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While Los Angeles has most recently been experiencing a rain-soaked winter and spring, the heat of summer is officially on the horizon with the announcement of Future Primitive’s annual summer series.
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The Los Angeles dance event producer will host a crew of house and techno greats in locations around the city this summer, starting with Guy Gerbers’ Rumors event — which launched nine years ago in Ibiza — at Gin Ling Square in Chinatown on May 6.
That show will be followed by Lee Burridge‘s All Day I Dream in downtown’s Pershing Square on May 20, with this L.A. stop being part of a global 2023 tour that includes shows in Brazil, Dubai, Switzerland, Canada, Ibiza and more.
This same location will host Jamie Jones‘ Paradise In the Park on June 3-4, with that longstanding event — launched at Ibiza’s famous DC10 in 2012 — expanding to two days for the first time in its six-year history.
Finally, the Future Primitive team will return to Chinatown for the debut performance from Astra Club, the white-hot duo composed of DJ Tennis and Carlita at Gin Ling Square.
Full lineups for each of these shows will be announced in the coming months.
Future Primitive is a Los Angeles-based independent promoter that’s become the West Coast partner for a flurry of European brands and artists. The company is focused on bringing the hottest parties and players from the global dance circuit to the City of Angels, placing them in urban setting that have been transformed into dazzling outdoor clubs.
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Wednesday (March 22) marks the 10-year anniversary of one of EDM’s milestone moments: the Ultra Music Festival performance where Avicii was booed while debuting his then-new single “Wake Me Up.”
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2013 was a heady time for dance music in the U.S., marking the height of the EDM explosion, the influx of money and fans to the scene and Avicii as its biggest star — a position he’d earned after releasing a litany of genre-defining hits, including his 2011 breakout track “Levels.”
But on March 22, 2013, things went sideways for Avicii, if only momentarily.
It was on this day that the artist born Tim Bergling used his mainstage set at Miami’s Ultra Music Festival to debut a new track. A group of musicians assembled onstage and proceeded to play a bluegrass song that had little resemblance to the maximalist EDM the assembled crowd was expecting.
Instead, they got banjo, two guitars and vocalist Aloe Blacc singing about carrying the weight of the world. According to those in the crowd that night, the performance “did not pop.”
“When we performed at Ultra, it was just awkward,” Blacc told Spin in 2019. “I don’t think even the sound people knew what they were doing. Everybody else at the festival had air cannons and pyro and half-naked girls dancing onstage. Then here comes Tim with drums, banjo, fiddle, guitar and three singers.”
But despite the audience really not getting it, the world soon would. That new track, “Wake Me Up,” soon exploded, ultimately becoming the most successful song in the Avicii catalog. It was the Swedish producer’s only top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching No. 4 in October 2013. It spent 26 weeks at No. 1 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs in 2013-14 and spent 10 weeks at No. 1 Dance/Mix Show Airplay. In the last decade it’s been streamed more than 2.97 billion times globally, according to Luminate.
But this Ultra 2013 performance — which also included a similarly frosty reception for the other new country-leaning Avicii track “Hey Brother” — contained much more than its most famous moment. Nearly 10 minutes of new footage released by the Avicii estate on Wednesday captures this show’s renditions of “Addicted to You” and “Dear Boy,” which (like “Wake Me Up” and “Hey Brother”) are also from Avicii’s 2013 album True. That LP was released six months after the 2013 Ultra show.
This footage of “Addicted to You” features guest vocalist Audra Mae, who is the great-great niece of Judy Garland, taking the stage. The song is followed by “Dear Boy,” which finds the late producer — who would die five years after this show — manning the decks while wearing his signature backward baseball hat as the lights flash in front of him and the crowd goes as wild as they eventually would for “Wake Me Up.” Watch the performance below.
Fans all know what the finished product of Daft Punk‘s studio time sounds like, and now they know more about what it sounds like to be inside the studio with the French icons.
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“The Writing of Fragments of Time,” a new release from Daft Punk released Wednesday (March 22), is a more than eight-minute audio recording of Daft’s Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo in the studio with American DJ-producer-vocalist Todd Edwards more a decade ago, while the trio were working on the track “Fragments of Time.”
The song was featured on Daft Punk’s 2013 album Random Access Memories, which is getting an expanded release in May. “The Writing of Fragments of Time” is the first release from this expanded edition and features audio on which you can hear Bangalter and Edwards (who first collaborated with Daft Punk on 2001’s “Face To Face”) working out the song’s lyrics.
This audio was taken at the Henson Recording Studios in Los Angeles on Feb. 29, 2012, with a tape running for the full session.
“There are certain parts I’m getting choked up, because it’s so damn emotional just putting these three weeks into words, it’s really intense. I’ve never felt anything like this,” Edwards says toward the end of the new track.
“It’s making it forever,” Bangalter adds.
“I worked two weeks in L.A. with Daft Punk for their Random Access Memories album,” Edwards told Billboard in 2021. “I called my mom during that first week; she could hear the calm and happiness in my voice and said, ‘You need to be out there. There’s nothing for you in New Jersey. I’ll miss you when you go, but I’d feel worse if you stayed.’ That summer I packed up a truck with all my gear and drove across country to move to L.A.”
The new edition of Random Access Memories — which won the Grammy for album of the year in 2014 — will include 35 minutes of additional material across nine tracks, including unreleased demos and studio outtakes like the one out now. Fans will have their choice of two different formats for the project: a double CD or a vinyl set with three LPs. The CD set will include a 20-page digital booklet, while the vinyl set will include a special Lose Yourself to Dance poster and 16-page booklet. For the first time ever, an Atmos mix of the original album will be made available on streaming.
Check out “The Writing of Fragments of Time” below:
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Beyond being a globally beloved dance music producer, Martin Garrix can also really shred on the guitar. It’s a skill the Dutch artist been putting to work with AREA21, his live project alongside Detroit-born rapper-singer-producer Maejor.
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Now the citizens of Earth can experience more from the group via the upcoming debut of Live on Planet Earth. This performance film from AREA21 will feature Garrix and Maejor playing with a full band on elevated scaffolding ensconced by dazzling pyrotechnics. Live on Planet Earth will expand the AREA21 backstory, exploring the duo’s journey to Earth and adjacent alien themes. (And yes, they perform in space suits.)
This 46-minute show is premiering April 5 on Hulu in the United States, Star+ in Latin America and Disney+ under the Star banner in all other territories.
‘’We’ve always been dreaming of having AREA21 on stage with a band,” Garrix said in a press release. “The music on the album has been made with a lot of live instruments like real bass, real drums, so it’s amazing to be able to put that into a full live performance now.’’
“This is the beginning of an evolution of the music and sounds of AREA21,” added Maejor. “It’s a great opportunity to show different sides of the project and introduce people to things they haven’t seen from us yet.”
The film will come alongside the Live on Planet Earth album, released on all streaming platforms in tandem with the premiere and featuring the music heard in the performance. The projects follow AREA21’s 2021 debut album Greatest Hits Vol. 1.
Elsewhere in the Garrix universe, the producer will play Ultra Music Festival in Miami this weekend and continue his Las Vegas residency at Omnia and Wet Republic through the summer, in addition to other global dates.
Watch Billboard‘s exclusive preview of Live on Planet Earth below:
Every week, Billboard Dance gives you a look at the newest tracks you need to know about for the dancefloor days and nights to come. These are the five recently released tracks keeping the beat going as we ease back into the workweek.
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Aluna & TSHA, “Killing Me”
The Artists: Scene queens Aluna & TSHA.
The Label: Mad Decent
The Spiel: The first single from Aluna’s forthcoming sophomore album — coming later this year — is a collab with U.K. star TSHA. Lyrics about the struggles of love showcase Aluna’s ever-exquisite vocals (with hers being one the defining voices of dance music over the last decade) and also juxtapose them against an effervescent production.
The Artist Says: “Having been a huge admirer of TSHA’s production I was so thrilled to get the opportunity to work together,” says Aluna, “but what came out surprised us both — it’s a catchy bop, but it’s still wonky and fresh with that distinctive originality that TSHA has [that has] us all in a choke hold. It took a while with us throwing the song back-and-forth and even in the trash at one point, but our joint obsession pulled us through and finally it’s ready to join the world!”
The Vibe: Your romantic relationship is presenting challenges, but you’re kind of enjoying it.
Moon Boots, “On & On (Effortless)”
The Artist: New York genre veteran Moon Boots.
The Label: Anjuandeep
The Spiel: Coming from Moon Boots’ just out (and altogether excellent) LP Ride Away — the DJ/producer’s first album since 2019 — this one is slick and funky, disco-flavored dance music with an R&B twist via vocals from Toronto singer/songwriter Dope Earth Alien, who’s previously collaborated with artists including HoneyLuv.
The Vibe: Lovey living room dance party for two.
Manic Focus, “Introverted”
The Artist: Longstanding Denver-based bass producer Manic Focus.
The Label: Manic Focus Music
The Spiel: On his seventh studio album, Never Not Blue, bass favorite Manic Focus gives insight behind his artist name via an album that explores the thoughts and emotions — from extreme confidence to detachment to mania — of Bipolar I disorder, which the artist born was diagnosed with in 2007 and which has long informed his creative output.
The Artist Says: “This album is very special to me,” says the artist born John McCarten. “It will take you on a journey through many of the emotions I experience in a manic episode – from the confidence, through the chaos, to the euphoric states, but ultimately ending on a positive note.”
The Vibe: Swaggering power, with a celestial slant.
Francis Mercier & Black Uhuru, “Welcome to Dinner”
The Artist: Swiftly rising Haitian producer Francis Mercier and Jamaican reggae outfit Black Uhuru.
The Label: Insomniac Records
The Spiel: The latest production from Francis Mercier — his second release with Insomniac Records — is a warm-vibed jam featuring breezy guitar work reminiscent of Amadou & Miriam, an always-inviting vibe paired here with loads of hand percussion and a delicious reggae vibe courtesy of longstanding Kingston-based reggae outfit King Uhuru.
The Artist Says: “During my teenage years in Haiti, I was a big fan of Black Uhuru,” says Mercier. “I was listening to them quite often, and they would always uplift me with their incredible reggae sound. Fast-forward 20 years, to now be officially collaborating with one of the greatest reggae groups to ever exist, it is truly a full-circle life moment for me.”
The Vibe: A beachside sunset dinna party — emphasis on the party.
Kx5 feat. Richard Walters, “Eat Sleep”
The Artist: Dance kings deadmau5 and Kaskade in tandem as Kx5, along with British singer Richard Walters.
The Label: mau5trap Recordings
The Spiel: While deadmau5 and Kaskade’s collaborative work largely veers into transportive and pretty progressive house, “Eat Sleep” (from the just out and eponymously titled debut Kx5 album), takes that style and makes it a bit more challenging, with verses falling into their well-trod sonic territory juxtaposing a chorus wrought from solely from mechanical percussion.
The Artist Says: “Ryan excels as a songwriter and in arrangement and structure, where I suppose I excel in mastering, engineering and the more technical components of sound versus the idea,” deadmau5 said in Billboard‘s recent Kx5 cover story. “He’s got his wheelhouse, I’ve got mine, and we don’t overlap a lot. Like, I would sooner shoot myself in the leg before I’m like, ‘Here, Ryan, master this.’ ”
The Vibe: Like being on the inside of the equipment this one was made with.
It’s nearly 9:30 p.m. in Austin, Texas and Kx5 — the electronic dance music supergroup of Kaskade and deadmau5 — quietly take the stage. They hardly go unnoticed, though, as the fans packed on the lawn at the Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park begin to scream for the legends.
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“Austin!” Kaskade yells into his mic, showing the city some love before returning his full attention back to his deck, as he and deadmau5 perform with precision a steady stream of syrupy and hypnotic hits beginning with set opener “Bright Lights.”
With lyrics like, “There’s a place… we can go… for a feeling…” the pair set the tone for the third and final night (Saturday, March 18) of Billboard’s South By Southwest concert series. And together, the two deliver a much-needed communal dance party to cap off what was, for most, a nonstop week.
The headlining set could not come at a better time for Kaskade and deadmau5, either, as just 24 hours earlier Kx5 released its self-titled debut album — over a decade after the two first partnered up. Rightfully so, the night is a celebratory culmination of all of the above.
Throughout the set — which clocks in at just over an hour long and utilizes over 50 lights and frequent fog blasts — Kaskade and deadmau5 deliver sky-high drops tailor made for roller coaster enthusiasts — especially on new track “Eat Sleep,” which blends into a snippet of an industrial, deconstructed remix of “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.”
Later, during the atmospheric album cut “When I Talk” deadmau5 lights up — creating his own personal mini fog machine — while “Sacrifice,” which features Sofi Tukker, prompts Kaskade to yell “C’mon!” while reclining his upper body into a small standing backbend.
As the show reaches its halfway point, the soaring drops and bursts of fog seem to occur in more rapid succession as the show builds, The crowd reacts accordingly, with one devoted fan dancing along holding two circular press-down night lights that in this environment more resemble floating orbs.
To prepare for the set’s peak, the pair dive into “Escape,” a melodic daydream off Kx5 on which British singer-songwriter Hayla questions: “What if I escape?” For most in attendance, this show offered just that — even if only for a brief while.
During the song, deadmau5 shows Kaskade something on his phone, to which the two react with wide eyes and jaws dropped before honing in with laser focus for their final minutes on stage. And just then, the Kx5 logo that opened the show reappears onscreen, indicating they are indeed coming full circle.
The ride is ending.
But not before one final hit. The one, of course, that started it all: “I Remember.”
“This song is old enough to vote!” deadmau5 declares with a wide smile. He then hops down from the platform which has housed him and Kaskade for the last 60-plus minutes, bringing his beer with him, to take a well-deserved bow and applaud his partner, who stays glued to his deck until the last resounding note reaches the final row of fans.
And as the two begin to walk off the stage, the anticipated chant for an encore begins. But after a closer like that, Kx5 made sure to give a performance no one will forget.
Even so, one bawling fan could be heard telling friends: “I need to see this again.”
Two years after the release of their last new music, The Chemical Brothers are back.
The U.K. duo have today (March 17) released their latest single, “No Reason.” Their first song since 2021’s “The Darkness That You Fear,” the new output is classic Chemical Brothers — a textured and inventive (but never fussy) jam built around funk, bass, waves of percussion, and a precisely used voice shouting “whoo!” Jubilant and danceable, the song still maintains the hard edges the pair is known for. Watch the Smith & Lyall-created video for the track below.
The single comes ahead of the U.K.’s duo’s performances next month at Coachella, with The Chemical Brothers also playing shows in Santa Barbara, Calif. and Seattle, WA next month, along with festival sets throughout Europe for the remainder of the summer.
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The pair — Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons, have also been at work on a new album, which will be the followup to 2019’s No Geography. The album hit No. 3 on Dance/Electronic Albums and won the 2020 Grammy for best dance/electronic album. The guys have won seven Grammys in total during their nearly 30 year career, which launched with the 1995 release of their now classic Exit Planet Dust.
No Reason has also been mastered in Dolby ATMOS at Abbey Road Studios by Giles Martin, who has also previously overseen the remastering of The Beatles back catalogue. “No Reason” will also be available on April 28 as a limited edition red vinyl 12 inch with a previously unreleased b-side track, “All Of A Sudden.
The first collaborative single from dance music’s new favorite supergroup — Fred again.., Skrillex and Four Tet — is out. Released today (March 17) via Atlantic Records, “Baby, again..” was first heard during Fred again..’s Boiler Room set last July, a performance that has since been streamed 16 million times.
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Indeed, the hype around this one is major, with both Fred and Four Tet appearing on Skrillex’s new album, Quest For Fire, released last month after a week’s worth of buzzy New York pop up shows from the trio that climaxed with a sold out show at Madison Square Garden on February 18. “Baby again..” was, in fact, the song playing during the climactic moment when the house lights at MSG finally went off midway through the five-hour show.
The five-plus minute song heavily samples Lil Baby and Da Baby’s 2019 track “Baby,” accelerating the BPM and adding layers of ravey production in line with the trio’s other recent output, with the track elevating to new plane of dancefloor headiness around the 4:30 mark.
“Baby again..” is already steeped in dance-world mythology, have been created during an impromptu studio session in Pangbourne, England where Fred, Skrillex and Four Tet came together to make music in the remote English countryside. (The backstory has earned the now apparently inseparable trio the nickname Pangbourne House Mafia among fans.) The song has since been a staple of all three artists’ sets. Listen to it below.
Meanwhile, Skrillex’s Quest For Fire (which, naturally, features Four Tet and Fred) is currently at No. 8 on Dance/Electronic albums, where it previously peaked at No. 2. Five Quest For Fire singles (including its lead single “Rumble” featuring Fred) are currently on Dance/Electronic albums, where Fred also currently has a pair of other singles “Mike (Desert Island Duvet)” and “Delilah (Pull Me Out Of This).”
Stream “Baby again…” below.
Daft Punk‘s influence on electronic music is undeniable and unparalleled. Now, a cavalcade of artists will share their takes on the French legends’ sound and legacy.
The forthcoming book After Daft: The Rewiring of 21st Century Culture will include interviews with an A-list lineup of electronic artists, including Porter Robinson, Kevin Saunderson, Disclosure, The Blessed Madonna, DJ Minx, Madeon, Pedro Winter, Peaches, Junior Sanchez, Girl Talk and many more. See the complete list below.
Coming in March 2024, the book will be a deep dive into the Daft Punk universe, exploring the duo’s inner-workings and mass appeal. A press release notes that the book will go “deeper than ever before on the creative vision which established the French duo’s legend and the factors that precipitated their split. The project also takes a wide-angle lens to the past 30+ years of technological changes and musical evolution, with insight drawn from over 100 artists, DJs, studio specialists, filmmakers, designers, record labels and concert promoters who helped propel dance & electronic music’s surging influence within pop culture.”
After Daft is being written by Gabriel Szatan, a music and culture journalist whose work has appeared across publications including The Guardian, Pitchfork, DJ Mag and Dazed. (Szatan has also contributed to Billboard.) He formerly served as Tidal’s head of dance & electronic and Boiler Room’s formereditor-in-chief and senior curator.
“We went into the project wondering: what if there was a fresher and more compelling way to frame this transformative age in culture?” Szatan says in a press release. “That’s why After Daft is artist-led, to tell an authentic story through the eyes of those who shaped it: musicians from different backgrounds and disciplines whose lives interacted in fascinating ways, undersung creatives who oil the industry machine, as well as countless artists that thrived as the ceiling was raised on dance & electronic music’s creative possibilities and immense global popularity.”
Meanwhile, Daft Punk announced that an expanded edition of their 2013 classic Random Access Memories is coming this May. The project will include 35 minutes of additional material across nine tracks, including unreleased demos and studio outtakes
Morgan Hislop
DJ/producer John Summit and singer Hayla jump onto Billboard‘s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart (dated March 18) at No. 9 with “Where You Are.” The first top 10 for both acts, “Where” starts with 1.9 million streams and 1,000 in download sales in the United States March 3-9, according to Luminate.
The collab amounts to Summit’s eighth total appearance, a run that began with “Deep End” (No. 26 peak, December 2020). Until now, that song and “Human,” featuring Echoes (March 2022), were tied as Summit’s highest-peaking tracks.
“Where” brings the second appearance for Hayla, the featured vocalist on Kx5’s “Escape” (No. 11, last June).
Concurrently, “Where” enters at No. 4 on the Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales chart, matching the high of “Escape” last year. Summit scores his second and top-charting top 10, following “La Danza” (No. 10, March 2022).
On Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, “Where” debuts between two other newly-arriving collabs: Marshmello and Manuel Turizo‘s “El Merengue” (No. 6) and Oliver Tree and David Guetta‘s “Here We Go Again” (No. 10). The former, as previously reported, marks Marshmello’s first entry on a Billboard Latin chart.
“Here” is Oliver Tree’s second top 10, following “Miss You,” with Robin Schulz (No. 4, November). “Here” is Guetta’s landmark 20th top 10, the fourth-most among all acts since the chart premiered in January 2013; Kygo leads with 24, followed by The Chainsmokers (22) and Calvin Harris (21).
The track also extends Guetta’s record for the most Hot Dance/Electronic Songs hits overall to 75 (ahead of Kygo, with 61). “Here” bows with 1.8 million U.S. streams.
Further on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, a fourth notable team-up, Martin Garrix and JVKE‘s “Hero,” leaps 33-17. The track earns top Streaming Gainer honors with 872,000 streams, up 48%, in the wake of the March 3 release of new remixes by DubVision and Space Ducks. The rank is the closest that “Hero” has been to its No. 13 best in two months.