Friday – Between Ritual and Reverberation

Ali Sethi and Nicolas Jaar opened the night, and it immediately felt like a ritual rather than a show. Jaar stayed on the edges, shaping the space with patience, while Sethi’s voice occupied the centre like a living presence. It was meditative, deliberate, luminous.

As Sethi began introducing his last song, the crowd started chanting “Free, free Palestine.” Sethi smiled, lifted his hands, and answered with a heartfelt “Yes, yes, free Palestine.” He spoke about how witnessing is the stage before overcoming. The energy shifted. The dark, brutalist space of Lingotto suddenly felt light and alive, full of shared intention. It was the only explicitly political moment of the weekend, and a moving one. I found myself thinking that electronic music needs this again: its roots in resistance, collective emotion and humanity.

Iosonouncane and Daniela Pes carried that emotion into something more earthy. They played
behind a small table of synths, samplers and flutes, weaving their voices and breath into a huge organic wave of sound. Their Sardinian roots were everywhere in it: pastoral, ritual, luminous. Pes’s voice was extraordinary, ancient and unplaceable, like a chant from another time. The visuals, frozen images of rural Italy, were quietly stunning the most beautiful of the festival, suspended between memory and dream.

Then came Skee Mask. Tight, dynamic, fast, technically impeccable. A great set full of energy, though at times the crowd couldn’t quite connect. Maybe too cerebral, too focused on movement over story. Still, I loved the freshness of it, the sheer physicality after so much introspection.

Later Saya Gray brought glitch and fragility, turning small songs into unstable structures that folded in on themselves. Blood Orange followed with warmth and melancholy, his set glowing like an afterimage. DJ Rum closed the night with polyrhythmic flow and quiet confidence, balancing energy with tenderness.

I left the Lingotto feeling both calm and charged, a rare mix.

Saturday – Gravity and Release

Saturday had a different pulse. I had been craving something straight, something to move to, and XIII and SABLA delivered exactly that: a proper four-on-the-floor set, heavy and hypnotic. After Friday’s scattered rhythms, this felt essentially simple, powerful, physical. The crowd loosened up and people were properly dancing again.

Then Los Thuthanaka took over, and the whole night tilted. Dressed in flamboyant suits and white hats, they unleashed one of the most intense performances I have ever seen at C2C Festival. The volume was extreme, the sound thick and relentless, with obsessive guitar riffs, keytar lines and layers of rhythm piling up until everything blurred into a single mass of vibration. It felt like standing inside a storm made of sunlight and distortion. There was something wild and sacred about it: raw, slow, hypnotic. I needed a few minutes of silence afterwards just to process what had happened.

Floating Points followed with precision and grace. His DJ set felt like the centrepiece of the weekend: elegant, layered, full of detail. The lighting was exceptional, perfectly aligned with the music’s shifts. It was cerebral and emotional at once, the kind of set that pulls you in without shouting.

Four Tet closed the festival. Reliable as always, his set was warm, fluid and human, though the energy had dipped. It was already 3 a.m., and after so many hours of intensity, it was hard for the crowd to stay fully immersed. Still, he brought a sense of closure, that collective exhale C2C Festival always finds before the lights come on.

For me, C2C Festival 2025 was not about novelty or scale. It was about continuity — the act of staying with sound and with each other. Ricciardone’s absence was everywhere, but so was his legacy. The festival did not mourn; it listened. And that felt like the most fitting tribute of all.