Since its early editions, Parallel Festival has always had a story to tell. The project took shape in 2015, initiated by the three founding partners Patricia Homedes, Jordi Augustí, and Felix Beltrán, who were motivated to establish a forward-thinking experience to the contemporary European electronic music scene. They saw that the electronic music landscape in their country of residence, Spain, was consequently missing the point of delivering meaningful experiences. The overly commercial undertone and enormous audiences stood in sharp contrast with their own passion-driven mindset.

A story of essence

Getting rid of all the bells and whistles, they started to build their concept from scratch, stripping back the festival to its essence. Inspired by the Japanese Labyrinth event, Parallel adapted its characteristic one-stage concept with the goal of enhancing the communal experience. Over the course of three days, deep and experimental techno had to fill the vast fields amidst the majestic mountains of the Spanish Pyrenees, bringing together a close-knit community of artists and music enthusiasts.

But as with anything designed with a minimalistic mindset, it’s about finding the sweet spot where just the right amount is delivered. It’s about intentionality, not deprivation. For this, Parallel applied storytelling strategies to keep the usual itinerary as stimulating as possible and simultaneously pursue their final goal of an intimate, communal festival experience.

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Within the fundamental characteristics of narrative is endless room for experimentation and plot design. But whatever the content, a space needs structural coherence to deliver its optimal scope. Moreover, when thinking about curating an immersive experience that functions through a single-stage set-up, the flow of the narrative needs no interruptions. It’s an evolution of sound where energy should flow from one act into another, building chapters throughout the days. A challenging task, but rewarding when executed right, as proven when we witnessed the festival’s energy grow over the course of the weekend.

Prologue, Story, and Epilogue

As outlined in the line-up, the structural narrative of Prologue, Story, and Epilogue took its cue from the need to take the audience collectively along a defined set of shared moments within an interconnected web of nature, sound, and dances. It represented the narrative and plot choices the curators decided to work with, feeling like a book laid out for everyone to read, mark highlights in, or conclude and for everyone to experience and reflect on together.

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Parallel’s first day celebrated the opening, or ‘Prologue’, eagerly anticipated year after year. And so, the start of the Parallel 2024 story was energetic and full of anticipation guided by a forceful curation. One particular highlight of the Prologue took people by surprise when Cobahn delivered a fierce, straight-edge deep techno set. Somehow, her performance was representative of the sounds that unfolded during the next chapters in the following days. 

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We, the audience, felt like an integral part of this story. It became apparent that this effect was caused by more than just music - the elements of both nature and time played a vital role. The Pyrenees, with their expanse of luminous pine trees, traversing almost the entire rocky surface and blessed by the sky-high warm spirit of the sun, filled the space with subtle reverberations as the sound bounced off their bodies and gave back part of their organic and inorganic energy to their human guests. It felt like symbiosis, becoming one with the land and sound.

Entering a new time-space reality

Festivals are often outlined as spaces out of time, distinct from the routine aspects of daily life; a concept referred to as 'liminal' space (or space in between). However, Parallel might represent the opposite. It seemed like an instant of everyday life removed from its habitual context and reworked to accommodate a different approach to social gathering.

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Working with only one stage for the whole duration of a three-day festival induces a certain fixation of time moving in place without the ‘parallel’ time distractions from any other stages. There is always a return to the same stage. Whether people are in their tents or at the top of the ski slope, everyone will come back to the same stage to tap into the communal narrative again. You experience ‘time’ within a fixed area. Fixed, territorial, but evolving in its place.

In other words: the curational choice to work with a single stage not only allows participants to experience a big part, if not all, of the programme together, but it also transforms our perception of time in a loop - creating a deep, focused and almost meditative trip. This new sensory level of experiencing adds a totally new dimension that is unique to Parallel Festival - especially with the musical curation that could be described as mind-bending, especially on day 2, ‘Story’. 

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As with most live acts, like Toki Fuko with an hour of deep psychedelic techno or Shoal & Dorisburg's endeavour in the realm of intelligent and minimal bouncy sounds, the stage captures the attention of the audience so deeply as if time itself has no other interest except to crystallize in place. The Story unfolds further with Aaron J delivering an honest, airy techno set, every single track so harmoniously mixed, creating a sense of lightness and aliveness. The level of groove keeps growing with Anthony Linell, who gives the Story chapter its defining form, signed off with an animalistic closing by Woody92.

A chapter of togetherness

Parallel’s narrative ends with the Epilogue chapter, bringing together the Prologue and Story and completing the sonic journey. Sunju Hargun, Marco Shuttle, and Voices From The Lake have led the Sunday afternoon, turning the dance floor into a trancey-oriented rave. The Epilogue sees people locked in on the dance floor as the day ends early in the evening. The last day is about dancing and connecting with people and the artists, solidifying the intimacy brewing from the start. Dancing, making eye contact, sharing smiles, and living in the moment were the defining emergent features of the day. 

There is a feedback loop that keeps feeding a sense of agreement and understanding connecting people and things on the dance floor, producing a strange metaphysical, yet somatically felt energy, shared among bodies in space. Nestled within a nest-like structure, with fences and haybales at the front, the stage and the artist become the voice of the moment, infusing the mountainous fresh air with the storytelling capacities of their sounds, writing another chapter of Parallel history, bringing back the essence that motivated the idea back in 2015. Next year, the story will unfold again.