Three days of dense musical introspection and rhythmic narratives, four musical stages, between the pyramid and the bamboo meanders, welcome an international lineup of sought-after quality, making Lost a “bouquet” festival for the Italian contemporary electronic music scene.

Driving down - no AC, window’s busted - to the Labyrinth, we chat about Franco MR, the famed graphic designer, his publishing house, the mag, and the brainchild that birthed the "world's biggest labyrinth." This place, since its inception in the 70s, was meant to host concerts, arts, classical music and close friends dinners. Over 200k bamboo plants, since 2015 it’s nestled in Fontanellato, Parma.

For FMR the magic of the labyrinth is “the zenith of a life spent in relentless pursuit of perfection and study”. His friend Borges, despite being blind, wanted “to personally see every wonder of the world.” Legend has it, Borges warned him: “You can’t create a labyrinth. The greatest labyrinth in the world is the desert!” We dive into the history of labyrinths, from the myth of Crete, through the Egyptian era, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, exploring how FMR designed his “literary labyrinth”, always pushing the research process towards the unknown, captivated by distant worlds.

THE LABYRINTH: AN OTHERWORLDLY DIMENSION WITH EXOTIC UNDERTONES

As we near the summer solstice, we arrive at the Lost Music Festival (original name, Labyrinth Original Sound Track) at the Labirinto della Masone. The majestic red brick entrance stands out in front of a wheat field where soon night will fall, and we'll hear nothing but cicadas and basslines. A sweet sense of surrender washes over me, under the arched plant shadows. There’s this unseen energy, a light threading through the slim plants, mapping our path.

We scout around: at the entrance the bar area, to the right the vast camping oasis, a jumble of tents and beautiful bodies with showers, freshly brewed coffee on camp stoves, people lying on the grass, cold pasta, communal tents, guitars drawing people into circles under wooden structures in the "slow down" zone.

Trying to vibe-check myself. Feeling good, taking in the beauty of the location, and realizing that people around me seem at ease. I think they've figured out how to experience Lost, far from the frantic summer raves. This, obviously, is already a first filter for the audience, both Italian and international, who take this chance to discover new names and maybe hit up some local taverns around Parma. Many international artists are in the lineup too.

There are four stages and they never operate simultaneously. I dig this idea: engaging all the interested folks (not too many, not too few) in one spot and inviting them to move to the next one, guided only by colored lights and the initial beats of the sound. The Bamboo Stage, more to the side, feels like an installation: the set gives artists an almost sacred frame among the plants, creating a circle of dancing bodies around them. The Gate Stage, on the other hand, is in a smaller square just past the entrance. In the heart of the small streets is the Pyramid Stage: we enter a large square turned listening dancefloor. Facing the square, a pyramid-shaped chapel symbolizes the labyrinth as a symbol of faith. Romanesque architecture with an ancient taste, at the center, a large black stage with diffused smoke, and people sitting on the ground listening. The volume isn't too high and the heat is starting to wane. The vibe is esoteric, meditative, mystical. The experience is clearly not just about sound.

The labyrinth is, in every sense, the beating heart of the event. You can feel the “sense of community”, the words often used to describe this project. The location itself, isolated and calm, masterfully lit and filled with diffused smoke, creating a typical dystopian movie atmosphere - which looks great in photos - . A fairy-tale-like, elfin, almost childlike climate, decidedly outside the normal flow of time. The rejuvenating power of the natural jungle nullifies our fatigue and elegantly invites us to total immersion. Like any respectable rave, Lost is a relief from urban hysteria. A space that, by definition, "loses" the rhythms of everyday life and becomes a sensory decompression moment for an ephemeral community, and thus “free.” The music, intangible yet immensely powerful, is the escape point, along with its visual experience.

ADULT SOUNDSCAPES AND NOSTALGIAS

During the three days of Lost, I experienced numerous flashbacks. I couldn't help but think back with nostalgia to an ancient time, when we were 20 years old, driving to poorly organized raves with random friends, in some random place in the world - truly without coordinates - and just dancing, dancing without a care. Shoes got ruined, we fell in love, and we felt amazing. Growing up wasn't a pressing goal. And, during the return trip this time, I no longer have twenty years, and it moves me to think that back then I didn't realize how those irreplaceable moments would always stay with me, just like the 180 bpm psytrance distortion – that stayed.

In the last year, I’ve mostly heard "adult" music proposals, concentrated music that flaunts (sometimes almost garishly) its “learned” nature, culturally dense, demanding mental preparation and, consequently, a social performance (“but did you know this comes from... this has influences from…”). I notice that this year's musical wave seems to have taken an introspective, introverted, meditative and somewhat sad turn, requiring one-to-sit-and-listen. Deep basses, dense textures, hypnotic and languid beats, extreme technicalities combining the contemplative slowness of downtempo with the raw energy of hardcore rave, the rhythmic precision of techno and drum and bass. Rarefied percussion and long reverbs, contrasts of melancholic sentimental dynamics without that burst of energy, only distorted climaxes and atonal passages. Stylistic devices, means to express a deep, generational despair and desolation.

An “adulthood soundscape” that I think tends towards the opposite of instinctive and perhaps sometimes risks being misplaced and out-of-time. Undoubtedly, my returning melancholy was personal and subjective, but sincere: at Lost, like in other instances, I didn’t “lose” myself in the sound, I didn’t melt into the music but only into its conceptualization.

I always had, somehow, a responsibility for what I was hearing. There was a bit of lightness missing, the feeling of being completely naked and bare. Very positive note: in the labyrinth, there was (almost) no phone connection: a thousand points more. Some signs brought me back, now and then, to my reality as a “consumer”, like the signposts in the labyrinth, the food stalls, the healing area, the bouncers. Again, my problem. As Rebecca Salvadori once suggested to me in “Desert Rave”, making a party is a matter of determination, it’s about hypnosis (and substances don’t matter), it’s about smiles, finding “mirrors of your vibrations in the humans on the dancefloor”. When the music has to fit into the context, it creates an “internal space” where you stop being a consumer but a participant, an essential part of a broader energetic game, built also thanks to you. And now I find myself searching for adjectives to describe a sound that by definition have no definitions. It either hits you, or it doesn’t. Nothing more.

Here's the lowdown on the festival: it worked for one reason, the music fit perfectly within the context.

THE FESTIVAL: CURATING A MULTISENSORIAL MYSTIC EXPERIENCE

Lost’s organization describes the project as a blend of quality curated music, nature, light and art that "blurs the boundaries between reality and the unknown: an authentic immersive experience, set in the world’s largest plant labyrinth”. Through a meticulous selection of Italian and international artists, Lost brings to life the mystical, esoteric and mysterious aspects of this one-of-a-kind spot. In its brief existence, Lost has quickly built a community, gathering a loyal following and filling a gap in Italy’s artistic offerings.

Luca Giudici, artistic director of the festival and co-founder of Spiritual Sauna, reports an international audience rise to 30%, predominantly female or nonbinary. A “boutique festival”, in Luca’s words, “marked by a respectful and immersive space-time for all senses”. More ambient and ethereal bpm’s in the morning and more defined, energetic rhythms at night. It's crucial for event planners to understand and read the different audiences and what people seek within a club or festival setting: "Reading the crowd can mean many things, but it essentially involves knowing how to tell and structure a story, with a beginning, middle, and end”. attentive to ecology, the festival partners with Legambiente and Emiliambiente.

THE LINE-UP: SYNERGY OF EXPERIMENTATIONS, MIST AND DENSE RHYTHMS

The artist selection is varied and broad, spanning pure experimental, instrumental and vocal live sets, high BPM DJs, catering to introspective, expert, adrenaline-junkie, energetic and pure-dance-focused. Defining the artists under a single genre is impossible, as this festival defies labels and mainstream norms. At Lost, there’s no headliner, and each act has its own space. Acts are spaced out in a schedule within the labyrinth. Many live sets and projects are world premieres.

FRIDAY

Starts at 8pm on the Bamboo stage with Ciro Vitiello’s man-machine dialogue, then moves to the Pyramid square until midnight, featuring the airy voice and viola of London’s much-appreciated Astrid Sonne, the introspective punk duo 33 and the Berlin duo Amnesia Scanner presenting their latest work "Psycho Chat" in a world premiere. From night until around 3 am, we’ll hear the refined yet light sound of AYA, with her physical memories of the British underground, and the multifaceted live hip-hop of Caribbean black Florence Sinclair. The night closes with the fast basses of Shiboi, moving between Caribbean and American culture.

SATURDAY

11am in the Bamboo stage with Neo Geodesia, the “monastic chant” mix hardcore from Cambodia. Always impactful, the theatrical and animalistic stage presence of Damsel Elysium, and the hallucinatory software and synths of Huerco S., pioneer of the experimental "outsider house" sound. The museum installations of resident artists Riccardo La Foresta, "Six and Forty-Six" - an interaction between the Drummophone, made of bass drums created by him, and an instrument at the court of James Ginzburg, a live installation visible for 4 hours. Then a small break. Returning to the Bamboo stage in the mid-afternoon with James K live, I-Sha, directly from Bristol’s dubwise scene, in b2b with Moroccan blends by Ojoo. Then Ale Hop and Laura Robles with their premiere of “Agua Dulce”, their first release together, a radical deconstruction of traditional Peruvian coastal rhythms based on organology, followed by Egyptian dj Zuli.

We move to the Pyramid stage, sweating and sit to listen to Funeral Folk (Maria W. Horn & Sara Parkman), a painful phenomenological chant about death and specters (perhaps one of the most moving moments). Ziur presenting the raw fragments of “Eyeroll” in collaboration with other artists. Swedish Varg with the world premiere of "Nordic Flora Series" with menacing and spectral atmospheres. Then at one in the morning, Cortex of Light (OOze, Piezo & Aitch), another favorite, with a slow but determined wave sound, danceable, enveloping all nature around and involving the never-tired community. Gabber Eleganza, a nighttime touch of energetic post-teck hardcore to close the day, an act in its third year of collaboration lasting 3 hours.

SUNDAY

From morning Perila live non-melodic with ambient and soft/fragile tones. Nplgnn, hardcore dancehall frenzy and the melancholic guitar singing of Joanne Robertson, followed by Judaah ghetto tech from Marseille. From 5pm in the Bamboo stage Dali Muru and The Polyphonic Swarm live, violent rhythms that tell of journeys and memories. Badsista, Brazilian underground like a muscular workout with a bit of swinging folk hammering. The duo Pelada, who dive into the crowd with the microphone in hand, with a live act from Montreal’s underground rave scene. Lost 2024 closes with Piezo, son of club rhythms and the Italian freetekno rave scene, in b2b with Simo Cell, an emerging artist from Nantes.

The lineup featured a good mix of diverse musical choices. Appreciated was the one-stage-at-a-time approach. Well-curated and alternative lineup, embracing three days and two nights (not all night) of experimental music. Even in Italy, historical spaces can be revitalized, where art, environment and love combine: the festival has all the right cards.

Sun comes up, tunes die down, leaving memories and background noise. Back to the city, window’s perpetually busted, I’ve got bamboo leaves still caught in my shoes.