Saturday Highlights

2ManyDJs – Main Stage @ 12.20am

Interestingly this year they’ve decided to put the ever popular 2manydj’s last up on the main stage for the Saturday night. These guys are no strangers to the picnic, this being their fourth time back here, and we as a country are still a little obsessed with them as we still google them second in volume or hits on earth. Number one being their native homeland Belgium!!

This could be one of EP’s better recent decisions and lets hope the Dewaele brothers are on top form cuz when they get it right, there’s still no one better in the business at making people dance. Their new show incorporates new visuals where the audience gets a sneak preview of the upcoming track as a visual behind the lads on a big screen as seen below.

We really hope they play some new tracks as they have been notorious as of late for becoming a bit stagnant with their sets, either way we’ll be in amongst it!

Here is 2manydj’s - Live @ Sankeys Manchester 22-08-2009 (Rapidshare)

Chris Cunningham – Crawdaddy Stage @ 1.00am

Don’t forget, if you find 2manydj’s and their “Bastard Pop” music as they call it a little soft, then maybe  Chris Cunningham could be more for you?, he’s headlining the Crawdaddy Stage at 1:00am. Check one of our previous posts where we’ve covered him already. Click here.

Klaxons – Electric Arena @ 8.45pm

Klaxons are second last up in the Electric Arena @ 8:45pm, and we’ll be looking forward to hearing the guys debut some of their new material to an Irish audience for the first time. We threw on “Myths of the near Future”  the other week forgetting just how good that album is, and can’t wait to hear the likes of “Atlantis to Interzone” and “Golden Skans” this weekend!

Magick (Simian Mobile Disco Mix)

Little Big Tent – 6:30pm to close

The Little Big Tent has all the potential of being an amazing night, thanks to 2hrs plus time that the LCD boys have been allocated to get us all in the groove with their disco set, but worringly The Proxy’s date has been taken off his myspace and we’re a bit concerned about the lack of confirmation on who’s taking the 11.00pm slot. We’re pretty sure this is The Hacker but why his names not there is beyond us. The Field will be soothing our ears with his ambient techno from 6:30 to 7:30 and the tent will be closed off by the much talked about collaboration between Modeselektor and Apparat’s – “Moderat”. Moderat’s sound would best be described as intelligent grown up techno with a bit of breaks thrown in.

The Field @ 6.30pm

The Field or Axel Willner is a Swedish Minimal Producer based in Cologne on Kompakt Records and known for his use of tiny loops of pop music history. Expect soothing if not romantic minimal sounds from the Little Big Tent at 6.30pm.

The Field – A Paw In My Face

The Field – Live (Kompakt) @ Beat the Boat, Batofar 10th Birthday, Paris 12-07-2009

7.30 James Murphy And Pat LCD

James Murphy, DFA founder, leader of LCD Soundsystem and godfather of dance-punk and worlwide disco revival, comes back joining forces and experience with Pat Mahoney (LCD’s drummer) to pay a tribute to disco music. A set which will represent a time travel under the same directions of the fantastic mix signed by both for the FabricLive series.

James & Pat LCD – 45:33 (Padded Cell Remix)

9.45 The Proxy

Electro Russian whizz kid “The Proxy” will be dropping some chainsaw crunching sounds, and it’ll be heavy! He’s got the sound that everyone wants right now, thanks to his massive remix of Tiga and his huge dancefloor anthems “The Raven” and “Dancing in the Dark”

The Proxy – Dance in the Dark (Original Mix)

11.00 TBC (The Hacker?)

The Hacker is a French electroclash and techno producer who has worked extensively with Miss Kittin. Michel Amato aka The Hacker is one of today’s most talented and innovative French artists. With influences from Electro (Kraftwerk) to New Wave music (The Cure and Depeche Mode) and familiarity with the French rave scene of the early 1990s his sound is well defined, yet original.

The Hacker – Flesh & Bones

12.45 Moderat

Here is a video of their new Single “Rusty Nails”

Moderat “Rusty Nails” from Pfadfinderei on Vimeo.

Well we’re coming into that crucial week before Electric Picnic 2009 where everyone looks to the sky and prays… go away nasty rain!! Early Reports aren’t looking the maye west, recently we’ve gotten used to the mild nights and indifferent weather for the month, but that seems to be changing for the worst if possible? The mild nights are gone and accuweather, met.ie and bbc.co.uk all seem to have one thing in common… expect rain with highs 0f 15-17 Celcius, wtf! its gonna be a wet one!

Even though we wish the EP organisers could have added a bit more techno to this years stellar line up we’re still overall feeling spoilt for choice in other areas. This year seems to be clash city more than any other year which just shows the choice of options you have. Its pick and choose, with some tough decisions to make! We’re still not sure what to do for the mother of all decisions on the Friday night… Orbital or Luciano’s “Aether”??? Don’t forget Phil Kieran will be playing in the woods straight after Orbital too!! Can’t wait for the forest rave!

Other than organising tent’s, etc, make sure to download the maps for the fest here and also print out the stage times here too. Also check www.2ne1.com for a cool little page that links the Myspace playlists of all the artists at this years festival. We’ve split the EP09 preview into a day by day breakdown so check out Friday’s preview below:

FRIDAY, August 30th 2009

Friday night at EP and the toughest decision before close of madness on the first day with the choice of either Orbital or Aether before the Forest Rave kicks into full swing. The Friday night offering is of top notch quality and caters for the needs of all electronic music lover’s tastes from Acid House to Minimal.

Orbital - Main Stage @ 10.30pm

After their break up in 2004, Orbital’s infamous liveset is back with a vengeance to EP. Phil and Paul Hartnoll were amongst the biggest names in acid house in the 90’s and the duo are widely known to be one of the top live dance acts in the last decade. In fact, one of their last gigs before the 2004 break up was a cracking set at Witness. After trawling through videos of their 2009 livesets on Youtube, we’re getting incredibly excited about seeing Halcyon, Lush, Chime, Satan and Little Fluffy Clouds belted out on the main stage til close on Friday night. These miner light donning lads are not to be missed folks! Check a recent video of them in Poland mixing Halcyon into their own version of Belinda Carlisle’s Heaven is a Place on Earth and Bon Jovi’s You Give Love a Bad Name.

To put you in the frame of mind, download Orbital’s last gig in 2004 at Maida Vale Studios here and a recent 2009 mix and interview on Radio 6 from 3 weeks ago here (part 1) and here (part 2).

Luciano Presents Aether – Crawdaddy Stage @ 11.00pm

What a shame that AEther’s 12 man synchronisation of sound and colour are playing at roughly the same time as Orbital on Friday night. We recently blogged about Aether’s incredible live setup here and are looking forward to catching some this minimal set in between Orbital.

Boy 8 Bit – Little Big Tent @ 6.00pm

Boy8-Bit is a Cornish electronic Act  featured in another one of our recent posts. He’ll be warming up the Dance Tent on Friday with some of his latest tracks 8 bit tracks inspired from producing on 8 bit computers from a young age. Baltic Pine is one to listen out for after Pete Tong recently raved about it on his BBC Radio 1 show.

Boy 8-Bit – Baltic Pine (Radio Edit) Buy on Beatport

Major Lazer - Little Big Tent @ 7.15pm

What a crazy year for Major Lazer. A new album ‘Gun’s Dont Kill People Lazers Do’, an iPhone app, and a crazy tour schedule including headlining the Notting Hill Carnival have all proved to be a crazy success for Diplo and Switch’s Gorillaz styled Reggae Warrior Major Lazer. The Diplo/Switch/One-Armed Comic Raggae Warrior liveset combo is surely going to be one of the energetic highlights Electric Picnic this year and will feature a number of guest MC’s and a tonne of Big-Bootied dancers all under a flouroed comic ghetto-blaster backdrop. If you wanna give your own booty a workout, head to the Little Big Tent at 7.15. We did another blog on Major Lazer here too with videos and tracks from their tour so check it out.

Also download this Major Lazer liveset from BBC’s Essential Mix to get you in the mood.

Major Lazer – Pon De Floor

Fake Blood - Little Big Tent @ 8.15pm

Fake Blood is an alias used by DJ Touche who is also a member of British Electro-Pop group Black Ghosts. Widely known for his Mars and on stage after Major Lazer, expect Fake Blood to bang out an energetic electro set with tracks like ‘Mind Dimension’ in the video below.

Fake Blood – Mars

Diplo - Little Big Tent @ 10.30pm

Diplo is playing twice on Friday as expect and there’s also rumours of Switch playing in the Bacardi Bar so keep your eyes out for that. The Philidelphia based DJ will probably belt out another high-paced electro set similar to his lowlands performance in the liveset below and the video of him at Dour this year.

Diplo Live @ Lowlands Festival 2008

Japanese Popstars DJ Set – Little Big Tent @ 1.00am

Derry ensemble The Japanese Popstars AKA Declan McLaughlin, Gary Curran, and Gareth Donoghue are closing the EP dance stage on Friday night with more of a commercial house twist. The Popstars have had a successful year to date, winning a number of awards for their live performances and playing to a rammed Oxegen Dance tent this year. Their 2008 album ‘We Just Are’ features a tonne of energetic house tracks like ‘Face Melter’ and ‘Sample Whore’.

Hailfairy is glad the boys are playing a DJ set this time around as the guys are pretty talented DJs in their own right. However with so much choice at this time on Friday, its gonna be a tough choice to leave Aether or Orbital to go see the Popstars having already seen them this year. Check them out playing their own edit of Justice Phantom live in February this year.

There’s been divided opinions on the quality of this years Electric Picnic line up. Personally we think its one of the best yet, especially if you like electronic music. It’ll be a year for the visuals too, with SMD bringing back their live show after its success in 2007 and new acts like Luciano’s “Aether” and Chris Cunningham (who needs no introduction) also bringing stunning visuals.

Chris even though like we said  needs no introduction we’re still gonna blog about him! Famed for creating abstract, disturbing and hauntingly moody images for artsists like Madonna (“Frozen“), Portishead (“Only You“),  Aphex Twin (Windowlicker”,”Come To Daddy“), Squarepusher (“Come On My Selector”), Bjork (Lesbian Robots of “All Is Full of Love“) and Autechre (“Second Bad Vilbel“) has been touring as of late and we’re delighted to see him bringing his performance to our shores. We’ve told they’re mental so we suppose its best go see. Seeing is believing! We’re gonna go just to see this alone, Star Wars techno!

The audio is awful in this next vid but you get an idea about what the performance is about, we’re not overly excited about the music but it looks definitely worth seeing. Beware not for the faint hearted!

Æther, the six piece Cadenza collective headed up by Luciano have just been confirmed by Resident Advisor to play Electric Picnic this year! They have them down to play Fri September 4th.  Excerpt from Resident Advisor:

“Billed as, “the synchronisation of sound and colour,” AEther is in fact a twelve person outfit when both audio and visuals are taken into consideration. The basic premise of the show is a live laptop jam session, conducted by Luciano, using a colour coded convention. Five musicians from the Cadenza stable—namely Reboot, Lee Van Dowski, Mirko Loko and Digitaline along with percussionist Omri Hason—play instruments via Ableton Live with selected colours of the light spectrum assigned to each instrument. Luciano will drive the performance through a touch screen interface used to trigger colours as he sees fit, with Todd Graft and Loki from Micro Chunk group pitching with the visual accompaniment. It’s no wonder the project has been four years in the making. “

Very nice, more techno for the Picnic, albeit ambient techno me thinks, Hailfairy is not complaining. It looks fantastic judging by some of these videos we’ve seen of them at Monegros Festival, last week in the deserts of Spain.

The Electric Picnic Dance line up’s hotting up, more electro acts which are yet to be officially announced have joined the likes of Erol Alkan, Fake Blood and 2Many DJ’s to make this years EP a must for any Electro Enthusiast. In case your wondering how we know all this?, well we just scout about on their Myspace accounts! Probably one of the best and most accurate ways of finding confirmations! Here are the new additions to this years already stellar lineup: Zombie Nation, Aeroplane and The Proxy. We still hope someone might pull a big techno name out of the hat akin to Marco Carola in 2007, which was amazing…. where’s the Bodytonic Crowd when you need them?! Hopefully 515 can do something about it. Either way we can’t wait!

Here’s a few wee tunes to whet your appetite!

The Proxy – Dance in the Dark (Original Mix)

Sebastien Tellier – Kilometer (Aeroplane Italo 84 Remix)

Zombie Nation – Paeng Paeng

oh and if you don’t believe us about the confirmations, check for yourself

http://www.myspace.com/useproxy

http://www.myspace.com/aeroplanemusiclove

http://www.myspace.com/zombienation1

What an absolute delight last Thursday to get an email from Electric Picnic announcing new acts for the madness in early September. One of the most anticipated acts must be Diplo and Switches collective Major Lazer, based on a one-armed Jamaican ex-commando Gorillaz styled cartoon character. The album Guns Don’t Kill People….Lazers Do is a hyperactive and ambitious attempt to fuse reggae with electro mainstream and will keep you bopping for hours at EP.

Check out their addictive baby Autotune below. Pity its only a minute long:

Major Lazer – Baby

Pon De Floor is another track on the album that’s already found its way into a few livesets I’ve been hearing of late. Check Below:

Major Lazer – Pon De Floor

Expect a packed Electric Picnic dance tent going off to crazy Rastafarian styled bangers, Fluoro Graphics and Ghetto-Bootied Reggae Dancers like in the video below from a recent gig of theirs in NYC!