SING LIKE A BIRD

What on Earth are those beautiful sounds emanating from unexplored corners of Arcadiana, you ask? As it happens, a key skill in our flying city’s world of sound is the ability to recognise any bird by ear. To help you identify and sing along to all those wonderful kinds of song, we help you get started with one style of music everyday – and there’s no tomorrow without yesterday, so today we dive into rave music history with Bonzai.

Mosley Jr

Discovering new music is one of the most fun things in life and we can highly recommend Mosley Jr, a brand new project by highly talented Belgian producers Niels Blondeel and IJsbrand de Wilde. Loved by early adopters for their warm and meticulously crafted minimal music, the two push the boundaries of electronic art and have rapidly carved out a unique space for themselves within the genre. Mosley Jr’s highly anticipated debut album was released on June 30th on CORE Records and we’re guessing they may be keen to give you a peek into their brand new work during their CORE set today. If deep and polished electronic sounds are what you’re into, then most definitely go and see these guys.

Honey Dijon

Growing up as part of a music-loving middle class family in Chicago, Honey Dijon started to get interested in clubbing from her mid-teens. Chicago being the birthplace of house music, she could have been in a worse place considering her love for nightlife. During her time in Chicago, Honey was closely connected to and mentored by producers like Derrick Carter and Mark Farina before being introduced to house guru Danny Tenaglia upon moving to New York. Having grown up on a diet of house and disco, Honey can also do a mean techno set, so expect the unexpected.

A record label that becomes a music style of itself: it’s rarer than it sounds. Cast your mind back to 1992, when in a small corner of the Blitz Record Store in Antwerp, Christiaan ‘Fly’ Pieters was on the verge of creating a record label that would take the world by storm. He wanted to create a place for DJs and crate diggers to not only find new records, but to release and record their own music, which would ultimately be distributed all over the world and put Belgium on the map as leaders in the rave scene. Bonzai Records was born.

Literally hundreds of releases followed, success came fast, and various sublabels were formed to cater for the different genres on offer from the multitude of artists queueing up to be signed, to be part of the Bonzai momentum. Bonzai stands for a blend of what is now known as trance and hardcore, with some psychedelic soundscapes sprinkled on top; and what we now have difficulty describing in contemporary terms made perfect sense in its day, when electronic music wasn’t so ‘genrefied’ yet.

Even today, some of the biggest names in electronic music explicitly cite how much of their present success they owe to Bonzai Records. Some of the big names coming out of the immensely creative pool of talent were Yves Deruyter, DJ Ghost, Franky Jones and Jan Vervloet, who soon dominated the rave scene, bringing with them this fresh new sound which they pioneered.

Throughout the nineties and into the early 2000s, the Bonzai brand was responsible for defining an era and bringing to life new genres of music. They were at the forefront of the trance explosion and lifted the acid techno scene right into the new millennium. So there you have it: a small company of like-minded souls that defied all marketing logic and stood the test of time, going back to the future at Tomorrowland’s Rose Garden with a retro sound that nevertheless feels fresher than ever.

Tale Of Us Anam

Berlin-based duo Tale of Us have slowly but surely crafted an incredible career around their deeply emotional strand of pulsating, hypnotising techno. Citing artists as diverse as krautrock legend Holger Czukay, neo-jazz group Cinematic Orchestra and Italian singer Paolo Conte as their influences, Carmine Conte and Matteo Milleri approach their own music from lots of different angles. Having initially released on world-famous techno labels such as M_nus and R&S, they are now most widely known for ruling their very own sonic imperium. Their imprint Afterlife has become the go-to place for anyone looking for new cutting-edge music for the spaced-out dance floor.

Formerly part of progressive house collective Gardenstate, Marcus Schössow and Thomas Sägstad are now best known as anamē. Still a fresh production duo, the two have been living together in the southern Swedish town of Helsingborg, producing music against the backdrop of the country’s exciting electronic music scene. Having released their first material only last year, anamē found a home at Britain’s tasteful trance imprint Anjunabeats, where they’ve released two records in 2023 already: ‘Anywhere’ and ‘Light for Me’ are two gems and massive tips for anyone into trippy, mind-bending trance. One hundred percent unique and a brand-new name on the scene, we’re expecting anamē to bring high energy beats, catchy melodies and otherworldly vibes to Crystal Garden today.