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Electronic music innovators and world-leading producers/DJs RICHIE HAWTIN and LOCO DICE are launching CNTRL: BEYOND EDM – ELECTRONIC & TECHNO(LOGY) BASED MUSIC, a music and technology tour of Canadian andU.S.colleges, and coming to Boston’s Berklee College of Music (college) and RISE (venue) on Wed., October 31. The tour will be a groundbreaking North American college tour combining educational daytime lectures on music technology, presented by world-renowned electronic music production and DJ school DUPSPOT, in some of the leading universities and colleges followed by an evening of electronic music with RICHIE HAWTIN, LOCO DICE, EAN GOLDEN from DJ TechTools and their touring guest DJs.
CNTRL will feature a selection of artists who HAWTIN and DICE believe will present an accurate cross-section of the current and cutting-edge sounds of electronic music, including Carl Craig, Seth Troxler, Kevin Saunderson, Josh Wink, Victor Calderone, Paco Osuna, controller specialist DJ TechTools’ Ean Golden and others joining on specific days throughout the tour. CNTRL will also feature a varying roundtable of special guest speakers in each city during the daytime lecture programming, including Tiga and John Acquaviva, with more to be announced.
The events will focus on the techno and technology aspects of modern-day electronic music, presenting the more futuristic and underground side of the genre as championed by HAWTIN and DICE and their peers for the last two decades. Central to the CNTRL concept are daytime seminars in the colleges to inform and inspire people about technology, music production, live performance and the business of electronic music. All DJs performing on the night will participate in the master classes by day, and CNTRL will invite local DJ/production/industry pioneers from each region to also take part in the events. CNTRL will be a future thinking session, but will also ensure the students leave with a deeper understanding of how the genre developed to where it is today. The event then ends with a low-ticket gig at a venue near campus, giving the students a chance to experience the artists in action.
CNTRL is all about engaging young, North American fans of EDM and showing them the roots of the music, the history of a global movement and demonstrating what the future of music technology and performance has the power to become. The tour will take place in over 15 cities across the eastern part of North America with a West Coast leg to be planned for 2013. CNTRL takes the history and the future of the platform to the very people who could well be the next generation of producers, DJs, technology innovators or simply advocates of the sound that is sweeping the continent after 20 years of trying.
Leading international headphone brand Sennheiser has aligned with the CNTRL tour as official “Partner in Sound.” Sennheiser shares the ideology of the CNTRL concept and will join the tour to reinforce the importance of working with quality sound ideals and products in music technology. CNTRL is also in partnership with DUBSPOT: Partners in Education. DUBSPOT will curate the panels with HAWTIN and DICE and moderate all educational elements on the college campuses. Other partners include Native Instruments and Traktor, the DJ software used by HAWTIN, DICE and Golden, as well as Elektro, Onebeat.TV, Beatport, Paxahau, DJ TechTools plus M-nus and Desolat,the latter being the labels of HAWTIN and DICE, respectively.
For more information on CNTRL, check out:
www.facebook.com/cntrlbeyondedm
About RICHIE HAWTIN
RICHIE HAWTIN is a sound and technology adventurer who has been named the “World’s Best DJ” in the most credible electronic music polls, and is widely acknowledged as being the most technologically-advanced artist in electronic music. He has invested in, endorsed and helped develop some of the most forward-thinking products in the electronic music space including Native Instrument’s pioneering Traktor software, number one dance music digital retailer Beatport, his Liine APP development company and Allen & Heath’s limited edition custom CTRL:92 DJ mixers ~ the first ever to be fully Midi-enabled, which both he and his father helped to conceptualize and design. In 2010 RICHIE HAWTIN, revived his alter-ego Plastikman and launched the PLASTIKMAN LIVE world tour. The show was voted the best live act of 2010 by Resident Advisor readers and also was included in U.K. tastemaker magazine MixMag’s best live dance act shortlist. In conjunction, he released Arkives, a major Plastikman retrospective in multiple formats. This past spring, he launched RICHIE HAWTIN Presents ENTER., his curated musical platform featuring some of the leading names in minimal/techno/house today for his residency in Ibiza. As Vibe recently put it, “Electronic Dance Music (EDM) man of mystery, Richie Hawtin is arguably one of the biggest risk takers and boundary breakers in EDM history.”
www.facebook.com/RichieHawtinOfficial
About LOCO DICE
LOCO DICE is widely considered to be one of the cornerstones of the electronic music community, both a lynchpin for and driving force behind house and techno music for well over a decade. Through a finely-balanced combination of breaking artists via his highly influential record label Desolat; his own accomplished production catalogue (for imprints such as M-nus, Cadenza, Ovum, Four Twenty and Cocoon); and his legendary DJ sets (his previous residency at Ibiza’s intimate house mecca DC-10, and now his current Amnesia terrace residency with Cocoon), DICE has forged a reputation that has seen him enter the small band of elite underground DJs. His appeal stems from a particular skill that DJs spend a lifetime trying to hone. In DICE, this is inherent. His ability to puzzle together intangible moods and tap into a crowd’s collective consciousness fuels his internal cinematic view of music. As the highly respected tastemakers Resident Advisor explained in their Top 100 Poll (where he was placed 4th), “What sets him apart isn’t what he plays, but the way he plays.” His unique mixing style is informed by a life-long affinity with hip-hop culture. His time as a hip-hop DJ reached its pinnacle in the mid-90s when he toured with some of the genre’s leading artists. And his musical journey appears to now be coming full circle with the likes of ICE-T recently introducing him to the stage at Movement 2012 in Detroit and hip-hop bible Vibe pinning him as “a most dominant dance music force, [who is] treated like royalty and respected like a God.” LOCO DICE’s appeal is as far-reaching as ever.
About EAN GOLDEN
EAN GOLDEN is a forward-thinking performance DJ that has played a major role in the development of digital DJing throughout the world. Along with popularizing controller ism and DJ controllers, he was the lead designer on several of the top-selling DJ products in the last five years including Traktor S4, Novation Dicer and Midi Fighter. Since 2007, EAN has been running DJTechTools.com, the leading DJ technology outlet that hosts over a million people each month. Through this community, he has been very influential in educating the new generation in the creative power of digital technology, while respecting the history of DJ culture. On stage, EAN creates a unique blend of live performance with flawless mixing that bends genres and raises the bar of what a DJ can do today.
“CNTRL is what America needs right now: an effort to reconnect the electronic dance music movement with its history, without forsaking either innovation or imagination.”
– Philip Sherburne, SPIN.COM
