UNUM Festival delivers again with 5 days of Musical Mastery
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For those who make the now hallowed journey to Albania's Adriatic coastline each June, UNUM represents something increasingly rare in the festival landscape: a place where the music really does come first. Of course, the gorgeous setting does plenty of work too, as does the always super friendly crowd. The 2026 edition was again spread across five continuous days and nights on the pine-fringed shores of Shëngjin and delivered another chapter that will be difficult to top.
Thursday set the tone immediately. The Pine Stage, which is the beating heart of the festival, was given over to a VBX takeover that was full of classy minimal house grooves. Alexia Glensy provided one of the evening's most impressive sets, while Voightmann b2b Alci delivered exactly the kind of chemistry that makes UNUM so magic, as did Dyed Soundorom's sunrise set, a masterclass in reading a room - or rather, a forest.
Friday saw us shift about the site and head to the The Beach Stage which came into its own in the early evening, with Gerd Janson b2b Krystal Klear from six to eight and matching golden hour sun with driving melodic selections with the sea as a backdrop to deliver the kind of effortless vibes that only happens when two selectors of that calibre are locked right in somewhere special.
Later, back in the oh so sweet smelling trees, the Pine Stage produced another stacked sequence: Franco Cinelli opened with tech warmth, Mar T b2b Marlie raised the tempo, Dan Ghenacia took things into darker, more hypnotic territory and Ricardo Villalobos b2b Maher Daniel closed things out in a manner that melted minds..
Saturday and Sunday came and went in blurry of brilliant beats and with the main stage hosting Richy Ahmed into East End Dubs then closed by Ben Klock as the weekend's centrepiece with sounds built slowly but surely into something magnificent, before the final action was a Fabric takeover amongst the pines with one of the best sets anyone, including legendary Fabric booker Judy, had ever seen from Craig Richards, who twisted and turned through industrial tech, leftfield minimal and heady house with the narrative control of a master storyteller.
The weather was relentless in the best possible way and the crowd, as always, entirely committed. The sound, across all three stages, next level as UNUM has a quality of attention in its programming, its production, its atmosphere that distinguishes it from almost anything else on the European circuit. It is not trying to be the biggest festival. It is trying to be the best experience, and in 2026, it came closer than ever.
