Vivid pop colour versus monochrome culture – the 2016 edition of Lovebox, east London’s two-day dance revue, is a rave of two halves. Each year a DJ Jerusalem is builded here, among these booze-sponsored Incan temples, Havana tequila towns and jungle clearings complete with stilt-walkers and ticker-tape monsoons. This year, Diplo, Shy FX and Norman Jay descend, and while the weekend’s regular heartbeat is the thump and sizzle of a Balearic panic attack, Lovebox 2016 is a Jekyll and Hyde of a festival. Saturday is for the refined, insouciant electro fan; Friday is one gigantic dance PokeStop.
Friday’s vividness is sharpened by a refreshing clash of genres. MØ’s romantic Scandi tribalism and methadone mambos give way to Stormzy’s grime homecoming, Croydon’s bounciest motormouth attacking Know Me From with a boxer’s pique. Katy B rolls on a full cocktail lounge set for her infectious clubland workout routines, while Run the Jewels, “high, and having a ball”, hoist inflatable zombie hands above decks that often appear to have hiccups and deliver innovative cartoon raps, both political (Easy targets racist killer cops) and puerile (Love Again celebrates the art of 24-hour fellatio).
Major Lazer disguise the hollowness of the headline DJ set with a Vegas of distractions. Silver dancers spin neon hula-hoops and the DJ trio, dressed as cricketers, fire streamer cannons and beat barrel drums along to their global concoction of Caribbean dancehall samples, Brazilian carnival horns and full-throttle donk raves. Beyond live guest vocals from MØ (on Lean On) and Fuse (Light It Up), though, it all reeks of Sun, Sex and Suspicious USB Sticks, and Friday ends with an acrid taste that’s not all to do with the balloon-based clown drugs everywhere.
Besides George Clinton, whose funk mothership full of acrobatic yeti pimps has landed 24 hours late, Saturday has a more sedate, sophisticated feel. Neo soul is the pervading scent of the day, a genre fast approaching landfill; London synthpop duo Oh Wonder prove it a haven of lustrous melodicism, Australia’s Chet Faker proves it a refuge for dull lounge singers with a James Blake record and a one-note saxophone.
Thankfully, the shadow of the xx lifts for a momentous closing run. Andrew Wyatt of Miike Snow talks like a Ron Burgundy sidekick, sings like he’s been cloned to provide spare parts for Stevie Wonder and delivers the synth-rock set of the weekend that almost makes the Tyrannosaurus rex near the front throw off its inflatable walking frame. Jungle’s heady mix of misty disco falsettos and 70s cop-show horns drifts by like the Bee Gees in a flotation tank. And the reformed LCD Soundsystem are a sensation, James Murphy channelling Bowie’s art-tronic spirit into I Can Change and Get Innocuous!, the sound of the cast of Hair conga-ing naked into Studio 54.
From the xylophone delicacy of Someone Great to the manic electro-bolts of Losing My Edge – Murphy’s Zelig-like time-trip through hipster history (essentially Goodnight, Beefheart) – he’s a master of the minimal and maximal, and a gobbler of genres. There’s a mirrorball prom dance, tropical hula and, on the euphoric All My Friends, what sounds like someone surfing a perfect barrel wave on the piano from Virginia Plain. Culture, yet again, trumps the most garish colour.
