UVA Festival: Spain’s boutique disco and house haven

It’s 2017 and the festival is firmly alive and kicking. But while Glastonbury is life-changing, Sziget is an epic endurance event and Tomorrowland is a Disney-cum-EDM carnival, the trend at the moment isn’t to go bigger and better.

Tucked away on a Spanish hillside in the picturesque town of Ronda was the setting for the debut edition of UVA Festival, the country’s first truly boutique festival. It was refreshing by name (Uva is Spanish for grape) and intimate by nature with an official capacity of only 500 people.

With boutique festivals popping up everywhere at the moment, punters have come to expect, in addition to great music, exceptional food, decorations and, most of all, the Instagramability. UVA Festival offers all of that in spades. Its location is the Descalzos Viejos, a building that was originally a monastery in the 15th century and has been turned into a vineyard sunken into the hillside facing Ronda’s iconic cliffs. It offers up incredible views of golden plains and rocky sierras as well as being a situated off the beaten path, meaning noise wasn’t an issue.

The stages complimented their surroundings brilliantly thanks to architecture team Zuloark and a production team led by Ferdinand Bene, giving the feel of an extravagant house party rather than a festival. The main stage was spacious and offered the best views while the Jungle Stage fit in perfectly with it’s luscious surroundings of multi-tiered rock walls, cacti and orange trees (which actually had oranges growing on them). And with a line-up featuring Antal, San Proper and Brilliant Corners selector Donna Leake, there was no shortage of cool, obscure and sunshine-appropriate tunes.

But the essence of the festival lay with the size of the crowd. It’s what generated that house party feel, lines for the bar were basically non-existent, it was easy to get around the site and, most importantly you got to know your fellow revellers. Organisers Moody Collective labelled the event a festival for friends, by friends and that’s exactly what it felt like by the end of the weekend.

With Primavera and Sonar acting as the two big dogs on Spain’s summer circuit, UVA Festival stakes a claim as a worthwhile alternative to the big crowds and identical line-ups. Here’s to a triumphant return next year.

Check our favourite tunes heard at the festival below

Juan Chacon, Main Stage

It’s 25 degrees when we arrive in Malaga at 10am on Friday morning. Ushered in by the rolling Mediterranean hills and neatly manicured farmland, anticipation was high for a tropical time before we had even hit the tarmac. It’s a far cry from the party wasteland we witnessed in Ibiza just two days ago. But entering UVA later that evening firmly put lingering images of dusty motorways and bad sunglasses out of our heads still heavy from some of the White Isle’s opening parties.

Marcos Valle’s Brazilian boogie number ‘Estrelar’, a track that couldn’t be more sunshine if it tried, welcomes us on to the site and in amongst a crowd decked out in kimonos, Hawaiian shirts and bare feet (not to mention the friendly dog cruising around). It feels very relaxed and bourgeoisie but people also seem ready to party.

Barnhowl & Samuel Baron, Main Stage

What’s great about the type of festivals where you aren’t running between stages missing the first 15 minutes of all your favourite artists’ sets, is discovering the hidden gems. With the line-up consisting mostly of friends and affiliates of Moody Collective, it meant there were plenty on display. DJ duo Barnhowl & Samuel Baron took to the decks at 8pm on the first night and proceeded with a set of summery house and disco slammers such as Norma Jean Bell’s ‘I’m The Baddest Bitch’, Lou Vega’s edit of ‘Bourgie Bourgie’ and Street Player by Chicago.

All of those tunes could have made it on to this list, but it was Taxi C.A.B’s funky sample fest ‘Chunk-A-Nova’ and Herbert’s ‘People That Make Music’ that lured punters sipping red wine and Fanta (not as gross as it sounds) on to the dancefloor and replaced the setting sun with a lift in energy levels.

Sugar & Fonte, Jungle Stage

When you walk into UVA you’re presented with the main stage set-up in front of the main entrance to the monastery. It’s concrete and it’s functional, offering up the best views from where you’re dancing. But it couldn’t compare to the intimacy of the Jungle Stage set around the back of the building. Surrounded by shrubbery, it’s like a natural club with a small lawn as its dancefloor. On one side the hill drops down sharply to other walkways. On the other side is a bank of stone cut into the side of the hillside with a path running along the top.

The disco is appropriate in this area but as the darkness descends, mood lighting in amongst the bushes fires up and the creatures start to come out. Madrid duo Sugar Free & Fonte’s rolling house set captures the mood perfectly. They end it with this banger from Utrecht’s Locklead, a producer who has released on SlapFunk, Hot Haus and Unkown To The Unknown.

San Proper, Main Stage

By the time San Proper has taken to the booth at midnight, the festival is really in the swing of things. Friends are being made and inhibitions are low (we overhear someone describing a blowjob they recieved in the toilet). With only 500 people, it’s best to be nice. You’re partying with the same crowd for three days after all. Both dancefloors are busy and house and disco is the status quo but San Proper doesn’t care, he wants to party and in his true rockstar fashion alienates half the crowd with techno before pulling out a masterclass in mixing electro. It comes to a head with Mr Oizo’s hectic ‘Positif’, a track seems to rarely leave his bag and makes sure everyone is back on the floor for Antal.

Antal, Main Stage

If there's one grumble we have with the festival is the line-up times could have been better organised. Antal's set is nothing short of what we expect from the Rush Hour don, but at 3am it's not the time for his eclectic disco and rare soul. We want the heavy shit and San Proper was doing a great job of laying down that vibe. Still, Kasso's bouncing 'Walkman', with it's g-funk bassline and spaceship synths is always fun to have a dance to at 5am.

Donna Leake b2b Debora, Jungle Stage

Friday night was a big one and it showed the next day when we traipsed the half hour walk in the baking sun to get to the site at 5pm on Saturday evening. We were surprised to see the Main Stage out of action but when they explained the sun had warped the DJs records yesterday afternoon, it made sense. RIP to the tunes that are no longer playable. So it was through to the Jungle Stage, our unanimous favourite, and the rustic pond amongst the old pillars and stonework further back from the stage. It was a godsend dipping our legs in the water, watching some people brave a swim in the increasingly murky depths, and being able to chat with people who had arrived early and others who looked like they'd stayed from the night before. What better to soundtrack this moment than Brilliant Corners' discerning digger Donna Leake and Dekmantel Selectors patron Debora. Ray Manzarek's latin-flavoured 'Bicentennial Blues' was just the tip of the funky, laidback iceberg.

Royer, Main Stage

It was clear that the second night wasn't going to be as busy as the first by about 10pm but there was still plenty going on. France's Royer held down a commendable dancefloor with pumping, house tracks like Ditongo's piano-riffing 'Gattone' and Move D's itching 'Cube' as we nursed multiple Tinto De Veranos (the red wine and Fanta drink).

To be totally honest it all started to get a little fuzzy at this point. With the line-up being chopped and changed because of the main stage's closure earlier in the day, and the underground nature of all the artists, we weren't 100% sure who was playing at any given moment for about two hours. So we headed for the hillside where a number of chill out spots had been set up in what looked like mini tree-houses. It seemed to be the place to congregate and when Omar S' sparkling 'Amalthea' floated in over the PA linking the dancefloors to our area, it only added to the dreamlike quality of the festival.

Trus'me, Main Stage

While the Friday night closed out with disco, the Saturday night took no prisoners. With a line-up of Matthis Meyer, Greg Beato, Andrea and Trus'me on the Main Stage, it was heavy techno for much of the night and there was a huge roar of approval when Trus'me dropped this roller from Chris Stanford and Dax J. With it's pounding kick drum, steady drone and metallic percussion it shouldn't have worked in that environment. But it did, and everyone loved it.

Despite there officially being a line-up for Sunday, no-one plays (apparently there was an accident involving the head of production so health and safety restricts them). Instead it's everyone around the pool with the bar still open and some tunes playing off a phone through a PA. It makes sense for the festival to finish this way. It's been a heady and casual affair with 500 friends and everyone's pretty happy to just hang out and chat shit in the sun. Or in our case get roped into a discussion about politics with a rather inebriated German. What a weekend.

Louis Anderson-Rich is Mixmag's Digital Intern. Follow him on Twitter