Below are 5 note-worthy acts playing CRSSD Festival 2020 (Spring Edition) this March 7th and 8th at Waterfront Park in Downtown San Diego, CA.
Purple Disco Machine is no joke! If you haven’t seen him, get the hell off your couch or at least YouTube him or something. People are still talking about the time PDM opened up for Claptone at San Francisco’s Midway a few years back. PDM devirginized the brand spankin new Funktion-One sound-system they have just installed. Tino Piontk has been moving up the charts on a yearly basis with tracks like “My House” and “Body Funk” and he deserves everything for it. The strength of albums like 2017’s Soulmatic and remixes of RÜFÜS DU SOL and Fatboy Slim. At CRSSD, let his newest track, “In My Arms,” win you over.
Patrick Topping - All we can say is the Pajama Party at Dirtybird Campout 2018 was insane. Patrick Topping went bananas, sprinkling tons of throwbacks into live tracks that we’ve heard before yet simultaneously haven’t heard before. This 31-year-old Geordie burst forth fully formed in the middle of the last decade, issuing remix after remix on the strengths of dark, pulsating DJ sets that sound like ultraviolet laser battles with surprise transitions. When you’re on your way to work, make sure to put on “Be Sharp Say Nowt,” because it will melt your face on public transit. And be sure to check out his latest track, “Frisk,” with Kevin Saunderson.
Sacha Robotti - Good luck trying to meet a nicer and more genuine guy than this dude, right here. Sacha Robotti is truly living the American Dream. Born in Belgium, Robotti took up the cello at an early age and later fell in love with electronic music. After Claude VonStroke signed his first Dirtybird track “The Major” in 2011, his star only rose. He has played most of the West Coast’s best-known festivals, like Coachella, Northern Nights, Lightning in a Bottle, and (obviously) Dirtybird Campout. Although he’s been releasing new material at a non-stop pace since 2011, over the past few years he’s really proven he has a firm grip on the tech-house scene. Along with fellow Dirtybird fixture Steve Darko, Robotti will be taking care of all you young folks who still want to party after the festival on Saturday, March 7. Info right here
The Rapture - One of those bands who you’ll always remember the first time you heard them, The Rapture never achieved the pop-culture prominence of fellow early-aughts New Yorkers like The Strokes or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but their influence has arguably been more widely felt. From seminal dance-punk tracks like 2003’s “House of Jealous Lovers” to the nu-disco booty-shaker “Get Myself Into It,” no one — no one — has a scream-centric falsetto quite like vocalist Luke Jenner. He can switch from genuine pathos to disaffected swagger without anyone noticing — but even he would be at sea without Vito Roccoforte’s frenetic drumming. And after a brief hiatus and a much-longer breakup that spanned nearly the entire decade of the 2010s, The Rapture announced in February 2019 that they’d reformed, which is especially excellent since their last record was 2011’s In the Grace of Your Love. It takes courage to release a single called “How Deep Is Your Love?” and make it catchier than the totally unrelated Bee Gees song of the same name.
Gesaffelstein - Not since Hans Zimmer’s score for Blade Runner 2049 have we felt like that classic ‘80s Maxell commercial with the guy in the armchair getting nearly blown backward by amazing audio. Like a sequin-coated alien from a distant world, Gesaffelstein’s current stage persona is a bit similar to fellow French artists Daft Punk, but Mike Lévy — whose Teutonic-sounding moniker is a combination of the German term for the ideal in art and the name Einstein — is a force of punk-infected techno terror. Working with figures like The Weeknd (“Lost in the Fire”) and Pharrell Williams (“Blast Off”) on his 2019 album Hyperion, Gesaffelstein rules crowds from high up on a dais. The priest of this church is a crystalline humanoid.
LISTEN TO CRSSD 2020 PLAYLIST
