Under the thematic banner “Insulae”, the 31st edition of the highly itinerant Toulouse festival allowed for exploration of a vast musical archipelago. A selective little crossing, from one stage to another.
In the Rio Loco 2026 brochure, adorned with a very beautiful dreamy illustration by graphic artist Ruliano des Bois, there is notably a text by Fabien Lhérisson, general director of the festival and of the SMAC Le Metronum. Noting the importance of “the imaginary of insularity”, he also states that the islands bear witness to “a vitality of creativity and an extraordinary poetry.”
Concocted by the duo Elvire Delagrange and Vincent Lasserre, the programming thus invited us to take measure of the insular artistic wealth, from one continent to another.
As a defining component of outdoor festivals, the weather proved to be entirely favorable this year, with five days of sunny conditions and a progressive rise in temperature, up to 35°C over the weekend — the heat remaining bearable thanks to the abundant vegetation of the Prairie des Filtres and the immediate proximity of the Garonne.
Pont-Neuf Stage
Following the pattern of previous editions, attendance reached a high mark: over 88,000 entries in total. The main headliner, the English band Morcheeba — emblematic of the trip-hop movement — drew a particularly large crowd on Thursday evening in front of the Pont-Neuf Stage (the largest of the four stages set up on the site). Rather understated, elegant, enhanced by the flamboyant presence and the hypnotic voice of lead singer Skye Edwards (dressed all in red), the concert traversed their entire discography, opening with Trigger Hippie, a splendid hazy track from Who Can You Trust? (1996), their evergreen debut album.
Prairie Stage
Second stage, the Prairie Stage proved once again to be very fertile in terms of stimulating musical experiences, across varied registers. We were first carried away by the theatrical concert Mitsune. Bringing together musicians from Japan, Greece and Australia, this Berlin-based quartet distills a kind of acid-folk in the orbit of the Tsugaru shamisen, a traditional Japanese style whose central instrument is a three-string lute. Excentric costumes and highly dynamic interactions give their joyfully atypical music a perfect stage presence.
Another notable live under Japanese influence: that of the Marseille-based group Makoto San, whose four members present themselves as disciples of Makoto Yabuki, a Japanese musician who has lived in the city since 1993 and created a striking instrumental ensemble designed from long bamboo stalks. Makoto San’s music thus blends electronic pulsations with natural vibrations to deliver a powerful organic techno. It comes to life on stage through an impeccably choreographed ritualized show.
On the Prairie Stage, we also catch Maya Kamaty, a leading singer from Réunion, who propelled a very punchy creole rap carried by a vigorous flow. One can get a sense of it from her newly released EP, Dann Tournan, released at the end of May.
Garonne Stage
On the Garonne Stage, also conducive to fine discoveries, we could hear other catchy female voices: the duo Las Panteras, fond of a boldly colored cocktail, and Isa Izquierdo, an artist from the Canary Islands delivering reggae (performed in English) that is certainly classic, yet nevertheless appealing.
Onda Mix Stage
Dedicated exclusively to electronic music, with mostly DJ sets, the Onda Mix Stage sits at the cutting edge of Rio Loco’s most contemporary and vibrant edge. A creation of the Hybrid Project collective, the sophisticated scenography, including several large LED screens, added a visually lively (and often quite hallucinatory) dimension to the various performances staged here this year.
We saw in action in particular Jako Maron, a pioneer in blending maloya (the iconic Réunion musical style) and electro, for whom there is a reference compilation published by the excellent Ugandan label Nyege Nyege. In a brief interview after his live performance, he confided that he had a turning point while attending a Danyel Waro concert (the illustrious apostle of maloya): “I lived it as an epiphany. I heard all the power of funk and I said to myself: that’s it, that’s the thing!” Since then, he has deeply carved out his hybrid path (“In my studio, there are no taboos about mixing”) and — via the compilation released by Nyege Nyege — even caught the ear of Aphex Twin, who played one of his tracks during a 2019 set.
Finally, the last act programmed on the Onda Mix stage, Scorpio Qveen – a multidisciplinary activist, member of the Marseille collective Maraboutage – poured out a torrent of frenetic rhythms (dancehall, ghetto house, booty bass…) while regularly addressing the crowd and not sparing, but really not sparing, the bodily engagement throughout her mix. An absolutely ravaging performance, a perfect conclusion to this 2026 edition.
Barely had it ended that one can already look ahead to the 2027 edition. Under the title Noctiluca, it is shaping up as an “invitation to explore what lights up in the night – between metamorphoses, trances, mask games and rituals.” Promising, right?
The 31st edition of Rio Loco took place from June 10 to 14 in Toulouse.
