Echoes of Intonal festival : Malmö's haven for Avant-Garde Sounds

Mila Dutilh

Jun 7, 20242 min read

From April 25th to 28th, the Swedish coastal city of Malmö, was swept by tides of ear tingling frequencies emitted from its annual Intonal Festival.

Located opposite Copenhagen, this modestly-sized city was bracing itself for the hosting of arguably the most controversial instalment of the Eurovision contest since its inception. However, in the midst of the impending outrage, one section of the city was quietly offering a shelter for curious minds and sympathetic ears.

Self-described as a “sanctuary for experimental minds and bodies”, the intimate festival lives up to its name ; offering a wide range of genres, going from the niche and audacious experimental performances to more palatable club oriented music in the after hours.

During those 4 performance-packed days, the emphasis is on discovery: audiences can venture into uncharted territory with their eyes closed, safe in the knowledge that all the elements are in place to deliver a singular aesthetic experience.

The festival’s first two days opened with concerts in off-site venues St. Petri and St. Johannes Church. The light suffusing the rooms along with the ethereal acoustics elevated the listening, reasserting the relevance of the term sanctuary and setting the tone for the remainder of the weekend : an invitation to embark on a journey at the intersection of a festival and a celebratory ritual.

Amidst the rich curation, Australian wizards The Necks, got the weekend rolling on a high - enthralling the audience in a sublime trance with their improvisational progressive jazz. Following the hour long piece, none other than iconic duo Esplendor Geometrico, electrified the stage with their raw industrial, pulsating with a violent and robotic intensity.

Nina Supsa's DJ set, part of a collaborative effort between Intonal and Tbilisi-based Mutant Radio, offered a crisp mix of murky chuggers, keeping us bouncing for a good two hours. We also got to discover NZE NZE, a SHAPE+ French afrofuturist trio, who wove together ritualistic percussion and aggressive saturated vocalism, ensuring that heads were bopping and necks were breaking throughout their entire set.

Finally, Funeral Folk -composed of Maria W Horn and Sarah Parkman - blessed our Sunday evening with the perfect finale that culminated into a collective mourning of the festival. With a live that bordered on the spiritual, their folkloric flights being enhanced with Mats Erlandsson’ scarce but irresistible guitar resonances, the Swedish duo brought Intonal to a mesmerising and utterly emotional close.