- The second edition of Listen! Festival 2017, a three-day "future music" event, kicked off with subtle piano and sizzling electronics from Francesco Tristano at Flagey Studio 4, an elegant art deco concert hall with world-class acoustics. Bathed in blue light, Tristano took the audience on a stirring journey. The only disappointment was a rushed and somewhat underwhelming rendition of his most famous composition, "The Melody." After a brief pause the audience relocated to an intimate space in the venue's foyer area for Tristano's live electronic show, which peaked with a synthy, stripped-back version of "Strings Of Life."
Later in the festival, Jimi Tenor played live at Ancienne Belgique. The dimly lit 500-capacity space was jam-packed for a typically genre-roaming performance from the Finnish artist, who ended the night with his 1999 classic "My Mind." "This is for all the ladies in the room," he whispered before the start of the song. "Guys, you can all fuck off."
I took my cue and travelled the short distance across town to Square – Brussels Meeting Centre, the nighttime location for days two and three. Outside this beautiful glass-fronted cube, which sits at the heart of the Quartier Des Arts district, a dazzling light show lit up the fountains and flowers of the neighbouring Garden of the Mont Des Arts throughout the night. Inside, 808 State's Graham Massey and Andrew Barker treated room one to a pulsating live set. Listen! Festival may be all about championing future music, but nearly 30 years since its original release, "Pacific State" sounded as fresh as ever.
Upstairs in room two, another 808 was whipping festival-goers into a frenzy, courtesy of Syracuse. The Antinote duo's energetic live disco set seemed an almost impossible act to follow, but Antal, the Rush Hour founder and esteemed record digger, managed to keep the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd bouncing with tracks like Joey Negro's edit of "Ebonite" by Disco Fox. Exiting the buzzing venue in the early hours of Sunday morning, I was already looking forward to a third instalment of this diverse and action-packed festival.