Monument Festival: Tracing the Echo of the Forgotten Valley

Sound appears to be everywhere, oscillating between the buzz of cities to inert corners of nature, calling the dancer to answer. Once a year, the echo of the underground scene emanates from the mystical northern lands of Norway. Following a continuous scenery of lush forests and ice-cold rivers, a 3-hour drive north from Oslo leads the road to the picturesque village of Veggli, the home of the sound of Monument Festival.

This past August, Monument opened its frameless doors for the 5th edition, welcoming its community to a four-day fusion of audio and visual immersion beneath the vast Nordic sky. Carrying elements of ancient Midsommar traditions, Monument fosters a close-knit community-centered gathering where cutting-edge sounds unearth amidst the light of bonfires, creating a realm of social cohesion through stories shared between world travelers. Signifying the purging of the past and ushering in new beginnings, Monument introduces a portal to an ever-evolving experience of intimate communal synergy for each of its few thousand attendees.

Outside the Digital, Inside the Forest

Monument is a multilayered music platform, community, and event series seamlessly operating in both digital and physical space. Beginning its digital journey in 2013 with the purpose of supporting and illuminating the underground techno scene to the accessibility of a larger audience, Monument’s online magazine and podcast series started to showcase both pioneer and new artists with the aim of facilitating a closer connection between the listener and creator. With the intention of meeting their established community face-to-face, in 2019, Monument grew outside the digital and took over the forests of Norway as a festival for the first time. With its carefully put together 5th edition this year, the four-day gathering scattered throughout the village of Veggli introduces its sonic narrative through a stellar lineup in its two distinguished stages: Haven & Varden.

This year, the opening ceremony took place at the debut of Monument’s new cordial stage, Haven, carefully designed as a welcoming space for attendees to enter the festival’s grounds. The prelude began with a backdrop of live experimentation by Sarah Wreath, involving effect techniques combined with the ethereal sounds of the gong, followed by a ritualistic live performance by Mohammad Reza Mortazavi, which compelled a slowly rising crowd to an innate dance. In a conversation we had with Henning, the festival founder, he shared the story behind the stage’s creation: “Haven is a small festival village of different kinds of music beyond techno–which used to be a missing piece of our festival. The stage itself was built by over 15 carpenters who dismantled a cabin high up in the mountains and transported the materials down to Veggli using snowmobiles and trailers. The cabin was already scheduled for demolition, so we repurposed the materials creating a sustainable solution for its new life.”

Monument Festival - Orb Mag - Photography by Gresa Nuredini

Monument Festival - Orb Mag - Photo Gresa Nuredini — Photography by Gresa Nuredini

As we walked into the premises of the second day for a morning yoga, vinyasa session with Ida Marie, Fred Lundi set the mood at the Haven with the opening track “Privat Matrix” by Anton Kubikov, wavering his way into a 3-hour aerial ambient set which by the end mapped out a trail to the opening of the main stage. A walk into the mind’s unknown territories, where the mystical disclosure of nature opens up to a wooden triangle placed in between pine trees. Soundwaves deriving from its sharp edges begin to shape new patterns of human perception. The Varden stage, the place where sound accumulated in the dancefloor disperses into the wilderness. Commenced with an atmospheric opening of the sonic narrative crafted by Oslo’s very own Henri Havaas’, to Sunju Hargun’s set fluctuating from serene explorations of lush tropical realms to psychedelic soundscapes of Eat Static’s “Almost Human Abduction Mix”; Varden breaks loose with its fire pits dotted across the space, becoming a tribal sanctum for the people of Monument. A dance and then another, with in-between interludes of tasting Nordic natural wines at Haven until the sun lingers to a late sunset at 10 pm, painting a twilight terrain of an almost forever-morning.

The Doors of Perception

As darkness descends, the last beams of sunlight begin their hiding journey behind pine trees, casting shadows upon their escape. On the dancefloor, a girl with red lipstick glides through my field of vision as an array of lights opens an electrifying portal into a timelessness of artificial light. This sensory journey, imbued in its theatrical essence contrasts the darkest shadows of the forest, expanding an invitation to transcending the doors of perception. This visual fusion of sensory stimuli opens up the atmosphere for Kia and Polygonia to place their closing set in motion with “Jacky Boy” by Papa Nugs, seamlessly guiding a playful mix of styles throughout the night.

Monument is renowned for its aural light shows which seem to grow into metamorphosis each following night. Brought to life by an interplay of polychrome light, projections, and smoke, the visual team consisting of three members—Melissa F. Larsen, Joao C. R. Pereira and Mats Bekkåsen—depart the festival goers onto an other-worldly experience expanding beyond static imagination. After witnessing the festival’s signature light show firsthand, we delved into the creative process with the visual team to dissect this year’s visual concept. “Our performances blend cinematic elements, using light, darkness, and mood to create a sensory journey across the dance floor. We often transition from abstract to recognizable visuals, sparking the audience’s imagination—like when someone asked if they really saw a man rowing across the clouds! This year, we replaced metal trusses with repurposed telephone poles, which now serve as pillars for lights around the dancefloor. Over time, these will be adorned with carvings and features to further integrate with our hardware, enhancing the organic feel of the space,” revealed Melissa from the visual team.

Velvet Mornings in Mellow Meadows

The breeze of the night carries itself into the untouched morning as music makes an interlude for all to wander outside the dancefloors. Herds of sheep bleat across the river and the crystal body of water calls for a cold swim. An old abandoned railway, where wild strawberries grow, leads the way to a nostalgic train compartment, last used for passenger traffic in 1988, marking the end of the Numedal Line. Today, this restored red train serves as a time machine into the past life of Veggli, long before Monument.

Expanding on nature’s nurture, practices of mindfulness and well-being are thoughtfully integrated into the festival’s program. From Open Space sessions that invite participants to engage in their own practices without a teacher’s guidance, to the introspective Walking Eye-Gazing Meditation, each activity urges recognition of the present moment–welcoming the community to reflect and connect within and outside the self.

Clouds center on the sky, making the sun invisible to the eye. With ambiance and introspection, Celadon opens the third day at Varden, setting the stage for a dub techno and roots infusion by Tikiman and Richard Akingbehin. The afternoon unfolds, and the sun reappears with the Norwegian folk synth music makers, Naaljos Ljom, hosting a ritualistic dance at Haven, “where they had the crowd going wild in what felt like an event from hundreds of years ago,” adds Henning. In parallel, the echo of the Varden transcends from DJ Maria spinning the stage with a blend of trance-like psychedelia and cutting-edge sounds to a floor full of dancers. The day spirals towards its epilogue when the light show begins to synchronize with a cosmic set departing all the way from Detroit. Erika masterfully closes the main floor with hypnotic techno and authentic breaks, trailing the way to a lost highway of sound.

Monument Festival - Orb Mag - Photo by Gresa Nuredini — Photography by Gresa Nuredini

Sunday rolls in casting a feeling of collective melancholia as everything becomes more familiar to the senses. Monument puts on the final show with a pioneering lineup, intricately shaping the auditory field with sensory experiences within a layered narrative that captures both the communal and intimate aspects. Haven comes to life after dancers gather for DJ Nobu to deliver his unique sound originating in Japan. From Chateau Flight’s “Cosmic Race” to Fred P’s remix of Truss’ “Redbrook,” Nobu navigates through an oddball house set full of surprises concluding with an epic closing with Philip Glass’ “Etoile Polaire (North Star).”

A walk down to the main floor, Robert Leiner steps onto the triangle-shaped booth and the veil of gravity begins to lift off from the very own Source of Experience. His live performance whirlpools in sonic formations to an early vision of the past, a ‘90s classic, “Aqua Viva”, molding an emotionally sublime experience to a hypnotized audience. The ground pulsates in precision of his crystalline sound structures, elevating the dancefloor to an otherworldly realm, beyond the familiar. A lifetime trapped inside a fleeting hour of catharsis slips away from the touch as soundwaves escape into the unfathomable forest, leaving a memorable trace of his presence in the Varden.

As the echo of the Source lingers, the Varden undergoes a transformation driven by the enigmatic Wata Igarashi. The lights shift in dramatic reds performing a psychedelic vortex while the last dance occurs. Sounds of distant waterfalls slowly become more audible as the music ends and we walk down the bridge of return. In a foreign land, clandestine kinships emerge between participants of a shared experience, “and a place once known as ‘The Forgotten Valley,’ is certainly no longer forgotten,” concludes Henning.

Listen to Orb Mag’s curated playlist of tracks played by artists at Monument Festival 2024 here.

Wednesday, Oct 23 By Gresa Nuredini

Outside the Digital, Inside the Forest

The Doors of Perception

Velvet Mornings in Mellow Meadows

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