite thing about festivals is ‘the grins’, and there was certainly no shortage of those. Jamie xx royally smashed it. Mathame made intoxicating, weird magic sounds late night at the Forest stage.
Obviously no-one camps – it’s not an arctic expedition – so in the daytime everybody sort of mooches around Crans Montana eating high-end European meats in twee little restaurants. Or they go skiing, I guess. And drink lovely golden beer on posh patios.
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A nice highlight, for me, was the car ride back to the airport. As it happens, my date and I shared a Mercedes with Brizman, a super cool Tel Aviv DJ who presently resides in Berlin. We danced hard to him the previous night at The Club Stage, a fun mountaintop joint nestled under a dazzling cluster of mirrorballs.
Brizman is a super interesting guy. His new stuff is all about his mum, he told me, who tragically died not long ago. As our car noodled down the breathtaking valley – spring green and twinkling in the warm sunshine, this time around – he talked of his art, his process, the fact his new LP is the very first vinyl released on the Caprices label.
What might’ve been a comedown, was actually a peak experience. Fancy that.
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Words: Andy Hill