Frost Children’s Frost Fest 2026 was an IYKYK-linkup

The naturalist and writer Diane Ackerman has a concept called “deep play.” She argues that being totally immersed in non-productive play is often the catalyst for emotional and creative breakthroughs, the sort of quantum leaps that allow for novel solutions and transcendent catharsis.

I wasn’t thinking about any of this on Saturday at Frost Fest, but a couple days later, something Lulu Prost said during our short interview came back to me: “The way that all of us as artists live our lives, we’re always on like complete opposite sides of the planet [...] If we are at the same city, we’re playing the same time, so a lot of these people, we haven’t seen their set. And we’re both just fans. So it’s just a huge hangout.” Earlier in the day, Angel Prost had detailed her pre-show plans to me and AliRQ: oversized black hoodie, big sunglasses, standing at the back of the venue to soak it all in. For a day, Knockdown Center was more than just the site of the sibling duo’s longest set ever: it was their strobe lit playground.

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If the Frost Children were simply enjoying the ride, it would be hard to blame them. The festival lineup had been reworked last minute due to visa drama that prevented FADER favs The Deep and The Femcels from entering the country to perform. The Prosts were “super bummed,” but said the silver lining was adding kimj and Pinponpanpon to the lineup. “It’s not their fault, obviously,” Lulu added. “It’s so stupid that people can’t get into this country for doing amazing things.” And while they’re in good spirits when we speak, Frost Children’s most recent release Tweaker Poem was spurred by an IRL stalker, whose obsession drove the duo to escape to Japan.

Still, they’re riding high after producing a wide swath of bangers on Kim Petras’s long-awaited debut album. And just the week before Frost Fest they’d debuted a mixtape of collaborations with the artists on the original lineup. The day after the festival, Angel posted a blurry photo of an apartment full of people captioned “Just made We Are The World 2.” The hangout might have been ticketed, but the camaraderie was priceless.

That was a recurring theme throughout the day. We learned that kuru and kimJ have known each other for years, back when kuru was 14; afterwards, Angel Prost and Ali traded thoughts on whether 9/11 was a good or bad release date for an album (no conclusion). And Kim Petras showed up to perform “RADIO” during the Frost Children’s headlining set before making her way to the afters at Silo.

As for this writer, Frost Fest was a lovely opportunity to feel the music instead of overthinking it. pinponpanpon’s rave-ready tunes drew an enormous crowd to the outdoor stage at Knockdown following a killer set by kuru (“Noir Kei” and “FW19” were obvious highlights). And kimj’s dubstep-forward set made The FADER team seriously nostalgic for Skrillex’s heyday. Though the lineup was wide-ranging, these disparate acts went together better than I anticipated, like a glimpse of Lulu and Angel’s On Repeat playlist.

The night offered some insight into Kim Petras's listening habits too. When she ran into Umru and I outside in the smoking section of the afterparty, she gamely informed The FADER that her favorite historical figure is Sporus (“Look it up”) and told no one in particular, “I need to see Angel Money.” I did too: the NYC club rapper’s live set at the afters was surreal, “CLUB MONSTA” ringing off hard in the echoing hangar. When Kim and the Frost Children joined Angel Money behind the DJ booth, it felt less like a coronation than linking up with your favorite cousins you haven’t seen in forever.

There have been other moments of live music that hit just as hard for me this summer: underscores’s cover story party by The FADER at Elsewhere, Cannelle’s mixtape release at Market Hotel, getting knocked over twice by a mob of Lil Shine fans at Irving Plaza two weeks ago. But when Angel & Lulu performed “SATELLITES” off their latest EP, the song’s incisive hook sunk its teeth deep into my brain.

When Lulu sings, “So you wanna live a life like mine tonight? / Get your moment in the spotlight,” it’s obviously a send up of the duo’s real-life stalker. But on the floor of Knockdown and then again at Silo, the entire room screaming along, something about the song twisted. “What if we just kept going? What if the session never ended?” Angel Prost told The FADER of recording Tweaker Poem in Japan. If the session was really good, it might feel like Frost Fest.