When Pitchfork launched a three-day music festival in Chicago in 2006, it was still just another hipster, music website. A decade on, Pitchfork has become the gatekeeper of the new guard in international music; has had titles like “tastemaker” conferred on it; and its festival is a fantastic showcase of the journal’s accumulated might.
Held annually at Chicago’s Union Park, and in Paris since 2011, it’s got eclectic line-ups, great food and a deeply indie vibe: The sort where, say, Kendrick Lamar and Anderson Paak performed before they became household names around the world; where artists as low-key as Sufjan Stevens give grandiose performances in large feather wings; where pop divas like Carly Rae Jepsen can incite mosh pits; indie songstresses like FKA Twigs turn into A/V phenoms; and where rap meets saxophones, and collaborations tend to be spontaneous and stirring. If you’re looking for an alternative to the immediate release of raging on chemicals and brain-deadening BPM, this is it.
