With red-tiled rooftops, red-clay buildings and a red heart, Bologna is aptly known as ‘La Rossa’, or the ‘Red City’. A hub of counter-culture, Bologna’s political roots are entrenched in Italian left-wing values. At the start of October, the country came to a standstill as strikes and demonstrations protesting the ongoing genocide in Gaza spread countrywide, so it feels fitting that ROBOT festival’s sixteenth edition, called Dream On, provides a platform for expressions of solidarity with Palestine, alongside a more general atmosphere of unity and common purpose throughout the weekend. Who better to assert this cause than superstar Palestinian DJ Sama’ Abdulhadi, fresh off her brilliant RA.1000 mix – she recently claimed: “My role in our cause in Palestine is being the DJ”. Before Abdulhadi appears, Acid Arab play a set that blends Middle Eastern music with pounding drums and electronic basslines. As their final song fades, Acid Arab hold up an image of the Palestinian flag, and are joined on stage by Abdulhadi, while the crowd, many of whom donned keffiyehs, chant “Free Palestine”, in perhaps the loudest moment of the festival. The volume appears to have revved-up the Palestinian DJ for an excellent set of heavy techno.
On Friday, Zoe McPherson and Alessandra Leone draw inspiration from techno and jungle for a set backed by images of fungal and geological forms flashing among strobes on a large screen. Although the genre-hopping quest for an optimal sound never quite comes together, Pherson and Leone’s have an irrepressible stage presence in a performance that’s intensely enjoyable and bizarre.
The following day, the main warehouse hosts some less far out acts. Rainy Miller performs his emo-spoken word and rap hybrid project Joseph, What have you done?, packaging up his words with autotuned crooning and emotive stage performance that involves crawling around or falling to his knees to ‘pray’ to biblical images on screen behind him.
Whilst Rainy Miller’s face is shrouded by his black hood, Rival Consoles’ long hair does a similar trick for him. As he plays his MIDI keyboard, this gives him the air of an old prophet, spreading truth through futuristic sounds and otherworldly textures. Apparat starts his set slowly, the crowd’s energy dipping after a whipping from Ela Minus. Halfway through, Bon Iver’s ethereal vocals from ‘CR∑∑KS’ start to bounce off the walls, then are joined by the instantly recognisable synth lead from Fatima Yamaha’s ‘What’s a Girl to Do’. It’s a fantastic mix, even if it doesn’t appear to have been recognised by the crowd, who only properly start to lose it when Apparet starts bringing bangers from Carl Craig and Theo Parrish.
The other two venues in the DumBO district are smaller in scale than the main warehouse. The second stage, with the likes of Cortex of Light and Safety Trance performing, feels like a bog-standard multistorey car park until fantastic work by the technical crew creates an intimate space with lighting, lazers and superb, crystal-clear sound. All of this benefits Spanish DJ and producer JASSS, who delivers a brilliant set that seamlessly flips between jungle, jump-up drum & bass, and leftfield techno cuts.
Dancers walking into the premiere of a new live show from C’mon Tigre, dancers could have been forgiven for thinking that they had strayed into a silent disco. They were given headphones and taken behind a curtain into a quiet room to be confronted by LED screens a large band all sporting long white jackets with yellow paint splatters on them. It’s a bit like entering the world of computer game Cyberpunk 2077. South American grooves are injected into the audience’s ears far louder than in the room, and I can’t resist switching between the two – the band are excellent, sounding like Glass Beams or Khruangbin, and there’s even a robot percussionist who performs a duet with the live, human drummer.
Beyond the electronic and bass heavy industrial space of the DumBO district, the early evening shows for ROBOT take place in the stunning Oratorio di San Filippo Neri, a church in the centre of Bologna. Félicia Atkinson sings in French and English amidst soothing electronic frequencies as a red light glows on the Baroque statues behind her, casting large shadows which emphasise the stillness of the space.
I can’t help gazing up at the architecture and pondering the building’s history – what happened to the roof, now just a wooden structure? Helpfully, in the next performance Japanese vocal performer Hais Noit answers this question, explaining the church was bombed during the Second World War. Noit goes on to explain that her song ‘Inori’ was built on a field recording of the ocean made only a kilometre away from the ruined nuclear power plant in Fukushima. As the song develops through loops of her operatic voice over soothing ocean sounds, it’s hard to not think of the destruction Noit mentioned – not only of this church, but Fukushima and, of course, courtesy of the anticipation of seeing Sama’ Abdulhadi later on, Palestine too.
The church provides the perfect space for meditative performances from Lucy Railton, Lino Capra Vaccina, and Mai Mai Mai, all of whom actively encourage the audience’s minds to wander and daydream. The presence of so many musicians from all around the world creates a feeling of optimism, as if everyone at ROBOT was united for a wider collective cause – it feels refreshing and necessary in the current moment. As the festival’s motto has it, “Dreaming is the first act of resistance. It is there that we begin to imagine a different world.”
