Statix Festival brings together some of Malta’s top electronic artists. Johnathan Cilia speaks to Jon Roy, one of the people who are making it happen.
Having only ever been to metal festivals at Buskett – apart from Mnarja I guess – Statix Festival 2011 was the first time I had seen the space at Buskett Roadhouse in electronic festival mode.
Navigating between the different stages, finding a psy-ambient stage at the back, and the general view of multiple party zones all playing different music styles right near each other was something I, and, incidentally, many others, had never seen before.But the Statix team, composed of DJs John Roy Davies, Keith Belli and Darren Jones – and the festival itself – had humble beginnings.
“Statix started as a simple birthday party with a local line up, it was open to everyone and the turnout was much more than we expected,” says John Roy with a smile. “From there, the name Statix was introduced and five other similar events were organised successfully before we moved on to bigger projects.
“The first edition of Statix Festival was held back in 2011 as a one-off event that brought together over 40 local artists from different underground scenes.”
A new, one-off event with five stages and over 40 artists from different genres was always going to be a risk, but it worked, and introduced new artists to people who would have never seen them.
As cliquey as the Maltese electronic circuit was, and can still be, the collaboration of different promoters helped bring everyone together.
“Each style of music had its own followers, many of whom were unaware that other styles were being promoted locally. The idea was to bring everyone together in one big event – promoters, artists and party goers. Someone who, for example, was solely a follower of one particular style could move around the stages and get to dance to different styles of music and to artists he/she may not have heard perform before,” says John Roy.
Statix Festival re-emerged last year at Razzet L-Aħmar in Attard, and is back this year with three stages, and over 40 local artists, to create another awesome festival full of great sets.
“One of the highlights from the first edition was the closing set by Binary Funk, who left the crowd shouting for more. From the second edition personally one of the highlights was ND Flux (aka Hail Blk) doing a surprise B2B with Cloned, two top notch local techno producers,” reminisces Roy.
The festival is back this year with three stages and over 40 local artists
Having seen Binary Funk’s mesmerising set in 2011, and had a friend rave about it for months afterwards, I can attest to this.
It’s exactly the stage that Statix offers that allows the DJs to push themselves – with so many artists exploring different genres, the onus is on the artist to present his/her interpretation of their chosen style correctly.
“The local artists are the key to Statix Festival as its scope is to promote such artists,” says John Roy. “In each edition of the festival, artists from each scene seemed to give their full support. Being DJs ourselves, and having been followers of various different scenes, we are acquainted with a large number of local artists. We used our experience and knowledge in selecting artists and categorising them together.”
This year’s edition will be split over two days and three stages at Razzet L-Aħmar. On day one, the stages will be split in house, techno (producers) and electronica/psy.
The Statix team have seen for years that there is a crop of local artists performing regularly; but these were preaching to the converted when new followers could be found by employing some thought.
“Malta has a huge potential in electronic music and there is a large number of talented artists whom I believe are under-appreciated,” says Roy. “Also, the current followers seem to take more interest in exploring electronic music and they seem to be open to different styles. However, one problem is that Malta is being bombarded by events every weekend. This is making it harder to organise events and it is also making things harder for followers, who must decide which event to attend and which not to. While all this is a result of the scene being in a good place, this could easily backfire.”
A densely promoted party scene with a limited crowd is bound to develop rapidly.
“The scene changes all the time, it’s how people handle this change that is most important. And this includes promoters and artists. One clear example of this was probably around 2008/2009 when minimal techno hit Malta by storm, taking the spotlight of ‘traditional’ techno. Only a small number of promoters kept loyal to ‘traditional’ techno. A few years later it sweeped minimal techno out of the spotlight again. Another example was the sudden boom in bass music a few years later,” points out Roy.
“If promoters start working together or at least respecting each other, the future would be a bright one. However, if things do not change, happened in the past may happen again. The crowds had shrunk so much that, eventually, promoters started drifting away from the scene or reducing the number of events. The number of international artists de-creased, while event prices increased. That would place the electronic scene in a very bad place,” he adds.
But, before the electronic scene implodes, we can party some more. “Compared to the 2015 edition, we believe this year we have made the necessary improvements for a better festival. With the inclusion of the third stage, attendees have a bigger choice of music; we are also pretty excited to have added psy and rave to the festival.”
Statix Festival this year features 4Ace, A-Call, A-Mag; Acidulant, Bass Culture, Belli, Bjan Jansen, Brian James, Carl Lautier, Cloned, Darren, Dtraum, Duo Blank, Fabricka, FDM Crew, Fullster, Interconnekted, James Ferrando, Jaunn, Jon-roy, Jupiter Jax, Kerg, Louie G, Mato, Migz, Moodshifter, Muke, ND, No Symmetree, Owen Offset, Rickett, Rod Minus, Sequenchill, Serial Depth, Silvan, Sonitus Eco, Supre, Stimulus Timbre, Twitch, Urban Kaos Crew, U-Jack and Wayne Richard.
Statix Festival takes place on Friday and Saturday at Razzet L-Aħmar, Attard.