Tallinn Music Week - review

Festival boasts one of the most diverse and inclusive lineups of any event in Europe

(Tanel Tero)

It’s not every festival that opens with a heartfelt address by the actual President, but then Tallinn Music Week is a festival like no other. “I’m so proud to see how this has developed into a creative hub, combining the freshest thinking about music, the future of our cities, and facing environmental challenges,” says Kersti Kaljulaid in a keynote speech that also touches on love, our shared humanity, and what Martin Luther King can still teach us 50 years after his assassination.

And Kaljulaid has every right to be proud; not only is the festival celebrating it’s 10th Anniversary, it’s also the 100th Anniversary of the country’s Declaration of Autonomy, a milestone that’s emblazoned on flags, banners, and flyers all over the city.

The festival boasts one of the most diverse, inclusive, and eclectic lineups of any event in Europe, but music is simply one part of what they do. As a hub for progressive thinking, the Day Conference includes panels on “Competing With Machines”, “Public Space and Democracy”, and “Design To Change Behaviour”, with delegates ranging from Harvard Professors to CEOs and entrepreneurs. The mood around the Kultuurikatel, a repurposed power station that houses the day events, is one of buoyant optimism; new ideas and initiatives are shared and dissected, the air fizzing with energy.

There’s also a significant presence from the Keychange PRS Foundation – TME is one of their main partners – the international campaign which invests in emerging female talent whilst encouraging festivals to sign up to a 50:50 gender balance pledge by 2022. The gender pay gap, tackling equality, and safe spaces at concerts and festivals are some of the topics addressed, with PRS’ own CEO, Vanessa Reed, moderating a panel on Future Proofing The Music Industry and the practical steps that can be taken to fight back against entrenched misogyny.

Musically, the artists range from the bonkers to the brilliant, with all manner of genres from sludge-metal to neo-classical represented. There’s a particularly large Russian contingent, and for good reason; the organisers announce the launch of Station Narva, a brand new event in the border city of the same name and part of its regeneration project. A politically precarious place in danger of Putin’s interference, the number of invites extended is TMW’s way of embracing the Russian Estonian community, and hopefully avoiding another Crimea “situation”.

We head to KuKu Club to catch Kate NV, whose woozy, hypnotic pop sways between gorgeous synth washes and moments of crystalline beauty, and Inturist, an avant-garde audio-visual project by Evgeny Gorbunov who also happens to be Glintshake’s crack lead guitarist. Building loops from the presets of a cheap keyboard, he sings and plays guitar over the top, deploying a mix of simple riffs and dazzling passages of virtuosity.

A different thrill is provided by Slovenia punk rockers Lynch, who deliver a sweaty, visceral half-hour that ends in a barrage of strobes, feedback, and a colleague being invited to play guitar at the front of the tiny stage. Such craziness is in evidence the following night too, with Spasibo’s mix of indie-rock, shoegaze, and psych-punk prompting much headbanging, moshing, and even some crowd surfing. It provides a stark contrast to Maria Minerva’s cool, sleek electro-pop and modernist bangers that sound like they’re beamed in from some futuristic robo-disco.

There’s also plenty of more mainstream fare on offer, particularly in the Von Krahl theatre. Suzi Wu’s arch pop-punk – “a combination of Ian Drury, Happy Mondays, and Patti Smith” according to the festival – is given a rousing reception in the packed basement, while upstairs the straight-up indie of Intergalactic Lovers is by powered by a groove-heavy chug and elegant voice of singer Lara Chedraoui.

But it’s rising Estonia wunderkind Mart Avi who steals the weekend, blazing a trail with his avant-garde “conceptronica”. His dubby pop is futuristic, but borrows a number of motifs from the past, not least 1980’s Berlin and post-punk. It’s intellectual too, and extremely well put together – at times, he sounds like Scott Walker indulging in some sunny, R&B romp – and as an artist, he’s the very embodiment of a post-everything music culture where entire histories can be consumed with the click of a mouse. Utterly modern then, but looking firmly over the horizon; it’s the same rare trick that Tallinn Music Week pulls off with such aplomb.