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Sunfall is a new festival to the city of London. It takes place in Brockwell Park, near Brixton, and centres around the best that house, jazz and disco has to offer around the world. Last year was its debut and it boasted the likes of Detroit house legend, Moodymann, and the now-biggest name in jazz, Kamasi Washington. It’s different to other day festivals with its collaboration with the major clubs in London (XOYO and Jazz Café to name a few); it also offers what they call ‘Night Sessions’. These sessions take place in said clubs and usually carry on until around 5am.

I had heard of Sunfall having some of the best sound systems a day festival has to offer, and, after seeing this year’s line-up consist of the likes of Theo Parrish (close friend of Moodymann), Floating Points, Motor City Drum Ensemble, Roy Ayers and Moses Boyd, a few mates and I decided that it was a must.

It’s a relatively long day; the doors open around midday and the festival doesn’t finish until 10:30pm. Gilles Peterson and Moses Boyd were some of the first to play so we were anxious to get there from the start. And it was a good thing we did. A few friends of ours decided that they would try and get in around 3-4, but as seems to be typical of festival season this year, the queue held them back hours, forcing them to miss acts they were excited to see. That was a major flaw on the organisers’ part – with the amount of people coming to the festival, and given that it was such a long day, it was obvious that people would be turning up around that time and yet they provided only one, narrow entrance.

The first act we saw was Gilles Peterson, who was playing his usual eclectic mix of world, disco, house and jazz music. The crowd was relatively small at this time, but was still boogying all the same. In fact, this was the best crowd for a festival, or perhaps even a gig, that I’ve ever been involved in. They were affable, warm, respectable and well up for a dance. The weather probably made it even better – it was the first rays of sunshine we had had throughout the week which ended on the 13th of August. Not only was the crowd different to that which I had been used to at these types of events, so was what was for sale. In one tent, which was one of my favourites, was an array of indie record labels selling vinyl records similar to the artists playing at the festival, and what made it so good was that you were able to listen to each record, unlike many of the record shops of today such as HMV, Urban Outfitters, even the famed Rough Trade has a limit to what you can listen to. It is a much more organic and relaxed experience, and allows you to discover new music.

Image Credits: FACT Magazine