Speaker 1: Last Thursday evening, the night before the gates opened for
Speaker 1: this year's Drymolin. I was wandering through the bustling production
Speaker 1: area with founder and programmer Milo van Butena. A figure
Speaker 1: with quafft hair walked towards us, spread their arms wide
Speaker 1: and shouted over the thrum of sound checks. It's mister Drymolin,
Speaker 1: thank you for letting us do this. It was Narses
Speaker 1: with Morphina, their partner in music and in life. Together
Speaker 1: they were preparing to debut a new project, lingua Erotica.
Speaker 1: Its exchange summed up what the Dutch festival excels at,
Speaker 1: creating fertile ground for artists to experiment, grow and test boundaries.
Speaker 1: The lingua Erotica show wouldn't have happened without Van Biden's push.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty four, their agent had sent him two
Speaker 1: tracks all their material. At the time, I was listening
Speaker 1: and it was like boom, let's go, he recalled. He
Speaker 1: saw the potential for a full mainstage show to se
Speaker 1: fite their agent, initially saying they weren't ready. Over the
Speaker 1: next year he worked closely with the pair to bring
Speaker 1: it to life. It's just one act, he told me,
Speaker 1: but we give it so much time and energy, and
Speaker 1: now it's a world premiere. And so the Red Silk
Speaker 1: Clad duo performed live for the first time, marrying sleazy
Speaker 1: Eighties tinged synth pop with crooning love songs. Immersive dancers
Speaker 1: choreographed by Boston Gallagher weaved through the crowd, illuminated by
Speaker 1: hundreds of blinder lights flashing down from the Strobe Stages
Speaker 1: open air structure. The performance felt like a microcosm of Drymolin,
Speaker 1: a festival built on trust, collaboration, and risk taking. In
Speaker 1: a time when the festival landscape has never been more saturated,
Speaker 1: electronic music culture needs specialist events and teams like Drymolins
Speaker 1: more than ever. At this year's edition, Polychrome Audio co
Speaker 1: founder Herve played Saturday's closing set at the Forest Rave stage.
Speaker 1: The name is Act. The dance floor is nestled among
Speaker 1: the trees and tucked away in the corner of the site.
Speaker 1: Any seasoned festivalgoer will tell you there's something about dancing
Speaker 1: in the woods, but at night. With Draymollan's production, the
Speaker 1: result is spectacular. Hervey opted for cosmic house and techno
Speaker 1: with spangling, since every so often the forest was flooded
Speaker 1: with huge fans of lasers that splayed out like cobwebs
Speaker 1: and sparkled like a million diamonds in the leaves. Just
Speaker 1: before the end, after the music had carried on for
Speaker 1: thirty minutes longer than expected, Drymulin is good to its punters.
Speaker 1: He dropped Don Jaguar's Jaguar E type mix to a
Speaker 1: completely enchanted crowd. This deep connection to place has shaped
Speaker 1: Drymulin's identity since twenty nineteen, when it moved to Mob Complex,
Speaker 1: a former military complex in the woods north of Tilburg.
Speaker 1: After launching in twenty fourteen at Artificial beach venue water Jump,
Speaker 1: the festival moved four times in a quest to find
Speaker 1: the perfect location. The synergy in twenty nineteen was immediate. Indeed,
Speaker 1: in my review of that edition, i wrote, if this
Speaker 1: year is anything to go by, let's hope they found
Speaker 1: a permanent home in Mob Complex. The new site meant
Speaker 1: that Drymulin could lean into a feature enjoyed by many
Speaker 1: of the best electronic festivals, the opportunity to commune in nature.
Speaker 1: An aerial view of the site reveals dense woodland crisscrossed
Speaker 1: by pads and dusty clearings impeccably suited to dance floors.
Speaker 1: In many ways, it's perfect. You might assume that having
Speaker 1: thousands of ravers descend on a forest for the weekend,
Speaker 1: plus all the can instruction disturbance would wreak havoc on
Speaker 1: an environment like mob complex, But the team conduct ecological
Speaker 1: reports on the area each year, both before and after
Speaker 1: the festival, and the opposite is true. In fact, Drymolen
Speaker 1: has improved the local biodiversity.