ISLA WATT attends the GALERINA x INFINITE FXX Frieze 2024 takeover at Electrowerkz.
After missing NEW YORK go b2b with Rat Section a few weekends back, I found myself trawling through Resident Advisor to find out if they were playing again anytime soon. I first heard their song L.A. last year and have been listening to NEW YORK ever since — there’s something addictive about their slightly unsettling, deadpan lyrics and electronic sound. As it turned out, they would be playing the following Thursday at Electrowerkz, and it just so happened to be the GALERINA x INFINITE FXX Frieze 2024 Takeover.
GALERINA maintains a fairly elusive, almost abstract online presence; INFINITE FXX even more so. To say the least, there’s no “About Us” tab on their websites. It’s easier to get a feel for them by looking at their previous work: the projects they are involved in fill their spaces and are absent of any overt branding, creating an air of mystery. Effectively, by knowing less, more space can be given to curiosity.
On the night, there was a long queue to get in, and the cold was a definite reminder that summer was over. I had been to Electrowerkz before — the main thing that had stuck out to me then was the lighting. Just as well-curated as I remembered, each performance becomes an entire sensory experience; music heard before feels transformed when the artist on stage is floating amid a cloud of smoke, the colours changing with the atmosphere.
We got in just as NEW YORK started their set upstairs. The crowd was lively from the start — whether that was excitement for the music or it being a part of Frieze I couldn’t tell, but there was no lack of energy considering there were likely to have been a lot of people who had been out to galleries earlier in the day. NEW YORK played a hybrid set, composed of mostly industrial sounds, ghetto-tech and juke. They later performed live, by which point there was noticeably more movement amongst the crowd, now much more filled out as it got later into the night. They played a few classics, including a favourite: Drank, Kush, Barz by DJ Rashad and DJ Spinn.
We then saw Cõvco, who runs INFINITE FXX, DJ for Prince Kongo. The lighting had changed from the mystic blue to an orange glow, a warmth better suited for the more energetic atmosphere that followed. He had an incredible stage presence, wore black sunglasses, and spent a lot of time on stage gyrating his hips. It was impossible not to dance. His sound was a fluid mix of different languages and rhythms, blending upbeat African beats with an eeriness characteristic of UK underground music. In doing so, Prince Kongo delivers something that points to the future, and something capable of leading us there.
Later into the night, it became obvious who wanted to see who, as one room would fill out, leaving the other more dispersed. Rat Section’s set was a highlight from the lineup, telling from the crowd’s density. The duo of Ratty Sleigh Johnny and Soopi aka Soops, also known for their performance art, released their debut album What Stays in Vegas last winter. They played a mix: some dubstep and some alternative tracks, though nothing you could categorise by genre. It was grungy and electronic and unpredictable.
The whole night had a feel of the industrial electronic music scene bubbling up in London; it was exciting to hear such a range of music without anything feeling out of place. The venue, previously an old metal workshop that has held onto its industrial heritage, only added to the cohesiveness of the night. The energy was, at least in part, to be expected being the Frieze afterparty, but it was the artists who sustained this liveliness and made it what it was.
