As peak season (and maybe the weather) begins to cool across the Mediterranean, Sicily’s eastern strip refuses to finish the season quietly. The With Love crew are tuning in for their tenth consecutive year with PHASE 2 FSTVL on the 29th and 30th of August, granting us Catania’s definitive summer finale.
Because PHASE 2 doesn’t really lean on the usual festival tropes, their two-day operation splits its identity straight down the middle once again in two different locations: with an industrial hypnosis on night one, followed by a hard techno coastal set on night two.
Saturday takes root inside Mercati Generali, a venue whose yawning layout provides well for the hypnotic part of the festival. The billing is anchored by Berghain cornerstone Ben Klock, who brings over two decades of Berlin floor-control to the room with his patient hypnosis. Setting the pace before the headliner steps up, the PURE showcase crew—a rotation featuring Plus 3, Schifano, and Veffev—delivers their stream of stripped-back, head-down techno.
By Sunday, the festival sheds the warehouse and migrates directly to the shoreline. Taking over Afrobar for the outdoors, which will change the dark minimalism of the day before for a high-BPM momentum against the sea. Steering the day-into-night transition is NOVAH, whose rapid-fire selector style leans heavily into modern hard techno and pure endurance tracks. Framing her seaside performance is a sweep of local and regional talent, including CHRS, a back-to-back dynamic from Maugeri and Erica, Zioner, and a crucial opening slot earned by the winner of the SEEDJ contest.
Ben Klock on Saturday, NOVAH on Sunday – two completely different venues, and one excuse to spend the whole weekend in Catania. Sounds like a pretty good way to round off the summer. What do you think?
