San Diego’s CRSSD Festival returned to Waterfront Park on September 26 and 27 with another lineup built around the increasingly fluid relationship between house, techno and alternative electronic music.
The City Steps stage delivered the festival’s strongest techno identity.
Across the weekend, the program included Ben UFO, I Hate Models, VTSS, KAS, Mathame, Helena Hauff, Boys Noize and Italian techno duo 999999999.
Elsewhere, the festival moved through house and club music with artists including KETTAMA, Layton Giordani, Carlita, Rossi., Chris Lorenzo, Prospa and Sonny Fodera.
That diversity has become central to the CRSSD identity.
Instead of separating underground electronic music completely from more accessible dance sounds, the festival creates a space where different sections of contemporary club culture can exist within the same weekend.
San Diego has not historically carried the same international electronic reputation as Detroit, Chicago, New York or Los Angeles. CRSSD has helped change that perception.
The festival now functions as an important meeting point on the US West Coast for international techno, house and electronic artists.
Its September edition offered another snapshot of the current underground landscape: harder techno, leftfield selectors, modern house and crossover electronic acts sharing the same waterfront environment.
CRSSD is becoming more than a festival.
It is increasingly part of the identity of a city developing its own position within the American electronic underground.