Saturday 21/03/09 Day Two, Brussels Electronic Music Festival @ Palais des Beaux-Arts

There's a different room open today, the all-seated Henry Leboeuf Hall. The Black Dog have a video backdrop that includes cities in black and white and neon, it's very arty. When the techno beats break through the ambient, the crowd whoops and hollers. Dopplereffekt have a similar techno-ambient dynamic. One over-enthusiastic man who gets out of his seat to dance (the cheek of it) is quickly apprehended by an usher. The visuals are also laughably serious, words about the Hedron collider and satellite images repeated enough times to become boring.

Another all-seated area is opened, Hall M and this time the music is appropriately laid-back from Fever Ray's tour-mate, Svarte Greiner. He even holds the guitar horizontally, while sat down. A bow is used on the guitar, the noise looped and distorted with effects pedals. The pedals are made into buttons as Greiner kneels, pressing them. This one long piece is about as low-key and insular as possible for a performance. It's relaxing and the bowed guitar sound is spine-tingling.

dOP are in the Rotunda and a man is singing over the house, like he owns the place. Arms are swinging and he shows off his large belly. Like Byron Stingley and James Brown rolled into one, he commands his minions below to... "Get on it, I'm on it, woo"

The crowd certainly seem 'on it' in the Terarken room during the Supermayer supergroup. They spin peak-time house like Farley Jackmaster Funk's 'Love Can't Turn Around'. The mixing is poor and the needle skips regularly. Not that the crowd seem to notice with their mdmawareness, falling into each other on the sticky floor.