From Sparks to Model 500, Kaithlyn Aurelia Smith and Midori Takada

Let’s start this with a look back at last year’s review of Helsinki’s Flow Festival, conducted by our field reporter, Alex Mayor:
„Simple yet full of thoughtful details, arty yet utterly approachable (and walkable!). A curated and cultural mini-town you’ve been given the keys to. Helsinki itself seems weirdly empty once you walk out under Flow’s gates. But on every level this is a wildly imaginative weekend. Flow – really the model of a modern music festival (and missing you already).“

We’d be mad at Kaput not to respond within seconds to an invitation to go back to this field of musical dreams, right? Especially as the lineup of this years edition play to all senses, including the likes of Lana Del Rey (whose new album „Lust for Life“ is a real beauty, coming in with a touching duet with Stevie Nicks), our role model Beth Ditto, the genius Techno wizard Aphex Twin (his Primavera performance still makes us feel in another dimension), a back to back session of Salon des Amateurs Vladimir Ivkovic and Lauri Soini (the booker of the electronic music section of Flow), local Goa man Timo Kaukolampi, the always charming The xx, bad boy rapper Danny Brown, Bicep (whose first single of the upcoming album „Bicep“ is rotating in the clubs like mad right now), Front 242 (always go to have the right sounds for a sunny day on the field), the upcoming Japanese Techno artist Powder as well as the Russian Techno princess Nina Kravitz, Moderat, Angel Olsen, Princess Nokia, Jenny Hvla, Inga Mauer, Fatima Yamaha, Marie Davidson, Moormother (her durational at Moogfest was an intense four hour ride, so let´s see how the one hour version feels) – and again the NYKY Ensemble we profiled last year in our festival movie.
And so many more. That said, those six are the Kaput highlights in this years programming:

Midori Takada: the Japanese musician used to play in the Berlin Philharmonic before getting the chance to share her musical vision to the world. A few weeks ago New York based label Palto Flats and We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want Records rereleased her outstanding „Through The Looking Glass“ record.

Sparks: There is no other couple like Ron and Russel Mael in pop biz. They never went wrong in the unbelievable 48 years of their career and still are on top of style and sound.

Kaithlyn Aurelia Smith: Her new album „The Kid“ is putting its magic spell on us for the last days.

Frank Ocean: wasn´t his FYF show unbelievable on the tv – time to experience this for real.

Model 500: This Detroit supergroup includes Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson and by that the very nucleus of Techno music.

Lena Willikens: We are very excited to see our home girl performing on the festival sunday. Quite a well programmed Kaput ending to this years Flow rollercoaster.

To ease the waiting time until Flow Festival 2017 opens its gates, and we’ve conveniently produced a little festival playlist for you:

Flow Festival happens between 11th and 13th of August in Helsinki.