Downtown San Diego recently eased into fall with their annual end-of-summer festival CRSSD, which celebrates all the biggest names in techno, house, and other forms of electronic music at the SoCal hub’s Waterfront Park. This year saw engaging sets from Disclosure, Four Tet, Neil Francis, TOKiMONSTA, Confidence Man, Idris Elba, and plenty more.
While we weren’t able to make it out to the festival this year ourselves due to the half-dozen other notable music fests taking place across the country that weekend—Portola in nearby San Francisco, All Things Go in both NYC and DC, Soundside in Connecticut, South Star in Alabama, etc.—we did get a virtual backstage pass to the event courtesy of CRSSD performer Nora En Pure. The Swiss deep-house producer documented her experience at the event in words and photos, from the process of figuring out the visual template for her epic two-hour set with her VJ, to assessing the evening’s vibe in order to adapt her sound to fit it, to the show itself (and one of the equally exciting afterparties). “I try to curate the set in an eclectic and fun way that keeps it interesting—but also goes through different moods as seamlessly as possible, while leaving quite a strong NEP stamp throughout the different soundscapes,” she shares.
Find her full recap of the event below.
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Upon arriving at our hotel we rush to one room, set up the visual template and programming for the stage, and discuss the content that should be played during certain atmospheres. Since I never know exactly what I will end up playing, the VJ has quite a tricky job trying to nail the vision in the moment.
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Arriving on festival grounds and making my way to my green room behind the Ocean View stage.
Shortly before the set I’m always in my head about the musical direction and selection. Finding myself at the venue I sometimes realize the vibe is different than anticipated. It’s early and still way hotter than I thought, which means for me adapting the sound to this bright and hot weather.
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While today’s technology allows so much freedom and flexibility, it’s become one of my vices to often be prepping ’til right before my play time. Juggling last-minute edits and doing basic make up right before the set has almost become normality. This time I was trying to finish an edit, which even made me arrive late to the set!
It’s show time, and I rush on stage. I got a two-hour slot on this spectacular stage, which is an absolute privilege. Especially for my music I think long sets are the way to go. I believe much more in the journey than single records, and try to curate the set in an eclectic and fun way that keeps it interesting—but also goes through different moods as seamlessly as possible, while leaving quite a strong NEP stamp throughout the different soundscapes. To me, this setting is pretty much unbeatable: to the left you have the city and to the right the ocean with palm trees. I love San Diego for being so cool to host festivals like this in such a hotspot.
And once I’m playing, I find myself lost in my emotional sound. Almost no matter how often I play some records, I always feel them deeply. It’s a fine line between just the right amount of emotional music and too much, so it’s always important to keep the selection groovy as well.
Sunset hour is here, my favorite time to play and the slot I will often request. It’s the perfect setting for my chill, melodic sound.
To see the golden light settle over the crowd makes me throw in tracks I hadn’t planned to play, but feel like such a must right now: A remix of RÜFÜS DU SOL’s “Lately” and my own classic “Come with Me.”
My two-hour set comes to an end and I didn’t even play the edits I was working on right before ;-)
After the set I hang around for a bit to catch some of Tinlicker’s live set before heading to the afterparty where I play another set. At this point I’m really, really tired, running on only two hours of sleep from the night before and being in the West Coast time zone. I reluctantly pass on seeing Disclosure’s set (some of my favorites) and we head back to the hotel just to unwind for an hour and get some quiet time.
I get ready again for the afters and find a packed club with only good vibes. Playing a set with more intimate sounds, and I end up grateful for another chapter in one of my favorite cities, San Diego.
