Last year’s Kremfest proved that large-scale, underground electronic-music events can thrive in Decibel Festival’s absence. Credit: TYLER HILL

Last year’s Kremfest proved that large-scale, underground electronic-music events can thrive in Decibel Festival’s absence.

Last year’s Kremfest proved that large-scale, underground electronic-music events can thrive in Decibel Festival’s absence. TYLER HILL

When Sean Horton ended Decibel Festival after the 2015 edition and then moved to Los Angeles the next year, it left a void in Seattle’s electronic-music eco-system. Every September from 2004 to 2015, Horton and his volunteers brought world-class electronic-music talent and cutting-edge video artists to Seattle for marathon days and nights of audiovisual stimulation. We were spoiled.

While events such as Corridor and Debacle Fest have softened the blow of Decibel’s departure, it looks as if it’s fallen to Kremwerk talent buyer/Kremfest curator Nick Carroll to maintain a semblance of large-scale, underground electronic-music quality control around here. (The region boasts plenty of massive, EDM-oriented parties, but they cater to a more mainstream sensibility.)

Dave Segal is a journalist and DJ living in Seattle. He has been writing about music since 1983. His stuff has appeared in Gale Research’s literary criticism series of reference books, Creem (when...