Brussels is at once the capital of the European Union, a hub for diplomacy and business, and the center of a trilingual country. It’s also a quick train ride away from other European cultural epicenters like Paris, London, and Berlin, its storied techno scene still looming. And in addition to its longtime residents, it’s populated by a large migrant and asylum-seeker community from North Africa and the Middle East and European and foreign artists, who come in and out, possibly attracted by Belgium’s relatively generous artist subsidies.
In a musical context, this mishmash of peoples has resulted in few large institutional clubs and a unique local scene powered by “small collectives in unusual or temporary locations,” DJ AliA said. “There’s still a need for more permanent small venues, but they also bring a raw creativity to the scene.” To him, this is what gives Brussels its distinct character.
One feels a rawness in HORST’s overgrown, DIY, yet still sprawling production, which, with a bevy of volunteers running much of it, still manages to encompass and create so many worlds at once. It’s rare for such simultaneity to flow in such a euphoric fashion, where a constant state of shifting feels enlivening rather than disorienting. It’s that energy that made HORST among the most exciting and engrossing festival experiences I’ve ever had.