Venturing to Rockdale for Electronic Fest Camp Capsul: Destination Unknown

The Dallas promoters known as Capsul know how to throw a rave.

Just ask their close-knit clubland family of dancers and DJs. Dedicated and addicted to music, they roam far for weekend-long ragers populated by an inner circle seeking the highs of soaring house. Dark techno also satisfies, all the better if mixed alongside twisted electro, plunging industrial, punishing breaks, or intricate minimal in an outside-the-box setting.

Occurring at least once each year since 2014, past weekend-long Capsul parties landed in Broken Bow, Oklahoma with hiking and rafting nearby. “Those parties weren’t actually public though,” said a long-time partier aligned with the Capsul crew. Grown out of the vacuum left by promotions team SoundsLike after head Jason Lovel tragically passed away in 2016, Capsul’s inner-circle parties grew too large there, capping around forty people.

Other archived events, open to outsiders, pumped at places like offbeat bed and breakfast Casa Rio de Colores, 30 minutes outside of Austin, in 2014 and 2019. Around 100 people gathered there to dance in a daylight hallucination of an interior decorator’s wildest imagination, with rooms done up in themes like outer space or psychedelia. (The leave-no-surface unadorned approach makes sense, as the now-shuttered event venue shared ownership with Lucy in Disguise with Diamonds, the recently-shuttered South Congress costume shop.)

But neighbors complained, apparently threatening to call the SWAT team to quiet the endless throb of bass carried in the wind. Thus, this past weekend, Capsul celebrated its five year anniversary at Apache Pass, a working pecan farm and event space in Rockdale, Texas. The three-day music festival, Camp Capsul: Destination Unknown, hosted almost round the clock DJs on a monster DAS Audio setup (by longtime collaborator Josh Cavanaugh of DJ Sound & Lighting). Vibrant video projections and lasers danced beneath a canopy of Celtic-inspired swirls – unlike Capsul’s usual triangle-chic aesthetic in homage, perhaps, to a Burning Man-aligned style.

The Nevada monolith’s shadow looms on any camping-mandatory electronic festival. In a nod from Burning Man royalty, Playa tech queen Tara Brooks thanked Capsul on social media for the “thoughtful lineup” before playing the weekend fest. Mexico’s Rebolledo, ultra-hip synth wave producer and half of the Pachanga Boys, further repped the burn in his signature style: looped to infinity but ripe with taut, spiraling industrial noise, wound slowly and unspooled like a cable.

A 2022 lineup stacked with lauded talent upped recognition for Capsul. Richie Hawtin protege-cum-worldwide-techno-queen Magda fell off the list, but Florida’s Christopher Milo – aka DJ Three – was still on. With a humbly low-key set, Milo set up for California’s Doc Martin, who riled up a dance floor of ravers wrapped in furry coats, glowing pants, and plastic bodysuits. Other standouts came from Halo Varga, a Chicago-born and West Coast-based tech house producer known as one half of H-Foundation, and Fur Coat, a Venezuela-born and Barcelona-based melodic techno act.

Solar & Mozghan delivered the most pounding, adrenaline-rushed, heart-reviving set of any headliner. While the luscious international lineup only planned for a three hour break in DJ sets for the entire weekend, stretching 5pm Friday to 2pm Sunday, minor hitches appeared.

After midnight on Saturday, Philly jock Josh Wink – of “Higher State of Consciousness” fame – pushed tracks from jazzy versions of Crystal Waters’ “Gypsy Woman” to Honey Dijon’s “La Femme Fantastique” until his bass made the booth and dancefloor overhang convulse with a metal rattle. A group, which Wink called “the authorities,” materialized then, to the DJ’s apparent chagrin. He jumped on the mic to blow off steam, ad-libbing almost until the end of his set at 2am.

At hour 25 of Camp Capsul, following a wildly diverse set from Denied Music boss and longtime Austin scene staple Daniel Allen, Lizette Roman proved the state capital a vastly-overlooked gem for sharp ears. Then the sound went out, and the rumors flowed. How many people would it take to fix a generator running a huge sound system and lighting rig in Rockdale?

Promoters and friends decamped to RVs, phoning for backup. An hour later, sound roared back and lighting adjustments dimmed the laser glow, until a replacement generator went online. Lizette Roman’s crew mates and Ubiyu label ambassadors Robert Roman and Varela split their final hour and played some of the best sets of the fest, with standout tracks from Jay Tripwire and other unreleased Ubiyu material.

Overall, local and regional support stole the show, with other fest-favorite sets coming from Dallas local Shams Mujadded’s face-melting closer and DJ Redeye’s decades-built after-hours finesse. Educated punters called out the many DJ Icey tracks played across festival sets with a smile. Though Capsul recruited regional talent from Austin and Houston, Dallas devotees and lifers – many already bonded over ten years of club nights – powered the dancefloor.

A second festival is already in the works, according to many at the first edition of Camp Capsul: Destination Unknown last weekend. Leave it to the locals to leave it all on the dance floor and still come back for more. By now, it’s tradition.