If you read something you love on our site today, please consider becoming a monthly or annual tQ subscriber β our journalism is mostly funded this way. Wyndham "indie Wyndy" Wallace was afraid of the enjoyable extremes of music. All photographs also by Wyndham Wallace.
Then, from the corner of my eye, I see something float past the boat, a long, silver streak glinting in the sunshine. The boat slows, circles around, and we crowd its side.
Sometimes when you remove things from their familiar context, they pose no threat at all. So the boatman tosses it carelessly into the water, revs the engine once more, and we continue our futile hunt. Furthermore, some airlines offer reductions for ticketholders, and prices here are cheap: even a hefty glass of Madeira wine at the hotel bar comes in at less than a pint of lager in London. Calling it a festival is a little misleading. There are just tickets sold, and only two performances take place each evening at the Casa Das Mudas, though those aftershow parties back at the hotel feature further DJs, as well as a live performance or two.
But those who regularly attend shows by the kinds of names here are more than used to intimate performances, and what MadeiraDig seems to have realised is that the specialist appeal of such music can be exploited as a strength, allowing a small, exclusive gathering of fans and artists to mingle together in an extraordinary location that allows them to establish a potent sense of community. So we spend afternoons by the infinity pool, sip cold Super Bock beers by evening on a grassy terrace, then dine on fresh fish, sometimes in the restaurant down by the beach, where a moist cliff face constitutes one of the walls, though the experience is on occasion more idyllic than delicious.
Afterwards we take a specially arranged bus so we can settle into the plush, if oddly angled, seats in the immaculate surroundings of the auditorium. Things begin on Friday night with Taylor Dupree, founder of the 12K label, and Jerome Faria, a Portugese sound and visual artist also known as NNY, who face off across a table strewn with gadgets, cables and Macbooks. The spectral sounds, most recognisably the deepest tones of a church organ, are masked in a blizzard of digital distortion and volume that, on occasions, recalls the shoegazers of the early s.
