The Pessimism and Occasional Optimism of Juvenile Adulthood

There was a brief moment yesterday when, watching another DJ pushing buttons for his set at All Points East festival in London, I nearly denigrated him internally. He was the third of five DJs I would watch and listen to in the afternoon who would all in turn either ‘take it up’ or ‘take it down’, each in their own slightly imitable way. I swiftly realised the hypocrisy of such negativity, having delayed starting a year abroad in Sweden precisely so I could watch even older men press said buttons. Soon, I may be able to write an article without incorporating or shoehorning references to German electronica, but that time lies ahead. I booked to see Kraftwerk almost as soon as I heard they were performing. I wanted to feel the thumping bass lines, sink into the hypnotic melodies and revere the ‘gesamtkunstwerk’ - universal work of art - before co-founder Ralf Hütter (who turned 76 yesterday) looks at his watch and calls it a day, through choice or circumstance. Decades of German precisio