Festival season is well and truly upon us: right at this moment in America dance fans are gearing up for the biggest EDC to date. Meanwhile in the UK we’re prepping for the motherfest Glastonbury and in Europe we’ve got a whole load of fun coming from NuForms in two weeks to EXIT in a month and Sea Dance at the end of July.
To get into the spirit we’re checking in with our favourite acts for their essential festival bangers. First up Diskord. Fresh from collaborating with Krewella, the Bristol duo will be playing Glastonbury next weekend and Sundown with us on September 3.
First though, their latest track Out There… A subverted twist on UKG sounds with a seriously gnarly drop:
“We knew we wanted to make a heavy bass house type tune but it needed a theme. We thought taking influence from old UK garage would be a cool idea,” they explain. “We knew we would need the classic garage organ sound, some old garage style drum breaks, some chopped up vocals etc… Once you have a solid idea it’s much easier to picture in your head where to take the tune. The lighter garage sounds ended up working really well with the heavy drop sounds so it was actually very easy to get this tune finished… I wish we could say that for everything we wrote though!”
Job done. And here are 10 more tracks specifically picked by Diskord to get the job done. But what makes a festival banger? What ingredients do tracks have to have in order to achieve ‘essential festival banger status’?
“That’s a difficult one to answer. I guess every DJ has a different viewpoint on this but for us we just like to have loads of fun whenever we step onstage to play a festival or club show. Everyone comes to a festival to have the most amount of fun possible so we reflect that in the music we play. We keep the selection nice and varied and always think a bit outside the box. What I can say is a Diskord festival show is a lot of fun so the best thing to do is buy a ticket and come and experience the madness!”
Sounds good. So do these….
The Weeknd – The Hills (RL Grime remix)
The perfect tune to drop at the peak moment of a set. It’s got it all; the sing along lyrics, the giant build up and the wall of sound drop. It’s never failed us.
Dismantle – Computation
A stone cold classic from our friend and now fellow Bristol resident Dismantle. This song was so unique when Will made it back in 2011 and it’s really stood the test of time. It still absolutely kills it on the festival stages.
Gesaffelstein – Pursuit
Festival season is the perfect time to dig a bit deeper into our music collection and play stuff we wouldn’t usually drop in the clubs. We played this at a few festivals in Oz and New Zealand over new year and it went off!! It’s a game changer when we drop it as it’s so different to the rest of our set. Big tune!
Flux Pavilion – I Can’t Stop
What can be said about this song that hasn’t already been said? It’s basically the perfect dance music record. We were lucky enough to tour the States last year with Flux and seeing the reaction this tune got night after night really brought home to us the true magic of it.
Rusko – Cockney Thug
Another firm favourite with most dance music lovers. For many this was their introduction to dubstep and never fails to get a crowd jumping. Not to mention it’s an absolute BANGER!
Flux Pavilion – Exostomp (DISKORD remix)
This is probably our biggest tune so far. It got heavy rotation around the festival circuit last summer from a really wide range of DJs. Still get goosebumps when we drop this tune now….People go nuts for it!
TNGHT – Acrylics
Hudmo and Lunice without doubt helped to bring trap to the EDM main stages. The TNGHT project is just perfect festival music. Everyone knows the hits and they sound massive on a big festival sound system! It was hard to choose just one TNGHT tune to include but we went with Arcylics as that’s probably the one we drop the most.
MATRODA – Chronic
Not sure how to describe this tune but imagine 5,000 in a tent at festival and every single person has both hands in the air jumping around like lunatics… Well this tune makes that happen!
Drake & Future – Jumpman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhEVUgSn1Ps
We always love to drop a few Hip Hop tunes into our sets. Went with this one from Drake and Future as that was a firm favourite with us at last year’s festivals. Dropping any Drake tune is a guaranteed way to get the girls dancing and that can only be a good thing!
Jack U – Take U There
It’s important to remember that festival sets, we think, are meant to be fun and not just full of unreleased dubs. There are probably a lot of people there who are new to dance music so we try and include a few hits that have transcended the EDM world we work within. Jack U tunes are a good example.
