There’s a scene in cult anime film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time in which the protagonist propels herself at high speed on a bicycle into the future, and this image pretty accurately captures the feeling of arriving at Amsterdam’s Dekmantel festival. Each morning, thousands of electronic music fans would cycle through the verdant Amsterdamse Bos forest to the festival site, where, at the foot of a looming radio tower, some of the world's best DJs were gathered to push the boundaries of what electronic music can achieve. 

True to its name, decks stand first and foremost at Dekmantel. “We try to represent the full spectrum of electronic music and connect the dots between the past, present and future,” says the festival’s marketing and communication head Mike Evans and, celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, this mission was taken more seriously than ever. Featuring crowd favourites such as Young Marco and Palms Tracks, as well as newer names like Jyoty and Badsista, the celebrations stood as both a celebration of all that Dekmantel has achieved over the last ten years, as well as a commitment to continuing its innovation for years to come. 

TEN DAYS FOR TEN YEARS

In honour of a decade of operation, this year’s Dekmantel swelled to a staggering ten days of music over two weeks. The special programming included three nights at Dutch munitions factory-turned-industrial club setting Het HEM, a performance from Kali Malone at Amsterdam’s oldest church Oude Kerk, and even a football match for community members. Since its inception, Dekmantel has expanded its futuristic universe to include its own record label, a leg in Croatia, and events in São Paulo, Brazil, all of which were brought back into the fold to celebrate its tenth birthday.

THE STAGES WERE RIDICULOUS (-LY GOOD)

Watching Ben UFO & Joy Orbison’s headline set on Saturday in the coliseum-esque Loop stage, I exclaimed that I could have enjoyed the set on mute. That’s no shade to the artists, the visuals were just that impressive. Previously a semi-circle, the Loop stage quite literally came full-circle in honour of the festival’s ten-year milestone, and the results were jaw-dropping. With dynamic, live mixing, the arena was illuminated by lighting that cascaded around the perimeter, pierced up into the heavens, and collapsed down onto the hordes of ravers at its centre.

“We have to be in the future,” says lead stage designer Albert Van Abbe, who collaborated with Amsterdam's Children of the Light for the Loop stage, as well as Parisian creatives Matière Noire and Dutch studio Dennis Vanderbroeck. Be it the open-roofed Greenhouse, the towering scaffolding of Radar, or the brutalist warehouse that is the Nest, each stage had a distinct visual identity to match its sonics. “Light and sound are both just frequencies,” continues Van Abbe, intertwining his fingers, “as are people, at the quantum level. I’m interested in finding ways for these to work together.” Futuristic indeed.

A WORLD-CLASS LINEUP

Dekmantel has a reputation as one of the best electronic festivals in the world, and everyone from the DJs to the attendees expected nothing less. “I’m here for the UK artists like Mala and James Blake,” one ‘Dam local told me as we cycled through the forest, while, separately, a representative of the festival mentioned how she was particularly excited to see the Brazilian artists they’d brought back from São Paulo, and, later on, a Scottish attendee raved mid-rave about the legend that is Young Marco, who’s 2023 closing set at Dekmantel is remembered as one of the festival’s greatest. I can’t imagine any of them were disappointed. From the booming basslines of UK dubstep to the frenetic highs of Colombian DJ and percussionist Diva Cruz, all bases were covered.

Still, it was the local acts that reigned supreme. An astronomical queue formed for the Radar stage on the Sunday afternoon to see Dutch legends Job Jobse and Young Marco play one after the other, delivering layered, hardcore-inspired rhythms that got the crowd – and the scaffolding we were standing on – swaying back and forth. 

THE CROWD WAS SPECIAL

“Dekmantel was pretty much the reason I moved to Amsterdam,” one British expat told me, “I met my partner here, and then returned for another year, then Selectors in Croatia.” This sort of loyalty to the festival felt representative of the crowd as a whole, who were fanatical yet respectful. Despite music as hardcore as they come, attendees remained sober enough to cycle back through the forests at midnight, before returning to do it all again the next day. Even as the rain came down at the climax of the Saturday night, moods stayed high. It spoke to a commitment to the music, and was reflective of a festival which resolved to stay ahead of the curve in every aspect. 

Check out the gallery above to see what went down at Dekmantel's tenth anniversary.