All Tomorrow’s Parties is a multi-day music festival originating in England, held annually since 1999. For the past two years, there's been a U.S. branch of the festival at Kutsher’s Country Club in Monticello, New York. This year, Day One -- Don’t Look Back/Comedy -- featured Panda Bear, Iron and Wine, Dirty Three, and a comedy stage curated by David Cross. Day Two was music curated by All Tomorrow’s Parties. Day Three was curated by underground mainstays the Flaming Lips and featured No Age and Bob Mould performing Husker Du, Menomena, Deerhoof with Martha Colburn, and many more. I attended Day Two.

Kutsher’s lobby was floral carpet wall-to-wall, security looked like blunt-smoking members of Kanye’s entourage, and bell-hops were hipsters as ‘60s anachronisms. Will-call at the front desk felt like checking into summer camp; people in line, relaxed, talked casually about great sets and great bands and mythical ATP stories. “I heard that Nick Cave played an ivory-white piano for the entire Dirty Three set last night,” said someone. “Oh yeah,” said another, “well, I heard Dirty Three and Nick Cave played for six people in a hotel room this morning.”

I got my ticket and alcohol wristband and hurried to Stage One for the Sufjan Stevens set. Walking into the venue, I was struck by how easy it was to find a good view of the entire stage. Accompanied by a four-piece backing band, Sufjan played a set comprised of old classics and a few new gems. The sound for the performance was immaculate and highlighted Sufjan’s delicate vocals and giddy harmonies. Closing my eyes for the new cuts, I could imagine what a future Sufjan release might sound like, more influenced by simple pop convention and modern, electronic instrumentation. All around, a very beautiful performance of new and old songs from a unique talent.

Circulatory System, the newest incarnation of Elephant Six collective artists Olivia Tremor Control, played at Stage Two. The band’s juxtaposition of psychedelic pop and no-wave noise played well to the crowd. Songwriting group-leader W. Cullen Hart wore a straw hat and jumped around with abandon as Nesey Gallons of the Music Tapes built a rocking, jumbled wall of sound. Wth strings, horns, mallets, and most every instrument ever made, Circulatory System ripped through a set that teeter-tottered between Of Montreal and Neutral Milk Hotel. At the end of the set when the lights went on, a few people started chanting encore. I’d been to festivals before and knew that tight scheduling allowed only for encores from headlining bands (and often not even then). The band came out to move their equipment; the crowd continued chanting. Will looked at Nesey, who cued the rest of the group. “Ok,” said Hart into the microphone, “we’ll do one more song.” They immediately burst into a dancey funk groove before transitioning to a molasses-slow texture that grew into a cacaphonous wall of noise. As the wall grew more and more dissonant, the members of Circulatory System all got closer and closer to their instruments. Hart seemed to rest his ear on his amp, Nesey fidgeted with gadgets, while a cellist repeated a note and whispered into her microphone. More and more out there we go; I can smell the sweat of the band and it is a remarkable odor. Hart moves back to the microphone, knocks his head forward four times, and the group jumps back into the intro groove. Eight measures of funk and the song ends abruptly. The band collects their things and leaves the stage quickly and I head out the back to see Black Dice.

Having only heard snippets of Black Dice, I had no substantive opinion of their work. I walked into Stage One and was hit in the face by dissonant electronics. At first, the sound offended my ears; broadcast on a back screen were grotesque, weird images of animals and humans laid atop one another to evoke a juxtaposition between primitivism and modern electronics. The crowd danced, but in a thoughtful way, as if conveying themes through movement that accentuated the dichotomous concept of the performance. The lighting was quick and calculated and threw the crowd into a haze somewhere between rave and art show. I stuck around awhile immersed in the strange Black Dice show before leaving early to get a good spot for Atlas Sound.

Walking to Stage Two and in a weird, meditative mood after the Black Dice set, I decided to sit for a moment in the lobby and people watch. I noticed two kids, probably seventeen years old, nervously approaching a twenty-something man talking to his girlfriend. The more forward of the two boys hands the man a record. I look at the record before I look at the man’s face, and immediately recognize a vinyl Merriweather Post Pavillion. I watch as Panda Bear Noah Lennox signs the second boy’s pale left breast. He says with humility, “I would’ve done the same thing at your age. I would’ve wanted music closest to my heart.” The kids thank Noah profusely and he nods and speaks humbly before excusing himself to prepare for his midnight Animal Collective gig.

The fans and the artist go different ways and I decide to head to Atlas Sound. I haven’t walked twenty feet before W. Cullen Hart of Circulatory System bumps into me. “Excuse me, man,” he says.

“It’s cool,” I say. “Great set today.”

“Thanks.” He points to my press pass. “Are you in a band or something?”

“No, I’m not. I write for the website Culture Catch.” He points at my beer.

“Where’d you get that?”

“The sportsbar.”

“Happy hour,” he says. “Let’s go.” It is hardly five, but he beckons me to follow and we start walking quickly together. People nod to Hart with reverence as we pass through the lobby. I follow him as best I can. “So do you want to ask me some questions?”

“Sure,” I say. “What is your first name?”

“Will,” he says. “I used to be in Olivia Tremor Control.”

“I know your work with Olivia. I’m more familiar with your music than your full name. How did you get involved with All Tomorrow’s Parties?”

“We played an early incarnation of the festival, Olivia did, and they asked us back for their ten-year anniversary.” Will’s countenance is confused. “Where are we going?”

“I was following you,” I say.

“Where’d you get your happy hour?”

“The sportsbar.”

“Happy hour, I mean drinks. Well, mixed drinks. You know what I mean. Do you know what I mean? I mean liquor drinks.”

“I know what you mean.” I start walking. “Follow me.” We walk back the way we came and it is hard for me to follow all the skewed patterns and branches of Will’s tangential mind. He corrects himself like a harsh self-critic, and pans himself like an insecure comedian. “I’m a loser baby,” he sings in a southern drawl, “so why don’t you kill me?”

“Are you a Beck fan?”

“I don’t really know any of his music. We did six shows with him back in the 90s, Olivia did, whatever. All I know is that “Loser” song.”

“He does a lot of great things with his website. He’s a very interactive artist. I dig that.”

“I mean “Loser” was good and everything, but that’s the only song I know.”

“Was Beck a good guy?”

“I mean, we only did six shows with him.” We have reached the bar. I order a beer and offer to buy Will a drink. “You don’t have to, man,” he says, putting his hand in his pocket and pulling out a five-dollar bill. “Money is literally falling out of my pockets.”

“Please let me do this,” I say. “You didn’t have to play an encore. Let me buy you a drink and we’ll call it even.”

“Let me get a double gin then,” Will says to the bartender.

“Which type of gin do you want?”

“The cheap stuff,” Will looks at me, “if you’re paying.” I nod and the bartender prepares our drinks. He looks at Will.

“Do you want ice?”

“Yes,” Will says, “but not a lot. Maybe just one cube.”

“Double gin one rock, coming up,” says the bartender.

“Nice style,” I say to Will before changing the subject. “Who are you excited to see this weekend?” Will thinks for a second and makes eye contact with me.

“Fucking everyone,” he says. The bartender gives us our drinks.

“Ride on,” I say. I pay and excuse myself to the Atlas Sound set.

“Thanks for the drink,” says Will.

“Thanks for the show,” I respond. I leave the bar, and as I walk to Atlas Sound I think how interesting and strange an artist Will Cullen Hart is. He would argue with himself as if trying to reconcile different opinions in his head. I later found out that in 2008 Will was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a disease that could at any moment permenantly take away his ability to play guitar. This explained the ecstasy on his face during the Circulatory System encore. Will loves music, and music is the thing he is best at, and each performance he plays thoughtful and epic like his last.

I arrive at the second ballroom, navigate easily to the front, and after a minute Bradford Cox takes the stage. The songwriter is wiry and jagular like a big, endearing bird. “Thanks for coming out,” he says into the microphone. “I’m Atlas Sound.”

“Wayne!” someone in the audience yells. Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne is standing stage right talking with a friend. Bradford begins his set but I cannot take my eyes off Coyne. He wears a suit with an unbuttoned shirt and undone ascot, and watches Bradford like a proud father finding inspiration in his child. After a few minutes, Coyne leaves and I am able to focus on the Atlas Sound set. Bradford explains to the audience that he usually plays with a band and with Deerhunter and that Atlas Sound is a very intimate project born from improvisation.

More a series of movements than distinctive singles, the rest of the set balanced thought-provoking lyrics and chord progressions with textured, slow percussion. Plagued by sound problems, Bradford used the set to indulge himself and win the crowd over with his agreeable personality.

“Come to Deerhunter,” says Bradford after his last song, “and I swear I won’t fuck around.” I take note and head to stage one for El-P’s set.

El-P, aka El-Producto, is the stage name of Jaime Meline, founder of dope underground hip-hop label Definitive Jux. El-P was running behind schedule and kept apologizing to the fans who patiently waited for the performance. “This is so embarassing,” said El to a few kids in the front. “No one ever gets to see this part of the show.” After a few minutes of technical difficulties, El said fuck it, walked off stage, walked immediately back onstage and started his set, backed by a full band featuring on-the-rise Def Jux artist Chin Chin. Not two minutes into the first song, El’s micstand broke while he was leaning on it. He fell over a monitor but luckily the kids from the pre-show banter caught him. He finished the song, tossed the broken stand off-stage and launched into a two-minute a cappella tongue-twister that gave me chills. The rest of the set was spent disappointedly hoping for another El-P solo performance. Alas, there was not one. Unfortunately, the band -- El-P especially -- seemed bummed out the entire time. It may have something to do with El-P’s producer inclination, or perhaps with his wish for music to sound as good live as it does in his head. Either way, the set was the least inspired of any I saw the whole day.

After a trip to the food court and a Jim Jarmusch sighting, I returned to the lobby to people-watch before the Dead Meadow set. I sat on a couch next to a security-guard and watched an old man in a used car suit serenade a young couple over synthesized chords and a keyboard drum loop. “This guy’s crazy, man,” said the security guard. “He’s been playing at Kutsher’s every week longer than I know.”

“He’s funny. And he sounds pretty good.”

“He’s the coolest white dude I know.” As the big, black security guard says this, I notice Bradford Cox walking right in front of me. A twenty-one year old kid approaches him nervously.

“Bradley,” says the kid too loudly.

“Hey man,” says Bradford, not correcting the ambitious fan.

“I just wanted to tell you your music is the soundtrack to my life.” Bradford smiles at the kid’s corny confession, and the kid gets embarassed. “I’m so stupid, man. That came out all wrong.” He composes himself. “I really like your music.”

“Thanks, man” says Bradford, shaking the kid’s trembling hand. “I really appreciate that.” Bradford excuses himself and the kid walks away, star-struck and content. I check my watch and realize I have missed most of the Dead Meadow set. I hurry and catch the last three songs of the stoner-rock trio’s performance. I am pleased at the band’s ability to balance pop-influenced hooks with psychedelic rock freak-outs.

With forty-five minutes to kill before Deerhunter, I decided to pop into the Criterion Cinema for a showing of Lindsay Anderson’s 1968 satire If…. The Criterion Cinema, sponsored by the Criterion Collection, screened a different film every two hours for all three days of the festival, with select screenings followed by Q&As with directors; Jim Jarmusch, for example, was in attendance for a screening of his 1989 film Mystery Train.” I had neither seen nor heard of If…”, but immediately recognized its star, Malcolm McDowell (of Clockwork Orange” fame). Hooked by the film, I stayed for a half-hour before leaving, resigning myself to throwing the film on the top of my Netflix queue to watch it in a situation where and when I could give it my utmost focus.

Deerhunter took the stage and ripped through a set heavy on new material. Bradford, in the wake of the amateur Atlas Sound performance, played and sang with an air of professionalism. The band locked into grooves quickly and barraged the audience with beautiful hooks and melodies buried under walls of distortion and seeming chaos. I noticed a fair amount of people holding their ears or leaving the stage, and I agree that the sound was loud to the point of being offensive. I contemplated leaving before deciding that my ears could rest at some time when Deerhunter wasn’t rocking out incredibly hard. I made it through the set and felt like a war hero as I camped at the front of the venue for the final show of the night: Animal Collective.

The entire crowd and I danced together from first to last note to a set comprised of stand-outs from Merriweather Post Pavillion and old favorites pulled equally from Feels, Sung Tongs, and Strawberry Jam. The lighting was exceptional, with disco balls reflecting so many colors off the walls and onto a big orb hanging above the stage broadcasting images of buildings and environments. The ballroom felt like a hipster hallucination; the music balanced heady theory and electronics with a primitive live performance and transformed the crowd -- bathed in hues of red, yellow and orange -- into extras in a tribal, Animal Collective counter-reality. The entire experience was surreal; the audience moved and breathed together as if a single entity.

After the set, I survey the merchandise table very carefully. All the great bands I have seen are represented on T-shirts and tote bags. On the wall hang one-of-a-kind posters featuring most of the bands that have ever performed at All Tomorrow’s Parties. After careful consideration, I pay twenty dollars for a Panda Bear T-shirt. Though I had heard many great sets and met many interesting people, nothing was so cool as watching Noah Lennox speak like a friend to his two admirers. If there was something I could physically take away from All Tomorrow’s Parties, I wanted it to be a reminder of the festival’s ability to knock down the wall between artist and fan. Though many festivals feature outstanding sets from exciting bands, ATP blurs the line between performance and experience to the point of indeterminacy; it is impossible to delineate where the show ends and the festival begins. - Adam Kritzer

Mr. Kritzer travels the globe -- or at least NYC -- looking for revelatory moments of musical bliss.